I turned back to the sill and swung a leg over, gripping the rope.

  “Don’t fall,” Colt muttered.

  I already had. I’d toppled headfirst into trouble and something that breathed life into my long-dead heart.

  With my weight shifting onto the rope and the city humming below, I began the descent—one hand over the other, one foot at a time—toward a place I swore I’d never go again.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

  Zephyr

  No instructions had been given, and I wondered what they expected of me. If Darby were here, he’d command the room. He would dazzle these men with his smile, pick a lap and straddle it, or lift a cocktail glass and take a sip. Once I saw him pluck a cigarette from another man’s lips and drag from it, then blow the smoke out in rings. He was unflappable.

  I was out of place. Breathing unevenly and starting to sweat under the heat of so many watchful eyes. Beneath that, low currents of lust had begun to wash up, and I was hungry. Emptied by Maslow only an hour earlier and keenly aware of what could be a feast.

  I wet my lips.

  Maslow marched up beside me, munching on a pastry that dropped crumbs down the front of his suit. He beckoned to Narcissus. “You said your uncle was here.”

  The angel grimaced. “He will be. Shortly.” Pivoting, Narcissus consulted the spiky-haired angel near the head of the table. “Speaking of absent parties, I thought Florian would be joining us.”

  The younger man shook his head. “He’s in his room. Hasn’t come out since last night’s dinner meltdown.”

  “Spoiled brat,” Narcissus scoffed. “Leave it to our brother to stage a protest over the existence of broccoli.”

  The other angel chuckled and lifted his cocktail for a sip. “You should be glad he didn’t come. This way, you may end the night with some chips still in front of you.”

  Narcissus squared his shoulders, seeming to regain awareness of the rest of the room, very much including me. “Since we’re waiting, perhaps we should let the entertainment do its job. Go ahead, demon.” He hissed the word. “Work your magic.”

  I glanced at him, then the others.

  Did they want me to dance? Seduce? Entice?

  I swallowed dry and did nothing before Maslow spoke again.

  “Cherry’s a little shy, but you gentlemen don’t have to be.” He swept his gaze across the table, landing on the man seated closest. “You look intrigued. Come on up here.” He crooked a gold-ringed finger, and the man approached, looking me over with an air of inspection.

  People looked at me all the time. At the club, they stared, whistled, and catcalled. I spent every night under watchful eyes, the object of endless fantasies. Those who couldn’t get close enough to touch me with their hands undressed me with their eyes.

  This man’s gaze held some of that intent, some of that attraction, but with a menacing edge. I half expected him to flash a sharp-toothed smile as though I wasn’t the one with fangs.

  Maslow planted one hand on my back while urging the other man closer. “Are you ready to be charmed, sir?” he asked, then nodded to me. “Give him a kiss.”

  My stomach plummeted. In fact, all of me felt like I was falling as Maslow flashed a winsome smile.

  “Incubi secrete venom in their mouths,” he explained. “A powerful aphrodisiac. You can taste it for yourself. Get in there nice and deep.”

  “Venom?” The other man frowned. “Like poison?”

  Beck’s accusations and cutting glare filtered through my mind. I’d known since I told Darby that I’d done what Beck said. Whether out of instinct or impulse, I’d tried to claim him as my own. I wanted to keep him, wanted him to return, so I put my venom in his hand because he hadn’t kissed me. And now he never would.

  “Think of it as getting struck by Cupid’s arrow,” Maslow said with a wink. “It can even make you fall in love.”

  I saw the change in the man’s eyes, the decision made moments before he grabbed the hair at the back of my head and hauled me in. The kiss was rough as our lips smashed together and teeth clicked. When his tongue forced its way inside, I wanted to bite him too. Not to keep him, though, but to chase him away.

  My hands flew up to brace against his chest, but he pressed in despite them, sweeping the inside of my mouth until I squeaked in protest.

  When the man pulled back, his flavor coated my tongue, cigar smoke and alcohol that burned as I forced myself to swallow. But he wasn’t done.

