Page 3 of Knave

Come back,he begged Ellie.Don’t leave me here without you.

“Is it working?” asked a woman.

An intense pressure came against his arm as someone sucked. He gasped and his eyes fluttered open. The pale-yellow walls were bright, too bright, around him. The tiles too hard. His arm lowered on its own.

No.Not on its own. Someone gently placed it on his stomach and patted him. “There now, you’re all right.”

Ferris forced his eyes to focus. A woman leaned over him, her head haloed by the ceiling light, her face in shadows. He dragged in a ragged breath. The woman shifted to where her face was visible. Delicate features with a spattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Violet eyes and soft lips. A pink plait draped over one shoulder. He’d never seen anyone so beautiful before … soinhuman.Perhaps he was dead after all.

“Are you an angel?” he rasped.

The young woman blinked, a smile slowly spreading across her cheeks. “Me? Gracious, no.”

Ferris sat up slowly, his head throbbing, body shaking. Another figure with purple curls and a bowler hat atop her head moved behind his angel. The second woman looked similar, except her features were a bit sharper. A sister, maybe. “Looks as if this is your lucky night,” she sang, grinning as she adjusted her hat.

Sure, if bad luck counted as luck…Ferris thought for a moment, letting what had happened sink in. He’d had a horrible reaction to whatever Raymond sold him, had been dying, hadwantedto die for a moment. Because Ellie was… He swallowed hard. Somehow, he was awake now. Not only awake but clear headed.

“I…” His body ached with a soreness that ran bone-deep. “I think we have different definitions oflucky.”

“He looks like a newly-hatched baby bird.” The purple-haired one poked his arm.

“At least he’s sober now,” the angel replied.

Sober.When was the last time he’d been that way?Eleven months and fourteen days ago.“I don’t understand.” Ferris lifted his arm, his gaze locking onto two puncture wounds with a trickle of blood running from each. What kind of strange ass shit were these two into? “The fuck?”

“I drank the poison from you,” the angel said softly.

Did she saydrank? As in pierced him with something, then drank hisbloodto sober him up?

“Good thing, too. You’d be dead if Mouse hadn’t found you.” The purple-haired woman waved her hand in the air.

Dead.Yes, he’d been dying, but hearing someone else speak the word was jarring. Ellie and their daughter were gone, but he wasn’t ready to join them. Not really. Not yet.

The angel—Mouse—knelt beside him, a comforting gardenia scent drifting around him. What sort of name was Mouse, anyway? As she leaned in to whisper, Ferris forgot the question. “You look as though you need a friend. And perhaps I can help you, if you help us. If not, I can make you forget.”

Ferris arched a brow. He wouldn’t easily forget this night, no matter how much coke he snorted in the future. “What do you mean exactly?” The ache in his temples throbbed harder, distracting him from gathering proper thoughts.

A faint smile twitched at Mouse’s lips as she drew closer, caressing his ear with her voice, her warm breath brushing his skin. “You want a high and we want to feed. So would you like to make a deal with a vampire?”

Chapter Two

Mouse

Present Day

A mouse was a quiet thing, one that hovered, listening, waiting for its moment. Although small, the creature wasn’t helpless—it could terrify if it so chose.

And waiting was precisely what Mouse was doing.

Waiting for her moment to strike.

Loud techno beats boomed around her while white lights shimmered through the smoke inside the mortal club. Mouse easily blended in, wearing her black gothic frock and dark platform boots, her pink plait resting over her shoulder. She sat at the bottom of the stairs, peering out at the crowd as the mortals’ bodies gyrated. Their blood called to her, pulsing,slamming, in their veins, begging her to rip their flesh open and take her fill.

Breathe, Mouse.

The front pocket of Mouse’s dress wiggled. “Just a little longer, Des,” she said over the loud music, lightly patting her chest. The caterpillar had been with her each night, calming her, keeping her from massacring innocents, the way she’d done that day in the donor building in Ivory when she’d murdered twenty mortals. The donors were supposed to be safe in Wonderland. But she’d been so incrediblyhungry.

Since returning to the Ivory Palace after Ever reclaimed her throne, Mouse had been feeding on humans—those who deserved it—almost every night. Her hunger never satiated. Her sister, Maddie, didn’t know about Mouse’s appetite, and she couldn’t either.

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