Chapter 55 Sinner's Hustle

Chapter 55 Sinner's Hustle
Ryker’s POV

The air in the lower vaults of Salvation smelled like old iron, damp earth, and the lingering scent of failure—my favorite cologne. I moved through the shadows with a predatory silence, my leather jacket open, my eyes scanning the darkness for the traces of the psychic rot I'd smelled on the High Plateau.

I was a hunter. I was a demon born from a stillborn soul. I had spent my entire existence being the monster that other monsters feared. But as I traced the path that Seraphina’s little witch, Lyra, had taken to the supply room, my inner beast was doing something it hadn't done in centuries: it was pacing. It was snarling. It was demanding a blood sacrifice for the human girl who currently owned my thoughts like a goddamn mortgage.

Amaya.

She was a brat. She was stubborn. She was a pharmacist who probably still thought that 'danger' was an expired bottle of aspirin. But when she’d fallen... when I’d seen that tether dissolve into oily black filth... I’d felt a surge of possessive rage that had nearly unmasked my demonic form in front of the whole school.

She was mine. Not because of a prophecy. Not because the Council said so. But because I had put my fire in her. I had tasted her mouth, I had claimed her body in the Pits, and I had seen the 'teeth' she was so afraid to use. She was a masterpiece in progress, and those over-bleached pigeons thought they could drop her into the abyss?

I found the residue on a discarded spool of celestial silk. It was faint—a shimmering, necrotic slime that smelled of envy and spoiled milk. Lyra’s signature. She’d used a necrotic hex to weaken the anchor points.

"You're thinking about the way her neck felt under your thumb, aren't you?"

I didn't need to look. Scarlet was there, leaning against a damp stone pillar, her fiery red hair a low, smoldering ember in the gloom. She was holding a heavy iron bar, her amber eyes narrow and assessing. The she-wolf looked like she’d been through a blender, her own training gear torn and stained with basalt dust.

"I’m thinking about how many pieces I can cut Lyra into before she stops screaming," I growled, my voice a low, gravelly rasp.

Scarlet took a step forward, her posture defensive. "Amaya is pack, Reyes. I told you that. And I told you that I’m her protector. I saw the way you looked at her when the Saint caught her. You didn't look like a mentor. You looked like a wolf who’d just lost his mate."

I smirked, a jagged, dangerous expression. "Mate? I’m a demon, Scarlet. We don't do mates. We do conquests. We do possessions. And Amaya Janice is a very, very valuable possession."

Scarlet didn't flinch. She stepped into my personal space, her wolf-scent—pine and damp earth—clashing with my sulfur. "Call it whatever you want to satisfy your ego. But if you use her... if you lead her into a trap to spite the angel... I’ll be the one to rip your throat out. I don't care how many dark entities you’ve consumed. She’s the only person who ever looked at me and saw a sister, not a mistake."

"The Saint and I have an agreement," I said, surprising both of us. "We’ve identified the enemy. It’s not each other. Not yet. We both want her safe. We both want her to be strong. So stay out of my way while I hunt the ones who touched her tether."

Scarlet studied me for a long moment, the tension in her shoulders slowly ebbing. "Fine. But Amaya is starting a club. An Outcast Club. Chiro is in. I’m in. And we’re going to decode that book she stole. Don't think you can walk in and take over."

"I don't want to take over," I murmured, my gaze drifting to the shadows where I could still feel Amaya’s resonance—bright, silver, and currently thrumming with a new kind of power. "I just want to be the one standing there when she finally realizes that she doesn't need to be saved. She needs to be unleashed."

I turned away from the wolf, my mind already calculating the next move. I wasn't just going to protect Amaya. I was going to make sure that the next time she fell, it was because she wanted to be in my bed, not because someone pushed her. The Saint could have his prayers. I’d take the vengeance. And when I was done with Seraphina and Lyra, they’d wish they’d stayed in the human world, where the monsters at least have the decency to hide.