Kami Garcia - Dangerous Dream

But Lena wasn’t the only reason she had stayed. She’d stayed because of Link, something she would never admit to a single soul.

Wesley Lincoln.

Rid never called him that to his face, or in front of anyone else. But it was the way she thought of him—with his cocky grin, rock and roll dreams, and drumsticks in his back pocket. Wearing a faded Black Sabbath T-shirt and driving the piece of crap Beater—he was the guy who had gotten under her skin.

Apparently, he was the one guy who had let her walk away.

Some things aren’t meant to be. Ridley stiffened at the thought of him saying those words. After tonight, they won’t be.

She planned to make sure of it.

The line in front of Suffer snaked around the block. It was the Dark Caster club of the moment, outranking Exile in terms of music (live bands instead of an aging Incubus DJ), clientele (the unattractive need not apply), and trouble (the more, the better). Not that Ridley cared about the line, since she had no intention of standing in it… until she noticed a few delicious guys waiting behind the black velvet ropes. A little window-shopping before she went in couldn’t hurt.

Ridley ran her hands through her blond hair, with its signature pink streak, to give it that I-could-have-just-rolled-out-of-your-bed look. She zeroed in on a dangerous-looking Incubus at the front of the line.

Rid took one last lick of her cherry lollipop and tossed it into a Dumpster. She didn’t need her Siren’s Power of Persuasion to turn heads. Tonight, she was doing it old-school, platform heels and mile-long legs, with a little pink lip gloss and something to prove.

Bring it.

“Let me get that for you.” The Incubus practically tripped over himself trying to unhook one of the velvet ropes so that Ridley could slip in line beside him.

“Aren’t you sweet. What do I owe you?” She put one hand on her hip and leaned toward him just enough.

“I’ll have to think about it,” he said.

“Blond in the black leather skirt.” The doorman pointed at Rid. “You’re in.”

Ridley smiled and tossed her hair over her shoulder. The Incubus started to follow her, but the doorman shook his head. “Just the lady.”

She tapped a long silver nail against the Incubus’ chest. “Sorry, Tall, Dark, and Dangerous. Maybe I’ll see you inside.”

Or not , she thought.

She shimmied past the doorman and stopped at the brick wall in front of her.

“Nice trick,” Rid said, glancing back at him before she stepped right through it. The wall was a test. The doorman was an Illusionist, and if you weren’t smart enough to know it, then you didn’t belong at Suffer.

Inside the club, spotlights suspended from the ceiling tinted everything a deadly shade of red. The crowd pulsed on the dance floor that hovered in the air, three stories above Ridley’s head.

“You’re just going to leave me here?” a girl whined, a few feet away.

The guy—who was probably her boyfriend, judging by the guilty expression on his face—caught her arm as she started to turn away. Ridley smiled. The girl obviously wasn’t a Siren, like Ridley, but at least she knew how to get her boyfriend to do what she wanted.

“I have to set up the game, Baby,” the guy said. “It’s the last night. Winner takes all.”

Ridley moved closer to the bar, and the couple’s conversation. Now things were getting interesting.

“What do you care?” she snapped. “It’s not like they’re going to let you play. They treat you like an indentured servant.”

The guy stiffened. That’s when Ridley noticed his eyes. They weren’t the gold eyes of a Dark Caster or the black eyes of an Incubus. His eyes were blue—Mortal blue.

“It’s not like that,” he said. “I’m part of the band.”

The girl laughed. “You’re their roadie. You can’t even get yourself in the game.”

“No one can get in the game!” he shouted.

As amused as Ridley was by the argument, she was more intrigued by this mystery game. It sounded exclusive. Why hadn’t she heard about it?

Before she had a chance to find out more, the Mortal’s Caster girlfriend stormed off. He slumped against the polished metal bar. The bartender reached over the Mortal’s shoulder, handing Blood Incubuses tall glasses of the club’s signature drink, O Positive.

The Mortal must have been telling the truth about being with the band, or those glasses would’ve been filled with his blood. Mortals weren’t welcome at Suffer unless they were payment for one of the dozens of illicit substances available in the Underground, the darkest part of the Caster world.

Ridley couldn’t stop staring at his blue eyes, lost in the sea of black and gold. In the Mortal world, he would’ve had the girls falling all over themselves to get his attention. But in a room full of sexy Dark Caster boys, he didn’t even show up on their radar.

The song ended, and the opening band stopped playing. The spotlights trailed over the crowd until they reached the stage and the lead singer. “The headliner tonight needs no introduction. Give it up for the Devil’s Hangmen!”

Ridley rolled her eyes. The Devil’s Hangmen? That was original. It sounded like the name of a failed eighties heavy metal band. It was almost as bad as the name of Link’s band, Meatstik. She felt a pang of something at the thought of Link, but she pushed him out of her mind—a skill at which she excelled.

The crowd erupted into applause.

The Mortal roadie’s head snapped up. He rushed through the wall of bodies toward the front of the club as the ragtag group jogged onstage—a lead singer the size of a linebacker, sporting leather pants and enough tattoos to pass for a T-shirt; a female bass guitarist in a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt, who tripped over the microphone cord; a pretty-boy punk with a blue faux-hawk and a guitar to match; and an Incubus who sat down at his drum kit wearing earplugs. If these were the Devil’s Hangmen, the Devil was slacking.

Rid glanced at the door. Maybe it was time to bail.

The drummer cracked his sticks together three times, and the band came to life in one thunderous heartbeat. And if you ignored the subpar drummer, they were actually good—a Pink Floyd Red Hot Chili Peppers mash-up, if you liked that sort of thing. Ridley didn’t, but then again, she didn’t like any bands. Not anymore. She’d trained her ears to tune out all music; it had been her way of dealing with the abuse that was Meatstik.

The music throbbed, and she spun around, reaching for the ceiling, and danced until she couldn’t think about anything—or anyone—except catching her breath and getting a drink with something sweet in it.

As she tossed her hair over her shoulder and turned back toward the bar, a weird feeling came over her, eclipsing the noise and the heat and the energy in the club.

Someone was watching her.

Ridley rapped her glitter-coated nails on the bar. If someone wanted a good look at her, she’d give the person a minute before she used her Power of Persuasion to convince them to punch the doorman in the face on their way out.

Payback’s a bitch. She couldn’t help but smile.

She turned around slowly, letting her black tank slide up just enough to reveal the edges of the Dark Caster tattoo that encircled her navel. Her gold eyes zeroed in on the edge of the stage immediately.

The Dark Caster stood perfectly still next to the heavy black curtain that framed one side of the stage. He stared back at Ridley as if they were the only two people in the room. He was almost as tall as the Goliath lead singer, but this guy was no linebacker. He looked more like a Greek sculpture—lean and muscular, with chiseled features and tanned skin that made his gold eyes glow. His dirty-blond hair curled around the collar of the steel gray shirt underneath the fitted black sweater that looked as if he’d been born wearing it.