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  I nod and slip out from in between the guys, blowing them a kiss over my shoulder and giggling when I catch both of them checking out my butt. Lexi and I move through the crowd, both of us trying to avoid the wandering hands that come our way. One guy dressed as a twenties mobster pulls me into his body unexpectedly, and starts trying to grind against me. Lexi looks back at my predicament and huffs. She pops over to where I’m trapped.

  “Why don’t you just shock him or something,” she yells over the noise, not looking overly concerned at the moves Mr. Mobster is pulling behind me.

  I shake my head. I don’t feel comfortable using my powers on regular humans, even ones as annoying as this creep. Lexi rolls her eyes at my obvious reluctance and pulls me forward, blasting a well placed knee into the man’s groin unexpectedly. He gasps in pain and releases me quickly. Not bothering to look back, we continue to make our way back to the bar, our pathway a little bit clearer since there were witnesses to Lexi’s willingness to make it hurt where it counts. As we walk, I glance up and think I see Eric again. Just like before, whoever it is disappears before I can tell for sure. It gives me an uneasy feeling nonetheless. Eric and I haven’t seen eye to eye lately, mostly because I’m pretty sure he’s in love with me and the feeling isn’t mutual. I keep hoping that we can just be friends but his possessiveness and jealousy, traits that he takes to the extreme in a very unattractive way, have been making clear that it’s probably not a possibility.

  I get to the bar where Lexi has already ordered the house shot for the night. It’s fittingly called a “poisoned apple” shot, and like its namesake, it’s a dark purple, almost black in color. The bartender lights it on fire and I stare at it dubiously while Lexi throws it back without a second thought. When she doesn’t die, or get burned from the inside, I follow her lead. It tastes like a syrupy grape juice and I grimace.

  “Eva,” comes a voice behind me suddenly.

  I turn around and am almost relieved when I see that it’s Eric. At least I didn’t imagine it when I thought I saw him a moment ago. I try to push out of my mind the fact that I thought I saw him at the premiere as well. Hopefully that was just a coincidence.

  He’s dressed as some sort of cavemen, complete with loincloth and club. Looking at him objectively I know that he isn’t bad looking, and that many girls would find him extremely attractive. I just have never been able to think of him that way since I had already seen a picture of Damon before I met Eric. Eric just couldn’t compare with the overwhelming gorgeousness of my trio.

  He kisses my cheek and I try not to take a step back when I almost choke on the fumes of alcohol coming off of him. He’s evidently had an entire tub full of those poisoned apple shots tonight. His eyes are bloodshot and slightly glazed, but they don’t hide the yearning in his eyes as he looks at me.

  “Are you having fun?” he asks me, his voice slurring just a bit as he speaks.

  “I am,” I say, struggling to be heard when the crowd gives a raucous cheer over a Rihanna song that’s just starting.

  There’s an awkward silence between us that deepens in its awkwardness when he continues to stare at me.

  “Who are you here with?” I ask, trying to make some conversation before I make an excuse to leave. Looking around I see that Lexi isn’t going to be much help since she’s currently making out with a man dressed as some kind of bear creature. Luckily for her, his costume is only neck down or that would present a furry predicament during their makeout session.

  I don’t hear what he says because right at that moment I spot a man dressed in a silver masquerade mask staring at me from across the bar area. Although half of his face is hidden, there’s no hiding from me that it’s Damon. His ebony hair is so shiny that the strobe lights reflect off of it. His piercing green eyes are staring at me mockingly while he sips a glass full of what I know is his favorite scotch. He’s just daring me to ditch Eric and come over to him.

  I don’t take the bait. Turning to Eric, I try and give him my full attention for at least a minute, not to make Damon jealous, but at least not to make it too easy. I nod at whatever Eric is saying, and then immediately regret it when I realize that I’ve just agreed to have lunch with him the following day. We use to get at least one meal a day together when we first met, but when it became something that was mandatory no matter what else was going on in my life, I had tried to limit it.

  Eric covers my hand that’s resting on the bar with his and begins to stroke it, making me extremely uncomfortable. I’m not so naive to think this was normal “friends” behavior.

  I try to nonchalantly pull my hand away like I need it back to scratch my face, but I don’t miss the look of fury that flashes in his eyes when I do so. When he turns to order another drink, I decide to make an escape.

  “I see Damon over there. I’m going to go say hello. It was good to see you,” I bluster out as I quickly walk away from him. Once I’ve gotten far enough away to know that Eric isn’t going to unexpectedly grab me, I turn my attention back to my fallen angel...who’s currently being waylaid by Selena.

  She’s dressed in a nurse outfit that basically acts like a pasty for her breasts with how much I can see of them. She’s sexy as usual, but I know her well enough to know how ugly she really is inside.

  Pretending like she doesn’t exist, I inch my way in between Selena and my lover, winding my arms around his neck and pulling him down to my level for a kiss. Our lips don’t even break contact when he scoops me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist. I forget all about Eric and Selena as I get lost in my dominant angel’s embrace.

