Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Sex was all I wanted.
Nothing else mattered.
Only sex.
The feeling wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet.
It was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
A pressure bubbled under my skin, tightening and coiling through me, like something alive. I took a deep breath. But it didn’t help.
The feeling spread and grew stronger until it was the only thing I could focus on. Whatever it was, one thing was certain.
It was in my blood.
It pulsed through me with every heartbeat, growing stronger.
My eyes sprang open, and then-
I saw them.
Four dark, shadowy silhouettes. Four sets of bright eyes.
Looming above me. Watching me in silence.
Until one of them spoke.
“She’s the one.”
A few days ago, my life was very different.
Before The Taking. Before my kidnapping.
Before I experienced my moment in sex paradise.
Everyone knew about The Taking. Once a year-they came...the demons.
What did they want? To taste a human.
Female humans to be precise. Young and pretty ones.
Unlucky enough to be seen-or stupid enough to be out on the night of The Taking.
They never chased their prey. They didn’t need to. They simply walked through your city or town and chose. And if they chose you, you went. And no one stopped them.
No one even tried.
So, on the night of The Taking, you stayed inside with locked doors and closed windows. Because if they saw you, it was game over.
And on the night of The Taking, I should have stayed home. Like a sensible person. But I didn’t. The demons had not been to my town in over a century. Why would they? It was a small town in the middle of nowhere.
The menu wasn’t as…diverse as the big cities.
We were safe. Or at least—that’s what everyone told themselves.
I’d lived in my small town for my entire life. But I had plans. Big ones. I wanted to move to a massive city and just...live. Find a new adventure. Meet some hot guys and figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life.
I’d just turned twenty. I was too broke to go to a university that was too far away, but I’d taken some classes at my local community college. My parents had offered to pay all of my expenses-but I wanted to do it on my own.
And the biggest problem? I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do with my life.
Everything had always been decided for me. I’d grown up in a nice house with a white picket fence. My mom had signed me up for soccer and dance, travelling around the state to take me to every competition and class. I’d done well in school, earning straight A’s and B’s in every subject. Not perfect scores-but not bad ones either.
My mom was a teacher, and my dad worked as an electrician. I only had one older sibling, Dina, who was ten years older than me. So their attention had revolved solely around me for most of my life, because my sister had left as soon as she turned eighteen.
And I kind of think that even though my life sounded ideal, it had been a bit too...vanilla. Many of my decisions had been made for me, but of course, my parents had done this out of love.
Now I was bored with everything. Because I had spent my entire life just rolling with whatever plan my parents gave to me.
This backfired.
Because now I was clueless about what I wanted to do. And I wasn’t sure that I was passionate about anything, really.
I didn’t even know what I wanted-until that night. Until…they came along.
So tonight, I was at a packed club, in the middle of the dance floor. Pretending like it wasn’t the night of The Taking. Pretending like I wasn’t scared. Just like everyone else.
“Here, Quinn,” Madi said to me, pressing a cold drink into my hand.
I took it and brought it to my lips, as my hips swayed. The music was loud. The lights were flashing. Sweaty bodies bumped and rubbed against one another.
Madi danced away, her brown ponytail swinging as she made her way towards a guy in the corner of the dance floor. Madi was my best friend-and the total opposite of me in every possible way.
While she had curly brown hair and brown eyes, I had wavy blonde hair and green eyes. Tonight she wore a short black mini dress with fish stockings and boots, but I wore a pastel pink sundress with nude heels.
Madi was the sort of girl that ever guy drooled over. Hot in that careless, fun-girl sort of way. As for me? I was basic. Not ugly. But not stunning. Just kinda...vanilla.
I kept dancing, the liquor beginning to really kick in, my body loosening with each liquid drop of courage. I was moving as if there was nothing left for me to do in this world.
Then I felt it.
Something.
Like a pull. As if something was physically tugging at me, pulling on an invisible thread tethered to the center of my chest. I blinked in confusion. Had someone put something in my drink? I sniffed it but it only smelt like coke and cheap liquor.
