Page 1 of Sin and Salvation

ChapterOne

Nobody ever woke up on Monday wanting to plunge through a window.

But glass fell like the rain around me as I hit the wet pavement of the alley, rolling hard enough to smash into the wall of the building opposite me.

I laid there in a daze for nearly thirty seconds, but no alarms went off, and a smile stretched my lips despite the pain of being scraped and cut by glass.

Maxime needed to invest in better security.

It would’ve been much more pleasant to escape via the door, but the skyscraper Maxime owned was locked down during the meeting he was currently holding with his largest shareholders.

Since I couldn’t make it through one of his guards at the doors, I’d chosen to exit through the window of his chef’s kitchen.

Glittering shards fell from my clothes as I picked myself up, wincing a little as blood welled on my scraped knee and palms, and began to pick my way through the alley on six-inch heels.

I silently cursed Maxime when I nearly twisted an ankle in a pothole. Every pair of shoes he bought for me were like this; I had sometimes wondered if it was because they weakened me, made me slow and wobbly like a fawn.

Leaning against the wall and breathing heavily as I peered out at the busy neon-lit street at the end of the alley, I planned my next move.

All I needed to do was make it the twelve blocks to Granite Avenue, the main thoroughfare that divided the city of Concordia in half, and I’d be… well, not necessarily home free, but on better footing than I was now.

Both literally and metaphorically. There was no way I’d make it there on these heels.

I slipped my feet out of the heels, wiggling my toes when they hit rain-saturated pavement, and kicked them under a dumpster. The longer it took Maxime’s goons to figure out which way I’d gone, the better.

I’d been waiting for this opportunity for years. There was no way I could afford to screw it up now.

Tugging the hood of my beige trench coat up over my tell-tale long, pale pink hair, I slid from the alley and walked down the street as fast as I could without actually running.

Demons from all of the Seven Houses flowed back and forth around me, most of them in tailored suits, spilling around me with annoyed looks, like I was a rock interrupting the perfect flow of their river.

All I could do was keep my eyes on the pavement and the hood pulled tightly over my head.

My nerves jangled like warning bells when I reached the intersection and reached out to push the crosswalk button, bouncing in place a little as I waited for the incessant stream of traffic to stop.

A demon with curling horns in a scarlet suit—definitely from the House of Pride, with that posture—stood next to me, a phone pressed to his ear. He glanced down at me, looked away, then looked back at me again.

I turned my face away, pretending to be very interested in a store across the street.

Many of the demons on this side of Concordia might not know my name, or anything about me personally, but some of them would sure as hell know my face.

After three years spent at Maxime Giraud’s side, a silent fixture in his retinue, my image had to be burned into some of their minds.

“Do I know you?” the demon asked, lowering his phone.

I shook my head, keeping my eyes aimed firmly away from him and praying not a single strand of hair had escaped my hood. It was bad enough that my little pointed horns were poking up tents in the hood on top of my head. Most demons had longer, curling horns. Mine marked me as a certain bloodline, one I wasn’t willing to publicize. “I’m new to the city.”

“Right.” The demon’s gaze trailed downward over my expensive trench coat, the hem of my tight pencil skirt… and finally to my bare feet and perfectly polished toes. “I could swear I’ve seen you before.”

“You haven’t.” Dread was a coiled snake in my guts as the little walking demon sign flashed on, and the flow of traffic finally stopped.

I plunged into the fray crossing the street, weaving around more business suits, and as soon as I reached the other side, I fell back into the flow, eating up the sidewalk with long strides and doing my best to look like I belonged here.

Three blocks later, the itch between my shoulder blades was impossible to ignore. Someone was watching me.

That’s when I made the mistake that nearly cost me everything.

I turned to look, catching a glimpse of the red-suited demon fifteen yards behind me, on his phone again.

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