Page 1 of Devil May Hunt
Chapter 1:
“Do you know about drowning?” He shouldn’t be talking about this. People got uncomfortable whenever he did. It wasn’t something meant to be shared, not in public.
Not in private either.
Brennon Cree was a fool.
No, he was worse than that.
He was a downright idiotic moron who—
“Those basically mean the same thing,” a familiar voice drawled next to him, and he blinked through his drunken haze, the face of his first crush coming into focus.
Sort of.
“Rin?” Brennon drowned out hiccups that threatened by chugging the rest of the beer in front of him. He was seated at the bar in The Dive, a frequent haunt of theirs where the music was always semi-decent and the alcohol was always flowing. Especially when Brennon was here with his friends.
Rin Varun, Royal Consort to the Imperial Prince, attracted attention because of his title and the fact he was gorgeous.
Daylen Jace was mysterious and had that bad boy vibe without any of the bad attitude that typically went along with it.
Calder Sade was…hot in his own way, and mixed up with a Devil of Vitality, which people had noticed. Everyone loved gossip.
Then there was him. Royal Brennon Cree. The average one. The one who never got picked. People were attracted to him, sure. He wasn’t ugly, though next to Rin and Daylen, he paled in comparison. He lacked the storybook good looks and the male lead energy they both had.
“Those girls wanted me though,” he murmured to himself, laughing and then hiccupping. He tapped the bar and then downed half the contents of the next bottle the bartender placed before him.
“Those girls were visiting royalty,” Rin said, eyeing him a bit too intensely. “Don’t you recall getting scolded by their siblings a couple of hours ago?”
Oh, that was right. He’d been dancing with three strangers, then his friends had joined him and…It didn’t matter. What mattered was Daylen had snuck off with a guy, Calder had left with his Devil, and Rin and Kelevra—
He frowned. “Hold on. You left already, didn’t you?”
“Didn’t I?”
Brennon leaned in closer, almost toppling off the stool he was perched on in the process, not that his best friend tried to help steady him or anything.
Maybe because they were no longer best friends.
And it was all Brennon’s fault.
“If I’d known we’d turn out like this,” he said, “I never would have confessed in the first place.”
Last semester, Brennon had made the massive mistake of hitting on Rin. Sure, the feelings had been there, but in reality, he’d only done it out of fear. He’d been afraid of losing the guy after he started hanging around Kelevra. Even in their friendgroup, the other two had only accepted him because of Rin. If he’d lost him…
Brennon hadn’t wanted to end up alone again. But instead of being smart about it, he’d allowed his feelings to get twisted and had made a mistake that had driven a wedge between them anyway.
“Do you regret it?”
“Yes.” He shifted and twirled the glass bottle. He’d long since lost track of how many he’d had. All he had for tomorrow was an evening training session, so it wasn’t a big deal how drunk he got tonight anyway. Clearly, since no one was trying to stop him. “You didn’t come back here to check on me, did you?”
“I did not, no.”
Right. Rin wouldn’t do that.
No one would.
Even his parents had always treated him more like a piece of furniture. If he was around, they’d use him, interact with him, but out of sight? Out of mind.
