Page 1 of Demon Hunger
1
“Thisisirresponsible!”Isaid for the third time.
“Hush!” Jenna, my best friend, pressed a finger to her lips as she tightened her hand around the hilt of her Queller and peeked over a row of bushes.
It was past 11 PM in the middle of January, and we were freezing outside of Hades, a popular nightclub in Hell’s Kitchen, which was Skew-exclusive. Stales, regular humans, stayed away from here unless they wanted a vamp to suck their blood or a demon to possess them—not an optimal situation when half of the Summoning class hiding outside the club consisted of Stales like Jenna, Sage, and Benjamin. That we had no quelling experience went without saying.
What was “Professor Drevan Veneres” thinking?!
I glanced right and left at my classmates. They were all holding their Quellers, peering at the club across the parking lot, their faces illuminated in the red neon light coming from the huge sign that read “HADES”. The sign had a devil’s tail whipping around it and horns sticking out from the “D”.
Few of the students had the sense to be scared. Benjamin, to my left, was the only one who seemed to feel the way I did. He shook his head as I met his gaze.
It was only the beginning of the spring semester, and we’d barely had a handful of lessons withProfessor Veneres, the bastard demon. No one was ready for this.
“Quit worrying,” Jenna hissed. “Drevan won’t let anything happen to us.”
I huffed as I scanned the club’s door and the bouncers standing next to it. One of them tapped his foot at the rhythm of the muffled music spilling from the club.
Drevan Morningstar—not Drevan Veneres—couldn’t be trusted. He was a demon, for fuck’s sake. Not only that, he had enemies in high places. What if they decided to have a little fun at the expense of the League of Demon Hunter’s students? I bet the arrogant Prince of Hell hadn’t thought of that. If only I’d seen him before we’d been instructed to come here. I would’ve given him an earful.
“How long do we have to wait?” Sage Donnelley asked under his breath.
He was so gung-ho about this that it was ridiculous. On the way here, I’d tried to talk sense into him and some of the others, but no one had listened. They were simply too excited.
“I don’t know what’s up your butt,” Regina Becker sneered. “It’s clear you don’t like Professor Veneres. What do you have against him?”
Professor! Gah!
Every time I thought of Drevan as an LDH academic, I wanted to roll my eyes.
Regina Becker was the quintessential mean girl, and she hated me. At first, because she liked Sage, and he had a thing for me. And now because, like every girl in the class, she also had a crush on Professor Veneres, and she’d noticed the tension between Drevan and me—a tension that I was sure she was interpreting the wrong way.
Of course, when she accused me of having something against her dear professor, I absolutely denied it. I couldn’t very well admit that I was working with him to save the world from the apocalypse or that I hated his lying-demon, hideous-monster ass.
A sudden pop brought me back to the moment.
In the middle of the parking lot, a plume of smoke rose from the pavement, quickly solidifying into Drevan. He was always performing “magic” tricks like this, so the students thought he was a mage. Fat chance.
The demon was dressed in gray pants and jacket, a tight vest, white shirt, and silken silver tie. On top of it, he wore a black tailored coat that reached past his knees. Its collar was up around his neck as he stood, hands in his pockets, one leg bent and the other one straight in a casual pose. One of his dark eyebrows was raised and his full lips pursed. His raven hair shone in the light. His entire demeanor was effortlessly theatrical, and to my dismay, it totally worked. He looked like a movie star, a model ready to walk the runway, or a prince, which was actually what he was.
Damn!The bastard really loved dramatic entrances.
A collective sigh went through the group, and it didn’t come only from the females. There were a couple of guys who also seemed spellbound by Drevan.
He blinked at the bushes where we were hiding, his golden eyes glinting with amusement. “What are you doing hiding there?”
Sage cleared his throat and straightened. “Um, the message said we would be… quelling a demon.”
“And you hope to do that while taking cover behind shrubbery?”
Regina stretched to her full height and started climbing over the hedge. “Of course not. It was Lucia who suggested we should stay out of sight.”
Drevan wrinkled his nose. “Perhaps you should choose a braver leader to follow.”
She batted the hand not holding the Queller. “Oh, she’s not our leader.”
Drevan huffed, looking skeptical.
