Chapter One
Dylan
Lunch with Trevor was proving to be a major pain in the ass, which wasn’t exactly a surprise since he’d been getting on my nerves all day. The decision to ask him to join me for lunch had not been one of my best. Yes, it had been my mother’s idea, but I should have found a way out of it as soon as Trevor started pushing me to go to the party at his house tonight. While I’d grown out of parties and clubs, Trevor hadn’t. In fact, today, he was determined to talk me into reliving our early twenties, which had involved me doing plenty of stupid shit I’d rather not remember.
How Trevor managed it, I had no clue. We were both successful preternatural attorneys with our own firm—an impressive accomplishment for two warlocks in our early thirties. That success was owed largely to the hard work we put into building a name for our firm. We both worked long hours, but Trevor, apparently, didn’t need as much sleep as I did.
“Why are we in this crappy hole in the wall?” Trevor asked testily after responding to the fifth text message he’d received since leaving the office, and that’s when I caught on to what was really going on with Trevor today. He was having witch problems—again. I decided it was best to change the subject to the reason we were at this little sandwich shop today—my mother’s desire to see me settle down with a nice witch. That was probably the best way to keep Trevor from bemoaning the tragedy that was his love life.
“My mom insisted we come here for lunch,” I reminded him.
Trevor chuckled. “That’s right! Guess there must be some poor little witch working here your mother wants you to meet, and you’re not going to give her a chance, are you?”
“You got that right,” I muttered. My mother’s sole mission in life was finding me a witch so I could give her grandchildren. Since my goal was the exact opposite, I didn’t get involved with witches, not even for casual affairs. I preferred to steer clear of all preternatural creatures because there always seemed to be issues, regardless of the species. It was also more likely to get back to my mother. One-night stands with humans had far fewer complications since the Council of Witches would seriously frown on my having any kind of long-term relationship with a human.
“Why’d she want me here?” Trevor asked, looking at his phone again.
I raised an eyebrow at his ridiculous question, and Trevor laughed. “Your mom is crazy,” he said with a shake of his head. “She knows I’m not in that field.”
“But your family administers the affinity tests, so she thinks you’ll encourage me if you sense the witch is right for me,” I explained.
“What is it with her getting you married off, anyway?” he asked. “Why not your brothers?”
“That is a question I find myself asking all the time,” I said. “It seems she gave up on Asher and decided to focus on me.”
“I’m surprised she’s not pushing Gray to find a nice warlock and get themselves a witch surrogate. And why not push Asher to find a witch? He’s fifty years older than you,” Trevor added.
My brothers, Grayson and Asher, were both much older than I was, so it made sense that she’d be pushing them harder than me. I should say it made sense to everyone except her. Due to our age differences, I wasn’t close to my brothers. Trevor had always been more like a brother to me. We could easily pass for brothers; both of us had brown hair and stood at just over six feet tall. We ran together four times a week and used the weight room at the gym in our office building at least three times a week, so we were fit. There were differences—my eyes were blue while his were brown, and my face was more harsh lines and planes compared to Trevor’s—but not enough that people wouldn’t believe me if I said Trevor was my brother.
“Oh, I’m sure she’s pushing Gray on that subject all the time. In fact, he’s complained about it at family dinners. As for Asher, my mom’s pretty much given up on him settling down.”
Trevor checked his latest text message and muttered something I couldn’t make out before falling silent, which was a relief because I expected him to start grumbling about his witch at any moment.
If we were here too much longer, I was going to risk my mother’s anger and leave. How long could it take to make sandwiches? We’d been here nearly fifteen minutes, and the line had barely moved.
At least, the show outside the sandwich shop window was entertaining. It was just after noon, and the guy across the street had his girl pushed up against a wall while he kissed her. No, kiss wasn’t the right word for what he was doing to her mouth. He was ravaging her mouth, claiming her. That girl was going to have bruised lips when he finally released her. One hand was edging up under her shirt, and I had no shame watching them. I wasn’t the only voyeur enjoying the show they were putting on for everyone in downtown Oakland.
