Page 1 of Legacy of Chaos

Prologue

“Let’s go to the merry-go-round, Stryke! C’mon! Hurry!”

Stryke groaned down at his little brother, tugging on his hand. “There’s no hurry. The thing runs every three minutes, and there’s no one in line because it sucks.”

The little shit bit him. Right there in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

“Ouch. Dammit, Chaos!” He shook his hand out as his seven-year-old twin brothers, Crux and Chaos, darted ahead toward the carousel, their new white sneakers pounding the hot pavement, making the soles light up with every step.

Unbelievable. They were in a theme park filled with loopy rollercoasters, splashy log rides, and speedy race cars, and the little weirdos wanted to ride something they could find at a big city mall. For the third time in an hour.

“Dude, he’s a handful.” Logan, son of the Horseman known as Death, shook his head. At eighteen, just four years younger than Stryke, he was the spitting image of his father: tall, blond, and with a stare that made people move out of his way. “How’d you draw the short straw to be their babysitter today?”

The cute blonde popcorn stand girl gave Stryke another seductive smile as they walked by. She’d been flirting with him the entire time he’d been stuck in the lame-ass kids’ section of the theme park, and each smile was more suggestive than the last one. When he bought popcorn for his brothers, she’d brushed her hip against him in blatant invitation. He would haveblamed her advances on his lust demon pheromones—and sure, he was probably putting them out there in pulsing clouds—but she’d had her eye on him even before he got close enough to affect her.

And he’d definitely had his eyes on her.

“Blade took them to the San Diego Aquarium last week,” Stryke said after they’d passed Popcorn Princess. “Rade took them to a movie before that. Apparently, it’s my turn to help out during summer break. My parents don’t seem to give a shit that I’m in the middle of working on my doctoral thesis.”

“Yeah, yeah, we all know you’re working on your second doctorate,” Logan drawled. “How can we forget the boy genius who makes the rest of us look bad?”

Stryke rolled his eyes hard enough to hurt. These guys would never know what it was like for him. His brain was in a constant state of manic sensory input and calculations, focusing on a million things at once. If he couldn’t spill some of it out by working on something, his head felt like it would explode. He needed to either organize everything by learning more or release it by creating things like doctoral theses or rocket engines.

Funny, NASA was happy to accept—or, more accurately,steal—his designs, but actually hiring him, a demon, turned out to be a hyperdrive too far.

Also, at twenty-two, he was hardly a boy. He’d gone through his first maturation phase a year ago. Still, in a way, he wished the painful ordeal had never happened. Before the change that had made him sexually mature and insatiable, he’d been able to direct one hundred percent of his concentration into education, research, and science.

Now, far too much of his brain power got diverted into finding sexual partners so he didn’t die. Thankfully, his uncle Eidolon had developed a drug for their kind that allowed them to go up to twenty-four hours without sex as long as they keptup with their injections at six-hour intervals. And from the way his dick was pointing at the popcorn girl, it was clear he needed another dose.

“I’m gonna go find Sabre and Blade,” Logan said. “We’re gonna ride the Ice Tornado. See ya.”

“Yeah, have fun,” Stryke said absently, digging through his pocket for his injector pen. Shit. It must have fallen out on a ride. Maybe Blade or Sabre had one on them. He’d grab one from them after Crux and Chaos got off the carousel.

The twins queued at the end of the line, but the ride hadn’t stopped yet. Stryke glanced back at the popcorn girl, who was hanging aBe Back in Ten Minutessign.

Perfect timing. He might not have to bug his cousin or brother for an injector pen and be subjected to relentless mockery, after all.

He caught Popcorn Princess as she stepped out from behind the cart.

“Hi,” she said. Her glossy red lips turned into a mischievous smile that made him wonder how they’d feel wrapped around his cock. Depending on the viscosity of her gloss, the friction of her lips on the skin of his shaft could create intense sensations. She gestured at his arm. “Love your sleeve. Do all those symbols mean something to you?”

Given that every glyph from the fingertips of his right hand all the way up the right side of his throat was a history of his paternity, yeah.

“You could say that.”

She traced her finger over the swirls of his ten-times-great-grandfather’s personal symbol. “Must have taken a long time to finish it.” Shivers of arousal shot straight to his groin.

Seeing as how he’d been born with thedermoire, no, it hadn’t taken any time at all. But the very top symbol, a plain,boring square, hadn’t appeared until he was twenty-one, so he felt justified in saying, “Took years.”

“Hmm.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I was hoping you’d come over.”

He was hoping he’dcome. “Yeah? What time do you get off work?”

She glanced at her Blain Industries comms unit. First generation. Stryke had just gotten the second gen. Had some cool upgrades, but he could have done them better. Hewoulddo them better. Someday, he would put Blain Industries out of business. He even had his future company named.

StryTech.

“Not for another four hours,” she said. “But I’ve got ten minutes and a secret spot. You got any juice?”

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