Page 12 of Capturing Sin

I shoved thoughts of the poor demons aside. If I let myself dwell on their situation, or the weight of my guilt, I’d stop functioning.

With a swipe of my unmarked pass, the reinforced door topping the staircase buzzed me out. I spilled into the cavernous warehouse with a sharp inhale at the assault of noise. The sour stench that accompanied violence thickened in my throat, and I immediately regretted the action.

Two young guards sat at a table by the door, playing a card game. They barely glanced up, doing a quick visual sweep to check I wasn’t smuggling a hellhound under my jacket, before returning to their game without so much as a hello.

I’d take being ignored by a hunter any day.

A cheer rang through the room. The usual evening crowd surrounded the spotlit fight cage in the centre of the vast space. Armed hunters sprawled in cheap foldable chairs around it, getting their blood pumping before their nightly missions.

Sometimes the fights were training—testing the mettle of new recruits or getting in some extra practise with a new weapon—but mostly it was for sport.

I moved, swift and silent, hurrying past them and praying to whatever deity might listen that they let me go unnoticed tonight.

My stomach dropped as I recognised a demon in the ring. A weary female Cara had made me take samples from yesterday. Like Mags, this demon had refused to speak to me, but after Cara had left, she’d listened to me ramble about inane things like the pollen count or how much I loved Italian food while I’d tried to clean her wounds and slip her a protein bar without getting clawed.

“Ah, well look who it is!” Jayce waved at me, leanly muscled frame sprawled across a chair at the edge of the crowd. “What’s the matter, Dozer, too scared to watch demons in action now? Or are you off for more beauty sleep?”

A few chuckles answered as the hunters around him glanced my way. I ignored the back of a certain scarred sandy-blond head as my ex continued to watch the fight.

I’d never got along with Jayce. He’d always envied my position in alpha squad, claiming nepotism was the reason I was there and he’d been stuck in beta for so long. He wasn’t the only hunter to think that either.

In a way, they were right—everything I’d had, I’d earned through blood—just not in the way they thought.

But Jayce had dragged me back to base after the incident that nearly killed me. Not my teammates. Not my fiancé. Not my uncle.

When they’d called in beta team to help what remained of alpha go back and erase the evidence of demonkind, Leo had told everyone I was dead. Jayce had checked me for a pulse anyway and found me miraculously alive.

Of course, given I’d looked relatively unharmed, he’d joked that I was being a typical princess and taking a leisurely doze. Hence the new nickname. I knew from the whispers that most hunters thought I’d been faking my injuries for attention like a spoiled brat, which made zero sense.

If they knew the truth, though, they’d call me a traitor and lock me up right beside the demons.

I stretched my lips into an imitation of a smile, pretending nothing Jayce said could affect me. “Night, Jayce. Good luck out there today.”

I gave him a small two-fingered salute without stopping, hoping that for once he’d just let it go.

He kicked out an empty chair, and it slid into my path with a screech.

More eyes turned on me, burning with judgement.

“Stay and watch. It’s only right you see off your former teammates before we head out and do the real work.” Jayce’s forest-green eyes met mine, filled with challenge.

“Sorry, can’t tonight. I’ve got plans.” I shot him an apologetic smile as fake as his gold Rolex.

He stood, taking a menacing step closer, trying to intimidate me even though he didn’t have much more than a handful of inches on my short height. “You’re going to sit and watch these satanic pricks fight to the death with us, and then you’re going to watch us leave for our missions. Missions that you should be on too. If you weren’t such a coward.” He raised his voice towards the end, accusation ringing out through the warehouse.

A hush descended, the small crowd turning their attention wholly to me. Even the forced fight slowed inside the ring, until the meaty thwack of flesh hitting flesh stopped altogether.

At least my humiliation bought them a reprieve.

My cheeks heated under the scrutiny, but I squared my shoulders. “My work could help neutralise demon abilities, putting them on a level playing field with us. I’m sure you’d like for the demons to slow down enough for you to actually hit one.”

Another few chuckles went up as people lapped up the show.

Jayce scoffed, “Putting on glasses doesn’t make you a scientist.”

“Picking up a gun doesn’t make you a hunter,” I snarked back, pushing my granny-style wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of my nose. As an operational hunter, I’d worn contact lenses to fight in.

Leo finally twisted around in his ringside chair, a few rows in front of Jayce. His features sharpened until they almost glinted like a knife under the low lighting.

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