Immortal Enemies

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Fiction

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Meg Merrilies asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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***

I was dancing alone on the rooftop of a Vegas nightclub when he saw me.

Not just glanced my way. Saw me.

There's a difference.

People glance at you when you're pretty. They stare when they want something. To be seen requires hunger. Purpose.

Eyes the color of wildfire. A smirk curved the edges of his mouth like he knew the cosmic punchline to the joke the universe told. Every red flag I spent years dodging was wrapped around him like a Christmas present with my name on it.

I stepped closer. He looked at me like he'd been waiting centuries.

I used to be the kind of girl who believed in soulmates. The type of woman who thought love could save you if you bled. But heartbreak rewrites your biology.

I don't love like that anymore.

Every country has men like him. In Korea, they're Hongdae boys. In America? Gigolos. Sexy as sin, slick as oil and just as flammable.

My dog, whose taste is often significantly better than mine, would have urinated on both of his shoes.

Me. I tilted my head and returned the stranger's gaze. My lipstick was smeared, my eyeliner a little melted. I had reapplied it twice already. Something in the act made me feel human.

His suit was professionally tailored, and the fit was downright criminal. Mhm. Definitely European from head to toe. His watch looked like it could do advanced calculus or launch something from SpaceX.

He raised his glass. A silent toast. Not to me, exactly. To the fact that I hadn't looked away.

He wanted the reaction.

I gave him one. I turned my back and kept dancing.

The night was warm and dry. The desert heat thickened with perfume and spilled liquor. The view was surreal from my vantage point. All of Vegas laid out in its decadent glory. My dress clung in all the right places, heels biting into the softer parts of my feet. Still, I danced. Not because I was happy, not because I wanted to be seen. Because I needed to remember what it felt like to be alive.

The club's rooftop lights flashed into the night. Above them, the stars watched in silence, their pity almost palpable. I felt them judging me.

Either way, I wasn't ready to go home.

Not tonight.

Not after the hospital visit. Not after the look the doctor gave me when he said they'd 'try another round of tests,' as if that'd somehow change the inevitable.

I'd already heard the truth in his silence.

I was twenty-three, and I was running out of time.

That's the kind of knowledge that rots you from the inside. It starts in your bones, camps out in your bloodstream, consumes your joy, patience and ability to care.

But it sharpens your instincts.

Which is why, when the stranger finally made his move, I felt it before I saw it.

I turned just as he passed behind me, close enough that the air between us snapped like a wire pulled too tight.

He didn't touch me.

Didn't have to.

He smelled like expensive aftershave and trouble in oak-aged barrels and moved through the crowd like a shadow. Unhurried, and sure I'd follow.

I didn't.

Not right away.

I went to the bathroom, reapplied lipstick, peed, listened to a couple in the next stall go at it like they were in a soundproof booth. They hadn't even bothered to shut the door. Vegas wasn't exactly known for its self-restraint.

When I stepped back into the club, he was gone. Vanished, like I imagined him.

Maybe I had.

I exhaled a bitter laugh. What did I expect? He'd pull me into his arms and whisper the cure to everything I was trying not to feel?

Most of the guys here were looking for a good time, which was just as well, I decided. After today, I didn't have the capacity for any more heartbreak.

My expectations were more realistic, and I was certainly smarter than that.

I threaded through the press of sweaty bodies grinding to a song with more bass than soul and wondered if they ever considered their mortality.

My breath caught in my throat.

Mr. Whiskey and Damnation hadn't left.

He stood at the bar like a wraith. A predator in a room full of prey pretending he wasn't hunting.

Not sipping his drink. Not scrolling his phone. Poised, like he'd been waiting for something or someone long before I entered the club.

Our eyes locked again.

He tilted his head slightly. Raised his glass once more, this time in clear invitation.

The bass dropped. Lights pulsed red.

He beckoned. No, I was summoned, as if I were already his. Like some lord of the underworld. Not quite Hades himself. But sure as hell from that side of the family.

My skin went cold despite the summer heat. Static hummed, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. The air around him felt charged, like the moment before a lightning strike ripped apart the sky.

Gods, he was beautiful. The kind of man women wrote poetry about and regretted losing for the rest of their lives.

I stared back, then turned on the red pad of my four-inch heels because men like that weren't used to being told no.

Prick.

And I needed a win.

Just one.

His penetrating gaze remained locked on my retreating form as he mapped out my exit route.

Outside, the haze in the sky suggested two o'clock in the morning. The strip still pulsed with life, the party still hours away from stopping.

Discarded xxx club adverts and the sour edge of spilled liquor gummed up the sidewalk. While casinos tried to lure one in with gaudy carpet and flashing lights meant to soothe your prefrontal cortex into complacency.

I reached for my purse.

Gone.

Panic. Then logic. Had I left it in the stall? Dropped it by the bar? Had it been lifted? I couldn't say.

What would they steal? A cracked phone, twenty bucks, a half a tube of lipstick and the hospital discharge paperwork folded in a side pocket.

Let them have it.

I stared down the strip at the Neon signs and lamented the lack of cab fare.

I pulled off a heel. My arch screamed, but I was used to that.

It wasn't like I hadn't walked the twenty miles home barefoot before.

I could do it again. Probably. I wasn't even that drunk this time.

Removing the other shoe, I took a step forward, only to be revulsed entirely. Someone had spat on the sidewalk, and I had just put my foot in it. At least I hoped it was spit. I couldn't bring myself to examine it any more closely.

I hadn't even made it half a block before the car appeared. His car. As though he knew I'd be right here, broke and barefoot.

A black, sleek devil mobile that rolled under the red glow of a sinful-looking sign and slid to a halt. The engine was barely above a whisper. The window glided down.

He leaned into view, one hand resting on the wheel, his voice velvet.

"Get in," he said. I'll take you home." His smile was sensual and inviting.

I didn't answer, considering my options. I could walk twenty miles in blistered silence, without fare, wearing a dress that was no longer cute at midnight.

I took a breath and slid into the seat.

Sometimes you take the devil's ride.

His scent hit me immediately. Not cologne this time. Older. Earthier. Like wild things, warm spice and-

Fate.

The door clicked shut behind me.

He didn't speak. Neither did I.

The air between us thrummed.

He tapped the wheel once, thoughtfully. "You're braver than most."

"I've veered over into stupidity," I corrected. My gaze straight forward, staring out the windshield.

His laugh was low. Dangerous.

"No," he said. "You just want something bad enough to risk everything for it.

"And what is it you think I want?"

He turned to me, his gaze like smoke and fortune-telling.

"More."