“If I am the piper, then yes.”

“Seriously?” Mac glowered at him. “Can’t you just do something out of the goodness of your heart for once?”

“Perhaps. If I had a heart.” His slate-gray eyes were so cold that I believed him when he said it.

Yet I’d felt the heat in him, so deeply buried beneath the ice.

There was a heart in there, albeit one that no longer worked. Sure, it pumped blood—vampires weren’t undead like I’d believed when I’d known nothing about this world—but his heart was probably as shriveled as he seemed to imagine.

Almost.

Mac crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you want, O Heartless One?”

“Carrow’s help with the issue that I requested earlier.”

My mind raced. “Will you let me go if I don’t help you?”

“No.”

Still, he might let me go. I knew he wasn’t a total bastard. There’d been a connection when he’d bitten me.

But I had a big problem with the Council, and it seemed to all stem from my lack of control over my magic. I had to learn how to control it. I could feel it inside me, growing.

Mac and Eve had tried to help, even Quinn. But they hadn’t understood it any better than I had. The tricks they used to control their signatures didn’t work for me.

But the Devil…

He was powerful. And old. He would know all the tricks.

“Help me learn to control my magic,” I said. “I don’t know how you got me out of there, but I can’t imagine it’s permanent. You’re right. They want me for something, and I need to learn how to hide my magic. I don’t want them to give them anything.”

“You’re very clever,” he said.

“Of course I am.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “As it happens, that is one of the conditions of your release. You must learn to control your magic—not only so you follow the rules of Guild City, but so you might join a guild.” He inclined his head to the side. “And from a more practical standpoint, you don’t want them to know how powerful you are.”

“You’ll help me?”

“Indeed. You’re under my protection, as it were.”

“Control, you mean.”

He shrugged. “Semantics.”

“Control. You got me out, and you can convince them to throw me back in.”

“Not if you become proficient enough in magic that you enter a guild. Then you’ll be a law-abiding citizen, and they can’t touch you.”

“That won’t stop them from trying,” Mac said.

“Perhaps. But they’ll have less of a leg to stand on.”

Mac looked at me and the Devil, her expression calculating. “I want you to promise you’ll have her back with the Council even after all of this is over.”

“Done.” He spoke the words so quickly that it surprised me.

“Good.” Mac appeared pleased.

The Devil looked at me. “I will train you.”

A shiver of heat ran through me, an icy-hot sensation that made my nerve endings light up. The idea of being trained by the Devil of Darkvale made my heartrate skyrocket.

I nodded. “Good. And I’ll help you with the guy who broke in through your gate.”

“It’s a deal.”

A wicked deal.

“Let’s get it over with, then.” I looked at Mac. “I’ll see you at home.”

She nodded, then glared at the Devil. “You be careful. I’m watching you.”

“Of course.”

I hugged Mac quickly. “Thanks again for coming to get me.”

“Yeah. ’Course.”

I said goodbye and followed the Devil through the streets, every cell of me aware of him. We were at odds, yet somehow, that made the attraction more intense.

“You really don’t know why this guy tried to break into your club?” I asked.

“No idea.”

“And he’s waiting there for us.”

“Yes. Waiting.”

His tone on the last word was weird. “Oh crap, he’s dead, isn’t he? That’s why you can’t question him, and you need me.”

He shot me a look that I could almost describe as apologetic. “He died upon passing through the gate. It’s a spell that takes out anyone who uses it that shouldn’t.”

“That’s terrible!”

“He was warned. You can feel the magic as you pass though.”

“He must have been desperate.”

“He had a charm breaker on him that he thought would work. He was too cocky. He entered my club for a reason, and I want to know what it is.”

“Fine. I’ll touch the body.” I shivered at the idea of it. I disliked touching dead things, full stop, but there was something deeper and darker at work here. I could feel it. “I’ll help you with this, and then you’ll help me practice my magic. I’m going to get good, and I’m going to do it quickly.”

“I believe it.”

