Page 30 of Heir

I was rarely ever sick. I could probably count on one hand the number of colds or flus I’d had in my life. And even when Gemma would be bedridden for days, stuffed up and hacking up a lung, I’d be completely fine. I’d always had this intuitiveness when it came to people, too. It was something I used when I played poker. It allowed me to feel my opponent’s feelings. Play the player, not the cards. However, it also attributed to my general disdain for most people, because I could feel deep down not only their lack of empathy or kindness, but also their stupidity. People were really stupid. Mob mentality was real and I could usually pick out of a crowd those that would follow the crowd like lemmings off a cliff, trampling anybody in their way, and those who would question the crowd, ask to see who was leading, and stop to help those who had fallen.

There weren’t a lot of those kinds of people out there.

Then there was growing up with Aunt Delia. She’d always been a bit of an odd duck. Eccentric and charismatic. Her outfits were out there with crazy patterns and designs, and she wore the weirdest earrings and jewelry. She had a full collection of actual animal bone and horn jewelry too. One pendant was the skull of a squirrel. She said it kept away bad energy.

I chalked that talk up to just a kooky old spinster who was Wiccan and weird. But now . . . now I wasn’t so sure it was so much kooky as it was magical. Maybe she was of this realm, as the fire mage predicted.

But then, why didn’t she tell me? Why did she keep so much from me?

By the time I stopped walking, I was eight blocks from home, out of the hipster borough and in a part of town I rarely frequented—the club district.

Ugh.

More people.

And worse than that, they were drunk people.

I rarely knew what day of the week it was. I didn’t give a shit. Gemma knew, because she liked people more than I did and wanted to work in a coffee shop a couple of shifts a week. So she needed to know what days she was on the schedule.

I guess today was a weekend. Friday maybe? Because the bass from a few clubs clattered the windows of a nearby office building, and the closer I got, the more I could feel it in the ground beneath my black tennis shoes.

The sidewalks were peppered with people out for smokes or vapes, or waiting in line to get into the club. Most bars with a dance floor and DJ didn’t close until four in the morning here, so it was still early. A lot of partiers remained at home, pre-drinking or getting their fake eyelashes on to go out.

Although, Gemma had dragged me to a few raves over the years, neither of us were into the club scene. We went once when I turned twenty-one and lasted all of thirty minutes before I insisted that we bounce. There were just too many people and I wanted to punch nearly every single one of them in the throat.

We went to a quiet pub instead, where we gorged ourselves on nachos, cheap shots of tequila, and gave in to the temptation of karaoke, despite how much neither of us can carry a tune.

A sharp pang filled my chest at the thought of her.

I hurt her.

My best, and only, friend in the world, and I hurt her.

I nearly fucking killed her.

Whatever was going on with me, she needed to steer clear, because I was obviously sick or something. I still didn’t believe I was some heir to a throne I’d never heard of. Or that the three sexy lunatics who knocked on my door were anything but humans who needed to be medicated and committed. They were not my Fated Mates, and I was not a queen.

“Hey, Little Demon,” came a rough and smoky voice from down a dark alleyway. “What are you doing out here all by yourself?”

I paused, squinting to see who was speaking.

The orange burn of a cigarette told me where he was, but I couldn’t see his face.

How did he know I was a demon? Nobody had ever said that to me before. There were people around, but none so close that I could join their group and pretend I was with them for the whole “safety in numbers” thing.

“What? Too good to talk to someone below your station?” he asked.

Station?

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammered. I continued walking, eager to get out of this place and the unending noise that pounded into my eardrums, threatening to burst them.

I elbowed my way through a drunk and laughing crowd of twenty-somethings, but was pulled back by a rough, powerful hand on my elbow. “I’m talking to you, Demon,” he growled.

Tingles of fear raced down my arms. I tried to jerk away, but was hauled backward toward a dark doorway just around a tight, narrow corner, and thrown up against a wall.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I repeated as he gripped my wrists, pressing them back against the wet, mossy brick wall. “What do you want with me?”

Finally, from the glow of a streetlamp across the road, I could see his face.

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