“That’s the crazy kind of shit I’m always talking about,” Trevor said, pulling my attention from the PDA across the street. Listening to Trevor talk, no one would ever guess he was a successful lawyer, but he could act more like an adult when he wanted to.
I stared at him with one raised eyebrow because I had no idea what he was talking about. Honestly, I’d only been half-listening to most of his complaints since we’d entered the shop because they were probably just repeats of the complaints from earlier that day. Once he started bitching about witches again, I started watching the couple fooling around outside and returned to ignoring him.
“Are you even listening to me?” Trevor asked with a huff.
“Seriously, don’t get all pissy on me, Trev. I’ve been too busy wondering how far that girl’s going to let him go before she puts the brakes on everything and leaves that poor guy with a massive case of blue balls.”
“That’s the thing, she won’t put the brakes on things,” Trevor said.
The look I gave him clearly conveyed my doubt in his assessment of the situation. Unless she was a sex demon of some kind, there was no way she’d let him go further with an audience.
“Seriously, Dylan,” he said. “That’s Theresa, one of the legal aides from the law offices on the third floor.”
“The ones who represent werewolves in pack disputes?” I asked. That was a booming business to be in, but very stressful. While we worked with some werewolves, we did not get involved in any pack disputes. If she was a werewolf, that might explain her being more daring with her mate.
“Yeah, and that’s her husband with her. Both are human, and they do this shit all the time. I was tempted to complain to her boss when I caught them fucking in our copy room.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
Trevor grinned. “And interrupt the show? I’m not that stupid. Theresa’s pretty fucking hot, and this has made my Wednesdays much more interesting.”
“Now I know where you disappear to every Wednesday afternoon,” I said with a chuckle.
He shrugged. “It seems unfair to ask our assistants to make copies for us when they’re already busy.”
“How very kind of you.” I returned my attention to the couple outside.
“How the fuck are they still hot for each other when they’re married?” Trevor continued. “I can’t even fathom staying interested in the same woman for a month, let alone years. Don’t get me wrong—unlike you, I’d love to find the right witch to settle down with, but it seems impossible.”
“How long have you been seeing Cheryl?” I asked, because I knew that’s what Trevor wanted to talk about, even if I didn’t want to hear about Trevor’s ongoing witch problems.
“Lindsey,” he corrected. “And you’re an asshole because I’ve been complaining about her since we left the office, yet you still can’t remember her name.”
“Sorry, man.” I genuinely felt like a prick for tuning out my best friend. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I swear I’m going to have to fake my own death to get rid of this witch,” Trevor said in an overly dramatic tone.
“You’ve only been going out about two weeks,” I reminded him, even though two weeks tended to be Trevor’s limit
with women. It’s not that he wasn’t looking for more; Trevor just tended to fall in love far too quickly—before he really knew the woman.
“That’s about one week too long,” he complained. “The girl is already way too clingy and wants to know where I am every second of the day. When I told her I couldn’t meet her for lunch today, she lost it. Literally—screaming voicemails accusing me of cheating—lost it. Two days ago, I told her things just weren’t going to work between us, so I don’t see how I could be cheating. No matter how many times I tell her we broke up, she just says we need more time to work things out. Seriously, why can’t there be more women like Allie?”
This was the fourth time Trevor had brought up the mysterious Allie since we’d left the office for lunch today. He’d been bringing her up on and off for about a month, and I figured she’d end up on his crazy ex list eventually, but he just kept insisting he’d never date Allie. He had yet to say anything negative about the woman, so I couldn’t figure out what to make of it. I’d yet to meet her, and I was beginning to wonder if there was more to her story than Trevor had let on. “Are you sure you don’t have a thing for this Allie girl? Did she turn you down and now you’ve put her up on some pedestal?”