  I faintly hear Selena utter an angry expletive and walk away, but I don’t bother to watch her go. We’re in a crowd of hundreds of people, but in that moment, it’s just him and I.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” I whisper to him when we briefly break for air.

  “So am I, baby,” he says, his voice even deeper than usual from the passion of our kiss. “Especially when you act this happy to see me.”

  “I’m always happy to see you,” I tell him, unable to hide the strange longing in my voice when I think of my time spent away from him and the others.

  His eyes become a little glossy, full of a mixture of emotions that are hard to read. I love how open he is with showing me how he feels. He never shies away from proving to me I’m the most important thing in his life.

  The moment feels a little too heavy for a Halloween party in a teeming club.

  “You should have let your wings out,” I tell him with what hopefully looks like a flirtatious wink.

  Damon’s wings are extremely sensitive...in a sexual way. And it’s one of my favorite pastimes to use them to torture him for hours at a time.

  “Turnabout is fair play, baby,” he murmurs, licking his lips briefly as if he could still taste me on them. With that, I decide that I’m ready to leave.

  One of the rules I have is that the guys choose who I’m going to spend the night with. I don’t want to ever seem like I’m picking favorites or that one of them is consistently getting more attention from me. Tonight it feels like agony that they don’t like to all sleep in the same bed. The thought of being seperated from any of them is torture considering all the ways they’ve blown my mind tonight.

  Looking around I realize that Lexi has disappeared from sight. Last time I saw her she looked like she was about to be swallowed by that bear costume guy, but it isn’t like her to disappear without saying anything to me, even for a guy.

  “Do you see Lexi anywhere?” I ask Damon who’s watching in amusement as a guy dressed in a chicken costume strikes out with girl after girl on the dance floor. He looks around at my comment.

  “Wasn’t she with that furry fellow?” he asks.

  I nod and grab his hand, pulling him towards where Mason and Beckham are chatting and people watching at a table near where I left them. I look for Lexi as we walk, but there’s no sign of her.

  “Has Lexi been over here?” I ask Mason and Beckham, wh
o both stand up at the worried look on my face.

  They start looking around as well. Suddenly Beckham bursts into laughter, looking at something over my shoulder. Slightly annoyed that he’s laughing when Lexi is still missing, I turn around to see what’s caught his attention. He’s laughing at Lexi.

  Lexi and the bear guy are apparently having a dance off in the middle of the dance floor. Lexi has managed to collect an assortment of odds and ends from different costumes. She’s got a feather boa around her neck, a witch’s hat on her head, and glowsticks in both hands. She’s executing a series of complicated moves that resemble what would happen if you had a seizure much more than they do any dancing. As soon as she finishes one move, the bear guy tries to replicate her. As out of it as everyone is, people are clapping and cheering for both terrible dancers.

  I groan. “I think it’s time to take Lexi home,” I tell the guys, and they nod, none of them bothering to hide their amusement over Lexi’s latest antics.

  “Let’s go before she zaps someone,” Damon says, I’m sure remembering the many times he’s been on the receiving end of her power.

  We push our way through the crowd. When Lexi sees me, she throws her arms around me, almost knocking me over with her enthusiasm.

  “Are you watching how amazing I am?” she asks, her words hard to understand. She must have ordered a few more shots after I got waylaid by Eric.

  “Time to go home,” I tell her.

  She groans but begins to walk with me off the dance floor, leaving the poor bear guy staring pitifully after her.

  “Sleepover?” she asks, leaning on me heavily.

  “Of course,” I tell her, coming to the conclusion that there are going to be no happy endings for me tonight.

  We make our way out of the club, the guys taking turns helping me hold Lexi up so I don’t topple over from her dead weight. We all get back into the limo since apparently Mason and Damon had just had their drivers drop them off. Lexi falls asleep on my lap and begins to snore loudly. I look around at the guys and can’t help but grin.

  “Thank you for a fun night,” I tell them, a little emotion leaking into my voice. “If this is what Halloween is like, count me in,” I say with a grin.

  Mason, who’s sitting next to me, puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close, kissing me softly on my forehead.

  “Just wait until tomorrow night when we go to that haunted house,” says Damon, who’s leaning back on the seat across from us with his eyes closed. “We’ll see if you are thanking us then.”

  Beckham, who’s sitting next to Damon, just winks at me and closes his eyes too.

  “I think Halloween is my new favorite thing,” I tell them with a yawn, snuggling closer to Mason, everyone I love around me.

  Epilogue

  Eric

  I groggily begin to stir from what was evidently a pretty deep sleep. I drank way too much last night. I can’t even remember how I made it home. I try to push myself up and freeze when my hand slips in some kind of liquid. I begin to tremble when I realize that I’m laying on the scuffed wood floor of the club I followed Eva to last night, and that the liquid on my hand resembles blood. Staring at the crimson smear across my hand, my throat starts burning and I get the intense urge to lick it off. I bring my hand towards my mouth almost unwillingly, like the iron scent of the blood has cast a spell on me and is forcing my compliance. Right before my hand gets to my lips, I yank my hand away.