  “I don’t taste anything,” he told Maslow, sounding accusatory.

  There was nothing on my bare back for the wraith to grab, but his palm anchored me as he hissed, “Did you give it to him?”

  I shook my head, rattling the chains that swagged from the golden choker.

  “I-I don’t know how,” I sputtered.

  Maslow’s bloated features wrenched, and he barked at the other man. “Try again.”

  Regripping my hair, the man dove into me. He swallowed my yelp of surprise and leveraged his other hand around my arm, pulling me snugly against him while he ravaged my mouth.

  Desire trickled off him like the drip of a faucet, and god, I was thirsty. It was almost subconscious the way I relented to his touch, imagining that I was held by more familiar hands, kissed with passion instead of persistence, and that I was gagging on Beck’s fingers instead of this stranger’s liquor-slicked tongue.

  Then he broke away, and there was reality. Not just one man, but his friends too. They swarmed around me while lust thickened the air.

  “It’s sweet,” the first man said.

  Another voice boomed from the back. “Let me try.”

  Maslow grinned. “Go ahead.”

  I leaned back with a whimper, and Maslow pinched my side. While the next man shouldered his way to the front of the small crowd, the wraith bent to whisper in my ear.

  “Listen here, baby boy. You only know one word tonight. Do you understand? Whatever these nice men ask, you say yes. Start now and tell me: are you gonna be good?”

  My head dipped in a weak nod. “Yeah…” Maslow’s reproachful scowl started me stammering. “Y-yes, Mazzy.”

  With his smile reaffixed, the wraith consulted the waiting men. “Who’s next?”

  I didn’t dare backpedal when the next man crowded in and grabbed my chin, squeezing his fingers into my cheeks to lever my jaw open.

  “Lemme see.” He peered inside like a dentist checking for cavities. “There’s some sharp fucking teeth in there. Like vampire fangs.” He tipped my head back so I had no choice but to meet his narrow eyes. “If you make me bleed, I’ll punch you in your whore mouth. Got it?”

  My heart hammered, and my cheeks ached where his fingertips sank in, but I managed to nod.

  When Maslow pinched my side again, tears pricked my eyes.

  “Yes,” I said, a bit garbled with my mouth forced open wide.

  The man holding me snorted, then reached into my mouth. He poked and prodded, touching everything from the insides of my cheeks to the soft palate under my tongue.

  I was panting by the time he pulled free, then he held up his fingers and licked them clean.

  “My turn,” a third man growled, edging toward the front.

  A blink freed twin tears to race down my face.

  “Fucking love this, don’t you, baby boy?” Maslow gave me a shake. “Soon they won’t be able to keep away from you. They’ll be like animals chasing your scent back to the club where they can have you all to themselves. Night after night. Next!”

  The last word was a shout that left my ears ringing. I was still reeling when I found myself snatched up again. My arms were folded in half and squeezed by big hands, my breath stolen by a brutal kiss.

  Maslow’s palm never left the dip of my back, and as this new assailant poured into me, the energy flowed straight through. It poured into my mouth like a drink I had no choice but to guzzle, only to be siphoned out by the wraith’s persistent touch.

  He’d turned me into a conduit. A living battery.

  The push and pull of power racing in and out made my head spin, and my knees quaked while the men passed me from one ruthless grip to the next.

  They touched everything. Everywhere. Pinching my nipples while I squirmed and squealed, pulling my hair, squeezing my throat…

  I choked on mingled saliva, suffocated on shared breath, and struggled while coarse fingers raked down my chest and cupped me through my pants. A swat on the ass made me jerk and nearly choke on the tongue thrusting between my teeth.

  When I pushed too much, struggled in a way they found more annoying than amusing, one of them pulled off his necktie and looped it around my wrists. The knot cinched down, pinning my hands helplessly together. The cloth wrapped again as another knot was added, tight enough to pinch.

  My cries were muffled, then overwhelmed by a communal rumble of laughter. I lost track of who was in front of me, beside me, behind me… of what was me or them and mine or theirs.