I looked around the dance floor, my eyes searching, moving towards the pull.
Then...I saw him.
His eyes were a vivid emerald, so striking they almost seemed to glow under the dim club lighting. Thick brown curls framed a face carved with precision that made him look as if he wasn’t even real. But every sharp angle of his face was balanced by his soft mane of brown curls.
For the briefest heartbeat, I could have sworn his irises flickered.
Red.
Like embers stirring beneath dying ash.
He wore a solid green shirt, tucked neatly into a pair of tailored jeans. An outfit that shouldn't have stood out. But on him? It was stylish. Fashionable. Immaculate.
And he was staring at me, as if I were the only person in the room.
Then it hit me like a tidal wave of heat, coursing through my body.
I gasped.
Something low in my body stirred.
Something heavy and hungry.
I blinked, and he was gone.
I tried to even my breathing. But...God, my pussy was aching like never before. My body felt like it was burning from the inside.
What the hell just happened?
I turned and walked towards where I had just seen him.
Then I felt it again, the pull. But now it was coming from somewhere else.
I turned my head towards it.
White-blond hair framed a perfect, flawless face, that must have been created in a lab. His eyes were pale, like glacial ice, piercing through my gaze like something mythical.
He wore a crisp white button-up shirt and tailored khakis, finished with a fitted brown blazer. There wasn’t a single crease in his clothes, not a strand of hair out of place.
Why the hell were all the men in this place so stylish and attractive?
The desire. The pull.
It smashed into me again, as our eyes met, like a wall of ice. It chilled me to the bone, relieving me of the burning sensation.
I cried out softly as my core tightened. My panties growing wet with desire.
But relief shouldn’t have felt like that. It shouldn’t have made it worse.
“What...the hell?” I gasped.
He was gone. I hadn’t even seen him disappear.
I needed to get the hell out of this club. I spun around towards the exit.
But.
Another one.
Clean-cut sandy blond hair framed his unfairly handsome face. His amber eyes glowed like liquid gold and he wore a fitted charcoal tracksuit with crisp white sneakers-casual yet effortlessly stylish.
But then…he smiled.
It stole the air from my lungs.
The pull was back, shooting through me like a bolt of lightning.
I moaned. Right in the middle of the club.
I was sweating now as I pressed my thighs together. As if that was going to stop me from feeling like an animal in heat.
People brushed past me, completely oblivious to the fact that I was in the middle of a sexual crisis. No one noticed. No one cared.
My eyes darted towards the exit, and I began to walk...no...run towards it. I needed fresh air.
Then I ran into something hard, my face slamming into something that felt a-lot like a brick wall of muscle. I stepped back in surprise, reaching up to cradle my nose.
A fourth one.
He peered down at me through dark brown eyes, their shade so deep that they bordered on black. Thick black hair fell across his forehead, just above his mercilessly beautiful face. But there was nothing inviting or warm about him.
There was only stillness.
He wore a long black trench coat that drifted around him, paired with a fitted black T-shirt and dark jeans beneath.
There it was again. That insatiable pull.
It rocked me. It felt heavy and dark.
I moaned again. While this stranger stared down at me.
Like he knew exactly what I was feeling.
Finally, I moved around him and reached the door to the club. I pushed it open, stepping into the cold night air. I hadn’t even remembered to take my jacket.
I gasped for air, as if I were choking and stumbled down the sidewalk. All I wanted was for this burning desire to go away. The desire for someone, anyone, to fuck me senseless. I looked around.
The sidewalk was clear.
Fuck it.
I slipped into the nearest alleyway and leaned against its brick wall. I looked left. Then right. Then I slid my hand under my dress, slipping my fingers under my panties.
I had to do something about this. Anything.
It didn’t matter what. It didn’t matter who. I just needed it to stop.
“Delicious.”
I froze, just as I was about to finger myself into oblivion. My head snapped towards the voice.
There they were. All four of them, standing side by side. Like four pillars of absolute perfection.
They were watching me with hungry, glowing eyes.
And in that moment, somehow, I knew. I knew exactly what they were.
Demons.
