Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One

by Sarra Cannon

  He’d all but told me this himself, but I had failed to connect the dots.

  Was this really all just a game to him? Were we back to this?

  Azure didn’t even bother to wait for a response from me. She casually grabbed a clean glass from the stack and poured a shot of Blue Frost, filling the glass to the rim so that some of it spilled out onto the floor at her feet.

  She shoved it toward me, the neon liquid sloshing onto my shirt. “Do yourself a favor,” she said. “Drink some of this. Get some clarity before you end up making some huge mistakes that put us all in danger.”

  I wanted to throw it in her face, but instead I took it from her. My hand trembled slightly as I held it, but I didn’t drink it. Not yet.

  Azure rolled her eyes and turned around, going right back to her friends without missing a beat, as if she hadn’t just turned my entire world upside-down all over again.

  I wanted to leave. To walk away from this place and never look back, but in the space of a few short days, my life had become so entangled in this new world it felt like there was no way out.

  Or at least no way out alive.

  I couldn’t leave. Even if Rend had only kissed me to try to convince me to stay or to drag me deeper under his spell, he was still the only one who could offer me any kind of protection from the evil that wanted to destroy my life.

  I needed to stay strong.

  I thought I had faced dangers in my life before this, but my life since receiving those black roses had brought new meaning to the word danger. There was so much darkness surrounding me now, maybe the only way out was to start looking for the light.

  And right now, the light meant taking the veil from my eyes and seeing things for what they really were.

  I downed the shot of Blue Frost, a cold chill spreading through my body like ice through my veins.

  I closed my eyes and held onto the edge of the bar as the magic worked its way through my system. I felt my head begin to clear and my skin cool. My heartbeat slowed back down to normal, control restored.

  I opened my eyes, ready to find my way out of the darkness.

  A Natural

  “Red Dragon.”

  A guy at the far end of the bar snapped his fingers at me, and when I glanced his way, he held up three fingers and tapped them on the top of the bar.

  Normally, snapping your fingers at me will get you damn slapped in your face. Tonight, though, with the shot of Blue Frost cooling me down, I offered him a smile instead.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three other previous customers step to the bar and look my way expectantly. The clarity of mind the potion provided gave me access to memories I never would have been able to recall without it. I remembered each customer and exactly what they’d ordered. Even without looking directly at them, I could tell from the angle and tension in their bodies that they weren’t coming to order something different.

  I lined six glasses up on the bar and poured from two bottles at the same time, my brain working on extra channels, processing the weight and pour of each liquid with no effort.

  All six shots were poured and delivered in less than thirty seconds.

  The customers nodded in appreciation.

  “Thanks,” the guy with three Red Dragons said when I pushed the shots toward him. He looked to be about my age, maybe a few years older. He had long brown hair that dusted the top of his shoulders and light green eyes that were locked on my face.

  He flashed a smile and tucked his hair behind one ear on the left side. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,” he said. “Are you new?”

  “Yes,” I said, smiling back and leaning against the bar. “This is my first night behind the bar slinging drinks.”

  “Well, you’d never know it,” he said. “You’re a natural. I’m Ashton, by the way.”

  He extended his hand to me, and I wiped mine on my jeans and placed it in his. He held onto it a beat too long, but I easily kept my cool.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Franki.”

  “Very nice to meet you, too.” He finally released my hand. “So did you live in New York or—“

  “Oh, no,” I said, confused by his question. “I’ve actually lived in Chicago my whole life. What about you?”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. His head twitched and his smile changed. “I was brought through when I was pretty young,” he said. “I’ve been on this side for the past twenty years, but of course, only free for the past few months or so.”

  “Brought through?” I asked. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  He gave a shake of his head and twisted one of the shot glasses around in a circle. “You know, by the Order. They—”

  Rend’s hand landed on the guy’s shoulder. “Ashton, it’s really nice to see you here again,” he said. The sound came out nice enough, but there was an edge of annoyance there. “I see you’ve met my Franki.”

  My Frankie? Was he jealous?

  “Yeah, she’s doing a great job for it being her first night,” Ashton said. “We were just talking about how she grew up in Chicago.”

  Rend waved his index finger over the three full shot glasses. “Did you have some friends waiting for these?”

  “Oh.” Ashton glanced over toward one of the booths closest to the bar where a few other guys sat. “Yeah, I guess I should probably get these out to them. It was nice to meet you, Franki. I hope we’ll be seeing more of you in here from now on.”

  “You too,” I said, flashing a smile that was perhaps a bit brighter than it would have been had Rend not been watching me, the tension in his shoulders growing with every second that went by.

  “What was that about?” he asked when Ashton had rejoined his friends.

  “We were just talking.” I grabbed a towel from the rack behind me and started wiping the counter with it, forcing Rend to lift his elbow so I could clean under it.

  “Just talking about your personal life and where you live?” He raised his voice. “Franki, you don’t know most of these people. Until you get a feel for what kind of temperament they may have, I think you should be careful not to share anything about your personal and home life with any of these people.”