  Maslow’s hand remained distinct, and it burned. It stayed as affixed as if he were inside me somehow. A plug in an outlet. A bulb in a socket. Stealing my light.

  “What do we think, gentlemen?” Narcissus’s voice rose above the clamor. “Would our clients appreciate having something like this on the menu? The wraith has offered a supply of these creatures to adorn our high-roller rooms. Could be lap ornaments? Perhaps under the table service?”

  As if on command, I was dropped or maybe driven to the ground, where I barely caught myself with my bound hands. It was all I could do to hold myself up, muscles weak and body wavering. No one was touching me now, but my skin pulsed with residual heat from Maslow’s palm.

  I hated him.

  For finding me. For bringing me here. For proving I could serve my purpose in any room, not just the one he built.

  I hated what he’d made of me.

  A sob clawed up my throat while the men cleared a path for the angel’s approach. With a vicious twist, Narcissus’s long fingers tangled in my hair.

  The angel stooped overhead, more heavenly than he had any right to be with the wicked gleam in his eyes.

  “Sit up, slut,” he said.

  Tears ran freely while I struggled to obey. Kneeling before him, I thought again of Maslow’s hellish audition—the only one of my performances he’d ever cared about. Then I thought of Beck’s suite, where I’d willingly offered what was now being demanded.

  The angel smiled, and he was still beautiful. Light gleamed off his gold-dusted wings and cast a halo on his hair as he gazed down at me. “I won’t taste your corruption, demon,” he said. “But perhaps you’d like to sample divinity. See if it scalds on the way down.” His lips twisted into something between a smile and a snarl as he commanded, “Open wide.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant to give me, but I wouldn’t take it. I wouldn’t say yes despite Maslow’s instructions, wouldn’t submit to another cruel master. But I was too unsteady to stand and too depleted to give a more adamant denial, so I simply held the angel’s gaze, leaking tears with my lips pinned shut.

  Narcissus sneered, then spat, and a ball of warm saliva struck my cheek.

  I flinched back with a gasp and raised my hands to wipe it away, but the angel caught my wrist beneath the tie.

  “Wear it,” he snapped, then shoved my arms away. “It’s the closest you’ll ever come to an anointing.”

  Rumbling peals of laughter shook the room. Or maybe that was me, quivering and clenching empty hands while my tears tracked through Narcissus’s spit.

  “Crawl over here, demon. I’ll anoint you with something else,” someone said with a chortle.

  I flicked a panicked glance at Maslow.

  He wouldn’t stop this—hadn’t yet. So why did I look at him?

  Searching for anyone else to intervene was in vain, though there was at least one dissenter. The younger angel, Narcissus’s spiky-haired brother, hung back. When I spotted him, he buried his nose in his cocktail, though there was barely a drop of liquor in the glass.

  Then the doors opened.

  The room was already chilly, but at that, it froze. It felt like a piece of that ice slipped between my ribs, angled toward my fluttering heart. The men turned in unison, and I remembered they had been waiting for someone.

  The newcomer wasn’t like the others. He was an angel, outfitted with a pair of wings that dragged the floor as he approached, but he wasn’t beautiful the way Narcissus and his brother were. He was… regal. Refined. His hair, more silver than gray, shimmered like liquid mercury. His dark suit was immaculate and pressed with sharp lines. He looked middle-aged, though something about him felt older. Immeasurably so.

  When he turned my way, his features hardened. His voice was low and gravelly as he said, “Narcissus, we talked about this.”

  He didn’t sound angry, just tired. The kind of tired that sank into your bones and stayed there.

  Narcissus lifted his chin with the same insolence he’d worn all evening. “You talked, but I was not heard,” he replied. “I decided to be seen instead.”

  The silver-haired angel’s gaze landed on me once more. He did nothing to mask his disapproval as he asked, “Is this the incubus? What is he wearing?”

  “It’s meant to provoke a response,” Narcissus replied.

  The older angel didn’t blink. “From whom?”

  Maslow took that as his cue to insert himself, gliding into the guest chair as if it had been waiting for him. “From everyone, Stefano,” he said, gesturing broadly. “A little temptation, a little tease… it livens up the room.”

