Page 28 of Kazimir

The VIP lounge occupied the club’s entire second level, cantilevered in a horseshoe that overlooked the main floor below. Purple twilight lighting spilled from concealed fixtures, making every skin tone appear both bruised and luminous. The air vibrated with the pulse of subsonic bass, but also with the softer, older frequency of supernatural desire. To human guests it was just “ambiance.” To me, it was a thousand signals in harmony and dissonance, every one revealing who wanted what, and who might die for it.

Obsidian’s clientele was the finest slice of Philadelphia’s underworld. Tonight, the crowd was varied. A cluster of witches in velvet and latex gathered around a corner booth. Two groups of wolves, their eyes reflecting the stage lights like lanterns in a midnight forest, watched the dance floor. A trio of banking demons in bespoke suits, their horns trimmed close to their skulls in a gesture of high-finance civility, sipped high-dollar bourbon. Vampires were scattered throughout—most of them sleek and otherworldly beautiful—always our largest numbers.

At the center of the room, Bohdan had orchestrated a spectacle. Four platforms rose from the floor on glassy pylons, each hosting a pair of aerialists: vampires and witches entangled in a study of motion and restraint. One couple spun slow circles from a crescent moon ring, legs entwined so that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Another pair contorted around a thick rope, muscles trembling as they reversed the chain of gravity for the crowd’s entertainment. Above it all, suspended from long swaths of blood-red silk, a woman in nothing but painted-on lace bent herself backward until her feet brushed her own head, the hollow of her throat exposed to the room like an invitation.

The crowd watched in rapt, predatory silence.

Bohdan saw me from across the room and nodded: all secure, no threats. He’d stationed Amelia behind the bar—my red-haired slip of a witch who was all angles and opinions. She and Kyra keep the drinks flowing and the gossip tighter.

I moved to my place on the dais: a throne in the old style, high-backed and black as a starless night. I sat and forced myself to relax, opening my senses to the room, cataloguing danger and appetite with equal attention my mind not far from Devon. The cushion gave beneath my weight, but the backrest was stiff enough to keep my posture military. A show of control, not just for the guests but for myself.

An incubus somewhere in the club, pushed his influence, a velvet fog that feathered along the edges of thought. I let it wash over me. Even the King of Kings could afford a little indulgence when there was no real risk.

Then she arrived.

I caught her scent before I saw her: red wine, clove, and the tingle of magic, not her own. The woman stood a head taller than most, auburn hair caught in a loose knot, skin the color of a sunlit pomegranate. She dressed in a black bodysuit with panels of translucent mesh, cut to expose the sweep of her hips and curve of her breasts. The shoes alone could have bankrupted an average household.

She moved toward me with a directness that said she’d paid her way with power, not mere beauty. The crowd parted with reluctance, then curiosity.

I recognized her—Rosa Alvarez, a lieutenant from the Montoya nest out of San Francisco. Luis always sent his best. She’d lingered in my city too long, always at the edge of my vision, never quite breaking protocol until now.

She didn’t wait for permission. With a flick of her hand, she slid the chair to my right close to the throne, and sat, one long leg draped over the other, the movement practiced for maximum effect. The mesh panels shifted, revealing more than they concealed.

“May I?” she said, voice low and husky with the aftertaste of a Spanish accent. She didn’t wait for my answer. Her hand landed on my forearm, fingers long and unadorned, nails painted a subdued gold. The touch was calculated, a test. A dare.

In Obsidian, no one touched me without permission.

The room’s energy shifted—subtle but immediate. Conversations dipped in volume. On the stage, one of the aerialists lost rhythm for a beat before regaining her flow. Even the witches at the bar watched, waiting to see if I would rebuke the intrusion.

Devon entered the lounge just as Rosa leaned in for her second attempt, the one where she meant to make it clear to everyone watching that I was both available and already spoken for. The effect was calculated: a sharp ripple through the room, eyes darting from me, then to Devon, a tableau of dominance and defeat.

For an instant, Devon’s eyes went glassy and wide, like a deer catching the blur of oncoming headlights. Her lips parted, but she didn’t look away. She just stood there, rigid, letting the room see her pain before she crushed it down and replaced it with nothing at all.

My vision narrowed to a tunnel. In that instant, I hated Rosa with a purity I hadn’t felt in centuries. Not for the trespass, but for the harm inflicted on my mate. I didn’t think. I acted.

The sigil burned itself into my palm before I was even aware of forming it. Axiom answered instantly, a ripple in the fabric of the club’s reality: one heartbeat, there was only music and velvet darkness, and the next, a monster the size of a small horse materialized in the center of the lounge.

Axiom was not a dog, not even close. At rest, he stood five feet at the shoulder, a double row of teeth glinting from a jaw designed to rip through armor. His hide was dark and wet-looking, like freshly spilled oil, the surface crawling with hints of shapes that might have been runes or might have been old scars. His eyes glowed with an unnatural yellow, their pupils slitted like a serpent’s. Each step he took left a faint scorch mark on the floor, the heat of his presence curling the wood.

The entire lounge froze. Drinks stopped halfway to lips. A glass slipped from someone’s fingers and exploded on the floor, spraying vodka and blood from a careless cut.

Axiom fixed on Rosa immediately. He lowered his head, hackles up, and let out a growl that made the walls shudder. Saliva, viscous and tinged with smoke, dripped from his jaws. The club’s scent profile shifted in real time: fear sweat, ozone, pheromone spike. All of it barely masking the metallic sweetness of anticipated violence.

Rosa didn’t run, not at first. To her credit, she was Montoya’s lieutenant for a reason. But even she couldn’t mask the panic in her eyes as Axiom closed the distance, his body vibrating with the desire to tear and rend.

I watched, unblinking, as the hellhound backed her up against a wall. She tried to speak—maybe a plea, maybe an invocation—but Axiom snarled and snapped his jaws shut inches from her thigh. She crumpled, falling to her knees, hands held up in surrender.

The rest of the lounge cowered against the far wall, a human and supernatural barricade of wide-eyed onlookers. Most would be traumatized for life, but that was not my concern.

What did concern me was the sudden movement to my left.

Devon. Not running, not hiding, but walking toward Axiom with slow, deliberate steps.

She was scared—I could see it in the flex of her fingers, the way her breath hitched on every inhale. But she kept going, cutting through the petrified crowd until she was ten feet from the beast.

Amelia reached out to grab her, trying to anchor her in place. Devon shrugged her off, her jacket slipping from her shoulders. Underneath, she wore the white tank and wide-leg pants, both clinging to her too-thin frame.

Axiom turned at her approach, lips peeling back to reveal every one of those blade-sharp teeth. The room collectively held its breath. Even I, who had never once lost control of the hellhound, felt a flicker of doubt—what if he didn’t recognize the rules tonight? What if he went for her?