  “It wasn’t like I gave him my home address,” I said. “Besides, he seemed sweet.”

  Rend shook his head and tightened his jaw. “I don’t want you talking to anyone in here about your personal life, sweet or not,” he said. “There are things about the people who come in here that you don’t understand and you never know who might be working for the Devil.”

  “The Devil already knows where I live, remember? He sent me flowers before I even knew he existed.” I poured a few more drinks for waiting customers. “Besides, I understand a lot more than you think I do. I may not know all the dangers of this world, but I am still the one in control of my own life. Just because I agreed to work here doesn’t mean you own me.”

  His eyes darkened and his shoulders tensed. “I want you to be careful.”

  You want to protect your investment.

  “I am being careful,” I said. “And one thing you need to learn about me is that if you ever hope to earn my trust, you had better start trusting me too.”

  He swallowed and pushed off from the edge of the bar. He looked around at the rest of the people in the bar, taking his time to respond.

  “We’ve only got about an hour left before last call,” he said finally. “You’ve done a great job tonight, but let’s try to get through the rest of this evening without anyone making threats or learning more about you than they need to know.”

  “Yes sir,” I said, saluting him.

  He narrowed his eyes at me, then shook his head. “I’ll see you after your shift,” he said. His eyes softened. “I have something important I want to show you.”

  He walked away, and I let my head fall back slightly. Why did I always have to open my smart mouth and talk back to him? Why couldn’t I make him smile like he had earlier?

  The o
nly thing that made me feel better was that it was obvious from the way he was acting that I was getting under his skin just as much as he was getting under mine.

  The Devil

  Business at the bar slowed to a crawl. I was dying for this last hour to go by faster, so of course, it was the slowest hour of the entire night.

  I busied myself by cleaning up the glassware and wiping down the bar, sweeping the floors and straightening up in general.

  Lyla leaned across the top of the bar and yanked on my hair. “Hey, girl, how was your night?”

  I had never been so happy to see someone. “Great until about half an hour ago when everything slowed down,” I said. “I’m turning into a zombie back here.”

  “Want to sneak out and grab a cigarette with me?” she asked.

  I looked around, mainly checking to see what Azure was up to and whether Rend was paying attention. “Won’t we get in trouble for ducking out early?”

  She shrugged. “Nah. It’s Sunday night and it’s slow,” she said. “Come on, we’ll just pop out for a few minutes and be back before anyone even notices.”

  “Okay,” I said. I tossed the towel into the sink and came around the bar to meet Lyla near the door.

  Azure didn’t even flinch when I walked by.

  Selena nodded as we walked out into the humid night air. “Hi,” she said. “Fun night?”

  Lyly made a face. “Slow,” she said. “But I guess you already know that.”

  Selena laughed.

  The two of us walked down the alley to get away from the main entrance, moving up onto the main street a little more. Lyla leaned against the brick exterior of a nearby restaurant and lit her cigarette. She offered one to me, but I declined.

  The city was alive for me in a way it had never been before. I could hear every sound with complete clarity. Footsteps on the pavement. Laughter from the outdoor patio of the restaurant across the street.

  I could see and register so much of what was going on around me. It was a very cool feeling without being too overwhelming.

  Lyla laughed and I turned to question her.

  “Blue Frost for the first time?” she asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “I’ve seen that look a dozen times before,” she said. “It’s like you’re seeing the world for the first time, right? Noticing every crack in the pavement and hearing every blade of grass as it blows in the wind.”

  I laughed. “Maybe not quite that many details, but yeah. It’s amazing. Rend’s amazing. Do you know where he learned to make all those?”

  “He taught himself, mostly,” she said. “Back in the Shadow World, he had a teacher, but I can’t remember his name. Still, I think he learned most of his alchemy through experimenting in his own lab and shit.”

  “The Shadow World?”

  “I keep forgetting there's so much you don't know,” she said. “Ask Rend about it next time you see him.”

  I thought about the way he'd told me he had something important he wanted to show me. What could it be? With him, there was no use guessing. It could be anything.

  “What's going on there?” Lyla asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on,” she said, laughing. “You and Rend. What’s up?”

  I blushed. What was I supposed to say to that? I guess I knew this was coming. There was no way I was going to be able to hide my feelings from everyone, but at the same time, I knew he wouldn’t want me telling anyone what had really happened between us. Not that I really understood it, anyway.

  This sucked.

  She took another drag from her cigarette. “Damn, you’ve got it bad.”

  “No I don’t,” I said, turning my face away from her and watching a group of girls make their way into the club. I wondered if they realized they had less than half an hour left to drink and dance before closing?

  “Oh yes you do,” Lyla said. “You are one hundred percent fucked.”

  I snapped my head toward her. “What do you mean? No, I’m not.”

  She shook her head. “Rend is complicated, to say the least,” she said. “But I know there’s no talking you out of it now. You’re already in love with him.”