Trevor laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me? Allie’s like one of the guys. We can just hang out and talk. She doesn’t even get offended when I talk about sex. There is no way I’d want to mess that up.”
“How long have you known this girl?” I asked.
Trevor thought for a moment. “We reconnected about a month ago, but I didn’t really know her very well before that.”
Apparently, I wasn’t going to get more explanation about how he’d met Allie. “And you really don’t want to fuck her?”
“Like I said, Allie’s nice, but I’d never fuck around with her,” Trevor insisted.
Translation—she’s not very attractive. Actually, she had to be pretty damn hard to look at for Trevor to say something like this. My friend might be an asshole, but he had an innate way of seeing the beauty in all women. It was part of his gift, or his curse depending on how you looked at it. The downside of Trevor’s power was that it meant he rarely met a witch he didn’t want to fuck, and it also meant he fell a little in love with the witches he fucked because he only saw the good at first.
“You should come over and hang with us tonight.” Trevor tried once again to get me to go to his party.
“Maybe,” I said noncommittally because I really didn’t want to go no matter how curious I was about Allie.
“I’m beginning to think we aren’t really friends anymore,” Trevor complained with a pout.
There it was. Trevor was pulling out the big guns. I almost laughed because he’d been doing this shit since we were five.
“Don’t be a whiny little witch,” I grumbled.
“I’m just sayin’, you never hang out with me outside of work anymore. I’d think you had some really good pussy on the side, but you’ve been way too uptight for me to believe you’re getting laid. When was the last time you got any?”
“If I go to the party, will you stop bugging me about this?” I asked with an annoyed sigh.
“I knew you’d come around.” He grinned. “Now, you can finally meet Allie and see how cool she is.”
“Where’d you meet Allie?” I asked.
“I ran into her at SpellBinders last month,” he said casually. “Like I said, I knew her before that, but not very well.”
“Let me get this straight,” I began, because I was having a hard time believing I’d heard him right, “you met a girl at a sex club.” Spellbinders was more than a sex club—it was the ultimate sex club for the preternatural community. You could satisfy any sexual craving you had, no matter how deviant some might consider it. I’d only been to SpellBinders once, and it had been an unforgettable experience. SpellBinders made an orgy seem like bingo night at the local church. An incubus owned the club, and most of the staff were sex demons.
“Why is that such a surprise?” Trevor asked. “We’ve met girls at sex clubs in the past.”
“No, we’ve fucked girls from sex clubs,” I corrected him. “No names, and definitely no hanging out after or inviting them to your house for a party. Just fucking. Now, I’m supposed to believe you met a girl at SpellBinders who you just want to hang out with.” I was now picturing Allie as a cyclops with a hunchback. That was the only explanation that made any sense.
“You’ll see what I mean,” Trevor said with a grin.
With any luck, what I saw wouldn’t involve a head full of snakes and me turning to stone.
We were finally at the counter, and I spotted the witch my mother wanted me to meet right away. Her eyes locked on me, and she looked seriously pissed that I was there. While I wouldn’t describe her as ugly, she had an assortment of scary facial piercings, hair dyed the ugliest shade of red I’d ever seen, and way too much black eyeliner. She was definitely not my type.
Damn my mother.
“Hey there,” I said, giving her my most charming smile because I’d promised my mother I’d be nice to the witch.
“Just give me your order and leave,” she muttered under her breath. “I promise to tell my mom you were charming and asked me out.”
Blinking twice, I stared for a moment because that hadn’t gone the way I’d expected.
Trevor laughed at my expense, and yes, he was already undressing our angry sandwich maker with his eyes. “What do you recommend, gorgeous?” he asked.
The little sandwich maker flushed, and her face softened. She looked up at Trevor, and I had a feeling I’d be hearing him complain about how clingy the sandwich girl was a week from now.
Oh well, at least she wouldn’t be my problem.