City of Gods and Monsters (House of Devils, #1)

by Kayla Edwards

Loren Calla was the very definition of the word stubborn.

He wanted to fuck her so hard that every man she’d tasted before him would be erased from her memory.

“Something on your mind, Darien?” The question brought him back to that night in the dining room—when he’d called her out for wanting to drop her panties. “I had no idea locking doors got you so hot and bothered.”

Fuck, this girl. She was giving him a run for his money.

Loren was walking several feet ahead of him, and when two warlocks swaggering by catcalled her, fully turning their heads to leer at her perfect ass, Darien gave them a predatory smile that had them promptly averting their eyes and scuttling for the nearest storefront.

Loren blinked. He merely winked at her before stepping out of the car.

Her uneasiness did not escape Darien. His focus zeroed in on her tightly crossed arms before he turned around to look at the room of warlocks and werewolves, his hands casually resting in the pockets of his unzipped leather jacket. A territorial look flickered across his face, and Loren found her heart skipping full beats at the sight of it. He looked like he would gladly get his knuckles bloody for her if it came down to that.

And he was addressing every single one of the gawking clients when he said, “If you don’t stop staring, I’ll beat you till you’re sorry.”

“She shouldn’t dress like that then.” “I beg your pardon?” Darien replied in a low and lethal voice, black swallowing his irises and the whites of his eyes. The hairs on Loren’s arms prickled. When the wolf didn’t provide him with an answer, Darien smirked and said, “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

Marry me

Mistaking her surprise for confusion, he told her, “You can dress however you want to dress, and scum like them shouldn’t think it means you’re serving yourself to them on a silver platter.”

“Sweetheart, I am not a devil. I am the devil. Don’t start getting the wrong idea.”

HELL YEAH

Darien was suddenly crouching before her; she hadn’t even seen him move. “You’re okay,” he said, his deep voice gentle. “You’re going to be fine.”

It took Loren a moment to open her eyes, and when she did, she found that Darien’s gaze softened at the sight of her.

“Hardly. If you’d really like to know, I enjoy our little arguments. Having you test my patience is one of my favorite pastimes.”

She wasn’t sure how long Darien had been watching her for when he spoke. “I heard there’s this thing called a hug.” He threw aside the towel he was drying his hands with. “I’m not much of a hugger, but…” He shrugged. “It might help.”

fucking adorable.

When he’d embraced her after tending to her wounds in the basement, he hadn’t expected to not want to let go of her. He liked having her that close to him, liked being able to not only hear her heartbeat but to feel it.

He hadn’t been ready to let go of her; in fact, he could have stood there like that for hours, her aura flush with his.

Call him crazy, but there was a part of him that felt like their fates were entwined now, and they were both in far too deep to ever turn

Goodnight, Loren Calla. Goodnight, Darien Cassel.

In the back seat, Dallas was suppressing a smile. With Darien’s attention otherwise occupied, Dallas took the opportunity to lift her hand to her mouth to form an obscene gesture.

“Looked like a bird of some sort,” Dennis said without looking at her. “Look at her when she’s speaking to you,” Darien said coolly.

“Cool it, matchstick,” Logan retorted. “I only saved her life.” Dallas bared her teeth. “Did you seriously just insult me by my hair color, you four-legged freak?”

But Loren Calla was gorgeous in a way that made his knees weak. He considered it an accomplishment;

This girl was different for a reason he hadn’t figured out yet. He couldn’t get enough of her, of the way she tipped her head back when she laughed, of the way she scrunched up her nose when he was teasing her, of the way her eyes lit up every time he walked into the room. As if his presence made a difference to her.

“I usually don’t.” But I care what you think. He almost said it aloud, but the realization stilled his tongue. She was right: since when did he give a shit what anyone thought?

When she glanced up at him, Darien found himself more at awe of the way her ocean eyes glinted in the moonlight than the fact that she seemed to have deciphered the most confusing part of the scroll.

Darien slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her snug against his side. Her heart picked up speed at the contact; he could hear it as clearly as the cicadas humming in the palm trees. The feel of her aura flush against his made his skin tingle, made him want to have her closer still.

“Loren.” His voice was gruff. “Sweetheart…”

There was such vulnerability on his handsome face, the sight of it so raw that Loren had the sense that she was witnessing something incredibly intimate.

Darien gently extracted his left hand from hers and tilted her chin up, so she was looking at him. His eyes were no longer black. The Surge was gone. Had she done that? Was she stupid for even thinking she had?

Darien rolled his eyes. “How’d I get so lucky?” he muttered, shaking his head. When he said it, he was looking at Loren, not in search of an answer, but as if he’d meant to say that she was a large part of the reason he felt lucky.

“Don’t make me carry you,” Darien threatened mildly. She waved him away. “Alright, I’m going. Big, bad Devil.”

When she made it to the bottom of the staircase, she turned around to see that he hadn’t moved, but was watching her with a kind of tender affection she’d never seen on his face before.

“Would you stop complaining?” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I can think of far better things for you to do with that mouth.”

Darien blinked. And then he threw his head back and howled with laughter. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.” He was laughing so hard, his eyes were watering. He swiped at the corner of one with a knuckle. “You are just too much fun.”

“No one’s ever given you a taste of your own filthy medicine, have they?” “Not until you came along, Rookie.”

“The demons… What if they’re not demons at all? What if they’re connected to the missing students? What if…” She finally looked at him. “What if they are the missing students?” Darien’s mind reeled as he followed her train of thought. “And the spells here and on the schoolgrounds allowed them into the area because they still recognize their DNA,” Darien concluded. “They still recognize them as citizens and students.”

“You ripped your pretty dress.” Pretty was a massive fucking understatement.

“I just bought this,” she muttered. “Did it cost you two hundred gold mynet?” “Don’t be silly,” she tsked. “It cost me two hundred and fifty.” Darien grinned. “You’re a riot.” He started the car and sped them to Hell’s Gate.

Darien wore a smug grin. “Beautiful,” he said. “Do it again.”

The hour continued like that. And perhaps she was imagining it, but Darien seemed to take any excuse to touch her, even to adjust the location of her fingers on the various guns.

“I said you’re an ace at this, Lola.” The nickname made her blush, made her duck her head a little, hair falling in her face.

All three of the girls were dressed to the nines, in clothing that left very little to the imagination. But it was Loren that made Darien’s heart stop in his chest. Stop and then start again, the rhythm erratic and borderline painful.

Her outfit—if you could even call it that—consisted of two pieces cut from sheer fabric that reminded him of a star-dusted night sky. The crop-top was held in place with ultra-thin straps, the top itself barely covering her breasts, and it tied up at the back in a criss-cross pattern. The skirt was ankle-length with a slit that exposed the sweep of her left leg, right up to the hip. Her eyes were lined in kohl, the lids dusted with a color so dark it was almost black. She wore her hair down, the slightly curled ends brushing the small of her back.

HOT HOT HOT LOREN

“I don’t think I can do this. I’m going to get into a fight with the first guy who looks at her.”

“Which he will,” Travis cut in, an overconfident grin slashing across his face. “Hell, I’d like to take her into the back.” Darien let his hand drop from his face, rings clanging against the countertop, and straightened to full height. “You want to be the first guy I fuck up, get in line,” he threatened.

“Hey there, Ocean Eyes,” Darien said in a low voice. The nickname had her ducking her head.

crying

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” And she was. She really, really was.

“And why is that?” Darien stepped closer to her and tipped her chin up so that she was looking at him. “You could be wearing a hoodie and I would still think that of you.”

“Do you think it’ll be enough to get his attention? I mean, I’m sure there will be tons of girls in there—” “And none of them are you.”