  The angel—Stefano—didn’t acknowledge Maslow. Instead, he stepped closer to me.

  He could have struck me, spat on me, or descended upon me with a soul-sapping kiss. My every thought screamed not to trust him, but I stayed rooted in place, too worn down to flinch when he held out his hand.

  It lingered in the open air, steady. Extending an invitation I didn’t dare accept.

  But he waited until, eventually, I grasped it.

  Stefano’s icy palm cooled what I hadn’t realized was hot. He pulled, and I rose with the motion onto trembling legs. The room swayed, and so did I, stumbling forward until my chest bumped against the angel’s.

  I sucked a breath and tried to stabilize myself, but my limbs were limp and lifeless. They didn’t respond to the alarm bells ringing in my brain, telling me I shouldn’t touch this man, shouldn’t get my filth on his suit or my stain on his skin.

  Rather than shove me away, Stefano held on. He allowed me to lean and tightly clutch the hand he’d given until I mustered the nerve to look up and find him looking down.

  His expression was not cruel. Not lewd. Simply… searching.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Zephyr,” I replied, my voice hoarse.

  His head tilted. “Zephyr. That’s a wind, isn’t it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  That earned the faintest quirk of his mouth. The shadow of a smile.

  Pulling the silk square from his jacket pocket, he put it to my cheeks and wiped away the residual tears and spit. It reminded me of the way Beck had cleaned me, and it conveyed the same sort of quiet care.

  “Well, Zephyr,” he tucked the soiled cloth away, “you can relax. I think we’ve had enough entertainment for one day.”

  “He can sit with me.” The first man had returned to his chair and sat with his legs spread wide, smoothing his hands like a blanket across them.

  “He’ll sit with me,” Stefano corrected. “The rest of you don’t play well enough without temptation in your laps. You can’t afford another handicap.”

  There were a few grumbles and a chuckle, but no one argued. The pecking order had shifted the moment Stefano entered the room.

  The angel bent to loop my bound arms around his neck, then scooped me up. We made halting progress to the head of the table, where he lowered himself into a high-backed chair and drew me across his thighs, positioning me sideways against him.

  I might have slumped if I hadn’t been physically bound to him. My hands pulsed hot and dry while the blood drained out of them, and my fingertips began to sting.

  On the table before me, stacks of poker chips clinked as they were distributed. The players settled into their places, and the hum of conversation ebbed as cards were shuffled with a sharp flutter. Hands were dealt, and the acrid scent of cigar smoke scented the air.

  The rabbit-fast rhythm of my pulse slowed as I eased into Stefano, too weak to do much else. One of his hands settled at the curve of my hip. Not possessive or improper, but anchoring.

  I wasn’t sure if the angel meant to offer protection, or if I imagined it. I didn’t know him—had never heard his name before today—but the others respected him. They straightened when he spoke and watched him like he held the rules to a game far more important than poker.

  Maybe I should’ve been equally cautious, but I held on anyway, fingers tingling as they curled near the nape of Stefano’s neck. In the span of a single morning, I’d been put on display, passed around, and pushed aside. Safety felt out of reach, but instinct told me to cling to the only steady thing I had.

  My head tipped onto the angel’s chest where I felt the rise and fall of breath that might as well have been mercy.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Beck

  The short trek down the street took gumption, but not nearly as much as entering the Basilica’s den of divinity. Gilded, sacred, and permeated with holy rot—it was everything I loathed. I was relieved when Colette didn’t bow out of my impromptu rescue mission. She stayed close as we traversed the casino floor, located an isolated elevator, then rode up in tense silence.

  I hadn’t seen Stefano Rossetti in over a century, but I kept aware of his comings and goings. Decades of skillful avoidance would not have been possible without a bit of insider knowledge.

  Colette called it stalking.

  I preferred “preventative measures.”

  Regardless, it came in handy to know that my asshole of an ex hosted high-stakes poker games on the Basilica’s twenty-first floor.