We’d arrived at the tall stone tower that contained his club. The façade was dark and intimidating, and I knew the interior to be no better. It suited him perfectly.

The two shifter bouncers inclined their heads and opened the doors.

I nodded at them, then muttered. “They’re much better than Penelope and Garreth.”

“My guards will never lock you up.”

“Hmm. Not sure if I believe that.”

In the small entranceway, he turned to me. “I am serious. You are safe here.”

The intensity in his voice made me shiver.

Cursed Mates.

If he was determined to protect me—because he was, I could feel it—then why were we Cursed Mates? Where did the “cursed” come in?

I needed to learn a hell of a lot more about this. And eventually ask him.

Not now, though.

Miranda, the hostess who stood behind the podium, beamed at us. She wore the same black-pencil-skirt-and-blouse uniform as usual, looking perfectly pressed and deadly.

The Devil stopped briefly in front of her. “How are things?”

“Going smoothly as usual. The body is waiting for you.” Her gaze flicked to me, calculating. “I hope you’re right about her.”

Irritation blazed, followed by the slightest prick of jealously. There was more between these two than just club owner and hostess.

But I should not be jealous.

That was nuts.

“Thank you, Miranda.”

The Devil and I departed, and as we entered one of the many dark, labyrinthine hallways, I leaned toward him. “She’s not just the hostess, is she?”

“She’s my second in command. A banshee. Smart and deadly.”

I grinned, begrudgingly liking the idea of this Miranda. I never held on to jealousy long, and I liked the idea of a banshee second. Honestly, I liked this whole new world. It scared the crap out of me sometimes, but it was impossible not to think about how cool it was.

A frisson began to prickle at my skin as we approached a door at the end of the hall. We’d avoided the club entirely, and we were nearly to the body.

“We don’t have to stay long,” the Devil said, sounding a bit uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong with you?”

He hesitated, his brow creasing. “I…find myself uncomfortable making you do this.”

My eyebrows shot all the way to my hairline. “What?”

He just shrugged.

“Huh.” Surprising. He was so ruthless and efficient. The fact that he was feeling guilty about twisting my arm was… “That’s unexpected.”

“I could not agree more. Come.” The iceman had returned, ruthlessly dragged to the surface, it seemed. He turned and opened the door.

I followed him into the small room. There was a table in the middle, and on it was a body. It appeared to be completely uninjured, though it reeked of dead fish.

I held my nose. “What the heck is that?”

“That is dark magic.”

“Whew, it’s foul.” Mac had explained to me that dark magic had terrible signatures—it reeked, sounded awful, and felt even worse. But this was more than I’d imagined.

“It makes it easy to determine those with ill intent, at the very least.”

“And he didn’t control his signature like you do?”

“Not as well, no. Guild City is fairly unique in that. It’s part of our culture—our laws—to require all supernaturals to keep careful control of their signatures. Only powerful supernaturals can do that, which requires everyone in the city to work hard at it. The rest of the world doesn’t care as much.”

“Humans don’t notice that supernaturals have magical signatures?”

“No. Their senses are less attuned to it, and when they do pick up on it, they blame it on something else.”

“Yet Guild City is fanatic about it.”

“It’s been that way for hundreds of years. It helps us hide better. We’re one of the few cities of our kind—enormous yet hidden within an even larger human settlement. We need to be more careful than, say, Magic’s Bend in America because our shield spell is different than theirs. That city is located far from human settlements and can be more lenient with the rules.”

“I think I might like it better there.”

“Plenty of people do.”

I’d been joking, mostly. I couldn’t imagine any place better than Guild City. But we were standing over a corpse that reeked of fish, and maybe Magic’s Bend had fewer of those.

I turned to the body and inspected it. The guy’s dark magic was so pungent and obvious that I felt a little bit less bad about his death. He didn’t necessarily look like a jerk, but I had a feeling that if he’d been alive and I’d been able to look into his eyes, I wouldn’t have liked what I saw there.

Shaking slightly, not certain I wanted to see what he would reveal to me, I pressed my fingertips to his cold arm.