  I stand up slowly, staring wildly around the club. Forgotten masks and costume props are strewn all over the floor and there’s puddles where drinks have spilled. The smell of sweat and sex is still heavy in the air, but underneath that scent, is the scent of blood. And it smells like the most delectable thing I have ever come across. What the fuck does that mean?

  As I look around the room, I realize that my neck is aching. Did I hurt it during practice yesterday? I shouldn’t have drank so much. I begin to drag myself to what looks like the entrance I came in last night. My whole body feels heavy, like I’m dragging fifty pounds of extra weight. I pass by a mirror that’s bolted to the wall on my way to the door. I stop in surprise at my appearance.

  My neck looks like someone has torn chunks out of it. It’s a bloody mess of shredded skin. Looking at it, I can’t believe that I’m not in more pain...or that I’m not dead. I pull my shaking hand to touch it, watching my terrified, pale reflection in the mirror as I do so.

  “The venom in the bite has numbing properties,” comes a smooth, cold voice to the side of me.

  I yank my head around so fast that I give a shrill scream when pain slices through me.

  “There’s some pain of course, especially with a bite like that. But not nearly the agony you would be in normally.”

  The voice belongs to a little girl who’s standing about five feet away from me, looking at me with a bemused look on her face. Her voice is a contrast to her innocent appearance. She looks about ten or eleven, with hair done up in perfect black ringlets and ice blue eyes. She’s dressed in a frilly white dress that somehow manages to make her unnaturally pale skin even paler. She resembles a china doll, and I’m confused what she’s doing in a club.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. “Are your parents around?”

  I cradle my neck which is beginning to ache. My stomach is beginning to hurt, I feel terrible, and there’s a burning sensation in my throat as if I haven’t drank anything in a year. Nothing is making sense right now.

  She just keeps looking at me, that same look on her face as if she’s in on a joke that I’m the butt of.

  “Do you feel anything else strange?” she asks mildly, as if she didn’t hear the questions I asked.

  Examining her closely, her skin looks unnaturally shiny and smooth. Almost as perfect as Eva’s. She smiles at me and I begin to shake. I can clearly see that her two upper incisor teeth are unnaturally sharp, and I watch in fascinated horror as blood starts to trickle down her mouth. It splatters against the pristine whiteness of her dress and presents a gruesome contrast.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I say, the strange burning in my throat beginning to feel like I’m burning alive from the inside.

  She still doesn’t answer my question, her smile only growing wider.

  “Kenley,” she calls out, and a moment later a woman appears, the same shiny, perfectness to her face even though the grey in her hair suggests she’s closer to middle age.

  “Yes, Mistress?” she asks, her voice calm as if she sees nothing wrong with the fact that she’s standing in the middle of a club with a child with blood coming out of her mouth, and a college kid who has a massive wound in his neck.

  “May I borrow you for a second?” the girl asks this ‘Kenley’ person.

  Immediately, the woman sinks to her knees and holds out her wrist submissively.

  With horror I watch as the little girl’s already unnaturally sharp incisors lengthen, and she bares her teeth before attacking the woman’s wrist, tearing her wrist open until blood starts to drip freely from it.

  I want to run, hide, call the cops...anything, but at the same time, I have the urge to taste the crimson drops that are now creating a puddle on the floor.

  “Come here, Eric,” the little girl commands and I find myself obeying her, treading slowly to where she is holding Kenley’s wrist out to me, like it’s a gift.

  The burning sensation, which I have now recognized as extreme hunger, rages inside of me, and all of a sudden I somehow know that the only thing that’s going to be able to quench it is the scarlet drops in front of me.

  I find myself reaching out for the woman’s wrist, my hand shaking as I realize I’m about to take a step I will never return from. As I get closer to her wrist, I feel the little girl’s hand pushing my head towards the blood.

  “That’s it, almost there,” she says, her voice sickeningly sweet.

  As my lips close over the wound, and I taste the first sips of the woman’s salty, tangy blood, the girl whispers
in my ear.

  “Welcome to the family.”

  To be continued...

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  I’m fully aware that Eva would have been in captivity during Halloween if I was following the proper timeline of the Fated Wings Series. However, since Aiden messed up all of the fun Eva wanted to have in the last book, this is what we get when I decide I really want to write a Halloween story about Eva and her men. I hope you enjoyed reading about Eva’s first Halloween in New York City. If you’re new to Eva and her men, I hope you check out the series. I tried not to include too many spoilers just in case there were any first time readers. Thank you as always for reading...Happy Halloween!!!

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  Read on for a sneak peek at the first book in my Timeless Affection series….

  Lamented Pasts Preview

  The Timeless Affection Series Book 1

  C. R. Jane

  Lamented Pasts by C. R. Jane

  Copyright © 2019 by C. R. Jane

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, and except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.