Page 75 of A Study of Blood and Ichor

If I didn’t know better, I would say that she was a demoness—a queen leading mortals to ruin for her own pleasure.

The men weren’t glamoured in the slightest, and I realized she might have some succubus blood in her demonic heritage if she was driving these men to such levels of obsession. She beamed at each of them coyly, all while giving each of them little glancing and teasing touches. I felt a flush of embarrassment for staring too long, and wondered if she was having the same effect on me as well. I forced myself to avert my eyes and join Rory at the bar a few seats down.

“This is…fancy,” I said.

Rory leaned back against the edge of the bar, a warm smile softening his features.

“Someone is here for Vain,” Alastair said to Rory as I took a seat. It sounded almost like a warning.

“Save a dance for me when we get back?” Rory winked at me again before his gray eyes flicked to Vain’s black in a heartbeat. I wasn’t sure if I would ever get used to that.

“I’ll handle it,” Vain said and then turned away without even a glance in my direction before making his way back out of the lounge and onto the thrum of the dance floor.

“Can I make you a drink?” Alastair asked. A golden amulet hung low on his chest, etched with a familiar sigil I recognized as the same one Vain had used on the side of that truck the night we’d escaped the Moreau Coven.

“Surprise me,” I told him.

Alastair grinned and each set of his left eyes winked at me in unison before he got to work mixing a variety of spirits into a tumbler, running the oils of a twisted orange rind along the rim of the glass, and finally garnishing it with a sprig of fresh rosemary. When he slid it toward me, the open eye on the back of his hand blinked up at me expectantly.

I took a sip and almost melted into my seat. It was the perfect balance of bitter and sweet, the aromatics of the garnish complimenting the flavors of the spirits perfectly. The heat of the alcohol left a trail of warmth radiating down my throat that settled into my stomach with every sip.

“I'll bet you never met a demon who could fix a drink that well before.”

“I can’t say that I have,” I said. “So, you’re not just Vain’s personal chauffeur but his bartender too?” I winced as the words left my mouth. They sounded ruder than I'd meant them to be.

Alastair appeared unfazed. “I’m whatever Vain needs me to be. I’ve pledged myself to his service.”

“Why?”

“I owe him everything. Offering myself to him until the end of my days was the least I could do in return.”

He turned away, and I braved another glance in Nesera’s direction, noting a flare of jealousy in one of the men’s eyes as she doted more heavily on the other. But as soon as the half-demon turned back toward him, his stance relaxed and his face brightened like the sun at her smile. Nesera trailed her fingers teasingly down the man’s chest while she giggled at something the other said against her ear.

“Are we all the monsters you believed us to be, Ava?” Alastair asked.

His question knocked me out of Nesera’s trance, and I wasn’t quite sure how to answer him. I spun my glass around on the countertop between my fingertips.

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” I said and then took another sip.

Alastair finished pouring a new drink, I assumed for Vain, and set it on the counter beside mine. “I understand how hard it must be for you to have to shift this view of us that you’ve undoubtedly held your entire life,” he said. “But not all demons are monstrous.”

“But many are.”

“Are there not humans that display similar monstrous qualities you attribute to our kind?” he asked. In my silence, he offered me a soft smile. “The actions of the many do not define the nature of the whole.”

There was a resounding crack of a fist colliding with bone that made both our heads whip over toward Nesera’s direction.

The two men who’d been fawning over her had pulled away from the bar and were trading punches. The one with dark hair gave a two-handed shove to the bearded blond who was nursing his jaw with one hand.

Nesera sat back, elbows braced against the bar as she looked on with a satisfied grin. She lifted her glass in the air and let out a cheerful whoop of excitement as the bearded man charged the other. His fist flew into his opponent’s cheek, while the trading punch went high, straight above the other man’s eye.

Alastair and I both raised an eyebrow. He shrugged in response.

“They’ll tire themselves out eventually.”

“Does this happen a lot?”

Another shrug. “I’m not one to judge, so long as nobody breaks or bleeds on anything. I won’t be the one to clean up that mess.”

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