  I pressed my lips together and raised my chin. My insides twisted. “No, I’m not in love with him,” I said. “I just like him. A lot.”

  “Uh huh,” she said, obviously not buying it. “Just be careful, okay? Rend can be amazing. He can be the first person to pull a girl off the streets and he’d do anything to keep us all safe from the Order or the Others. But at the same time, I’ve seen him do things that have haunted my dreams for months.”

  Her face went pale and the expression was like a dagger in my gut.

  “What kinds of things?” I asked, my mouth dry.

  “Do you know what it means? His name?” she asked.

  “Rend?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Rend. To tear something into two or more pieces. It’s not his real name, you know. Just a nickname he got a very long time ago for doing exactly that to vampires and witches who crossed him in any way.”

  My heart stopped beating for a moment and my mouth opened, but I couldn’t even think of what to say. I felt suddenly very cold. “He tore them apart?”

  “Literally. He’s not going to do that to you,” she said. “You’re one of his girls. He wouldn’t hurt you. I just think you should be careful. He’s worked hard to get himself under control, but with guys like him, you just never know when something’s gonna set them off? You know?”

  She patted my shoulder and threw her cigarette to the ground. She lit a second one, and I glanced back toward the club, thinking of the bite marks on my neck. I'd forgotten to recast the glamour throughout the night and prayed they were still hidden.

  Just when I considered excusing myself to go inside and go to the bathroom, a strange man caught my eye. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from him. He was tall and thin, dressed in a perfectly tailored pinstripe suit with a red tie. There was something about him that unnerved me and made me instantly afraid. It was as if there was a darkness that surrounded him.

  He strolled out of the shadows and opened the door to Venom, a thin-lipped smile teasing the corners of his mouth.

  Lyla continued to talk about relationships, which turned into a rant about men in general, but I was barely paying attention to her.

  I couldn’t get the strange man out of my head.

  Panic gathered in my core, eating away at me. Something was wrong. I could feel it in every fiber of my being, but I had no idea what to do about it.

  “What’s wrong?” Lyla asked, tossing her last cigarette to the ground and stomping it out with her high heeled boots. “Franki? You okay?”

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was thick with worry.

  The group of girls who'd walked in a few moments ago came running back out through the club’s front door, their screams echoing off the building across from us.

  “Shit, something’s up.” Lyla grabbed my arm and started to run toward the club, but I held my ground.

  I pulled her back into the shadows with me, crouching low.

  “What?” she asked.

  I put my finger over her mouth and shook my head. I couldn’t find my voice, and I certainly didn’t know how to explain what I was feeling, but I followed my instincts. Stay hidden. Wait for Rend.

  Lyla nodded back and leaned against the bricks here in the half-shadows at the mouth of the alley. Her eyes were wide and filled with panic.

  Another scream rang out into the night. Slowly, a shadow of a man walked out from the entrance to the club. It was the same man I’d seen walk through just a few seconds ago, but he was only half-formed. Part shadow, part man. His eyes burned red.

  In his hand, he held a silver dagger coated in red blood. He took his time, pulling a pristine white cloth from his pocket and wiping each side of the blade on it. He tucked the dagger back into his coat and threw the discarded white cloth onto the ground.
>
  I stared at the streaks of bright red blood that stained the cloth.

  My hand rose to my mouth. Whose blood was that?

  But I didn’t have to wonder for long. The door to the club opened one last time and a woman stumbled through, falling to her knees as blood ran from a large wound in her side. She reached for him, barely grabbing the back of his pants before collapsing completely onto the graveled pavement in the alley.

  Selena.

  Hot tears filled my eyes. Lyla tried to stand, but I held onto her for dear life, suddenly sure of who the shadowed man must be. And who he had come here to find.

  I stared at Selena, torn between staying hidden and going to try to help her. But the light was already dimming in her beautifully clear eyes. There was nothing anyone could do to help her now.

  She groaned and let her head fall to the pavement.

  I couldn’t believe we were going to just hide here, watching her die. Where was Rend?

  I shook my head as tears streamed down my face.

  I’m so sorry, I wanted to tell her. This is all my fault.

  I knew she couldn’t hear me, but I could swear for an instant, her eyes locked with mine. She saw me and her lips parted. She sucked in a surprised breath, then struggled to lift her head from the ground.

  The Devil, in his half-shadowed form, looked down at her and laughed. “Die already,” he said. “I need to get inside that club.”

  Selena’s blood ran like a river against the ground, but she managed to move her hand toward the pocket of her jeans. With labored movements, she reached inside her pocket and pulled something out. Her palm opened and I caught a glimpse of a small clear bead with a red spark glowing inside.

  I gasped.

  Rend’s gift to her earlier tonight.

  I couldn’t breath as I watched her hand close around the small bead. Then, with her eyes locked on mine, she gave me a sad smile and mouthed a singled word.

  Run.

  With her last breath, she gathered her strength and squeezed.