I wasn't a bleeding heart. I'd been around for a long-ass time. I'd seen the humans stab one another with swords and shoot one another with bullets and drop bombs for the same stupid shit for ages. God and country and race.
They were a petty and selfish species. I had no real love for them.
Sure, I liked how they made whiskey. They made some banging music. And the women were warm and willing if you knew what to say to them.
But as a whole? I didn't give a fuck about them.
So why was I giving a fuck about this one, in particular?
I didn't begin to understand it. I wasn't sure I wanted to. All I knew was there was a pull inside when I'd seen her at first, and then I'd felt it again, but stronger, when I'd seen her hurt behind Sanctuary.
I wasn't a warm man. It wasn't a warm feeling. It was something hard, almost. Possessive, even.
But, clearly, it was just because her treatment had offended me and my beliefs about the whole issue of consent when it came to scenes.
Nothing else made sense.
I was no one's fucking white knight.
And yet.
"Fuck," I hissed, pushing off the tree to make my way back to the bike.
I had to figure out how to put an end to this thrall shit.
Normally, this was an issue I would go to Ace with. He was the oldest of us. He was the one with his nose always in a book. He knew practically everything about humans, but also a shitton about our history as well.
But there was no way I could go to him;
By now, Daemon would have told him what was going on.
They were probably actively looking for me, if not already having issues with the bloodsuckers.
So I couldn't go to him to help me.
But where, then?
Thysa knew a lot about all the otherworldly shit, but I couldn't get her any more involved in this than she already was since it happened at her club.
But I'd brushed shoulders with a lot of different creatures over the years. One of them had to have had some information.
But who?
"Shit," I hissed to myself as the answer to that came to me. There was really only one other creature around who likely knew as much about the bloodsuckers as Ace.
Arick.
A fucking, if you can believe this shit, warlock.
My crew and I had a lot of history with witches. What with the treaty and all. As a whole, the witches weren't all that uncommon. There were the witches in the woods, the witches in modern society, the tech witches. You never had to look hard to find some witches.
But warlocks?
They were a rare breed.
Sure, you could find some wizards around. Guys who practiced the Craft. You could even find sorcerers—men born with innate gifts, who did or did not practice the Craft.
A warlock, though, was a combination of two. They were born with skills and then trained and learned to harness them.
Which made them someone you didn't fuck with.
And as long as he'd been around, no one screwed with Arick. Hell, you were lucky to get an audience with the slippery fucker.
Luckily enough for me, the guy had a fondness for some less than common recreational drugs. And I knew where to find them.
An hour or so later, I had a pocket full of drugs, and was pulling up to Arick's place.
For reasons I didn't fully comprehend, but he claimed had something to do with his Craft, he lived in a two-story modern building made of dark gray metal. The large windows were mirrored, which made it impossible to see inside even in the bright daylight.
His place had always been a party spot.
Partially because Arick was rich, because he had a massive pool out back, because he had a hot tub, because he hired caterers, and because he always had the top-shelf booze.
So when I pulled up, despite it being closer to sunrise than sunset, there was a line of cars parked in the driveway.
On a sigh, I climbed off my bike, making my way inside.
Arick's home style in and of itself was modern and minimalist, but Arick himself was a maximalist by nature. It was reflected in the interior of his home with its dark-toned, yet mismatching carpets, the abundance of couches and chairs, the art that lined the dark green walls. There was so much of it that he'd acquired or painted himself over the years that they were stacked several canvases deep against many of the walls in the living and dining room.
The kitchen was all in dark shades as well, with a whole built-in shelving unit full of glass jars filled with various ingredients. Strings of onion and garlic hung from the sides. Plants lined the windows. And half-eaten food and booze cluttered the counters and island.
Arick could have been anywhere on his palatial estate. In the pool with the half a dozen women I could see skinny dipping. Over in the studio in the back of the yard. Whether he used it to paint or sacrifice people was anyone's guess. There was the top floor with the bedrooms, the basement with who knew what inside.
But I knew Arick well enough to know where to find him.
In the den.
Only it resembled more of an opium den than a traditional family room.
The walls were lined in thick green velvet drapes. The floor was almost entirely made of memory foam mattresses covered in assorted bedding and more pillows than your local big box store kept in stock. Not a single one of them matched, yet they somehow all mixed together in a way that didn't give you an immediate headache.
I guess maybe it had something to do with how dark the room was kept.
I walked into a cloud of smoke, both cigarette and pot.
Good.
He would be loosened up already.
"Drex!" Arick called in that deep, smooth voice of his. I'd actually overheard the man reading a menu to a woman who was practically orgasming over the sound of his voice. "My friend," he added, waving his arms out wide in front of the faces of the two women who were at his sides, both of whom were rubbing him. One up his chest, toying with his nipple rings. The other, down his pants, stroking his cock.
Arick was the almost freakish sort of tall—somewhere around six-foot-seven with a fit, lean body, long black hair, a chiseled jaw, and almost unnaturally grass-green eyes. He had some ink snaking up his arms and the sides of his neck. If you looked at them for long enough, you would realize they weren't normal tattoos. They moved. Depending on his mood, they shimmered or undulated or swirled.
Right then, the ink seemed to slither.
"To what do I owe this pleasure?"
I imagined any pleasure he was feeling had more to do with the redhead who was lowering her face down near his crotch than me.
But whatever.
"I could use some information," I admitted.
"You?" he asked, smirking at the idea that I was seeking knowledge. Because, well, I wasn't that type of guy. I was the party hard and fuck shit up kind of guy.
"I know, right?" I asked, sighing.
"Got any incentive for me to get up right now?" he asked as the redhead wrapped her mouth around his cock.
I reached into my pocket, producing a plastic bag. "Shrooms," I offered, watching as a smirk pulled at his lips as he slid forward on the mattress.
"Lovely," he said, petting the side of the redhead's face as he moved away from her. "Why don't you lick Mya's pussy until I get back to lick yours?" he suggested. And I shit you not, the woman immediately moved to do so. "Mushrooms, you say?" Arick said as he got to his feet, tucking his cock away before clamping a hand on my shoulder. "Let's go somewhere quieter," he invited, leading me back to the kitchen, outside, across the sprawling green lawn, then inside his black studio that he seemed to unlock with a flick of his hand in the air rather than an actual key. "So, what do you need to know? Where to find some better whiskey?" he asked.