The door creaked open. Sebastian’s heart pumped against his chest as he set the mug on the counter, careful to make no sound. Just as silently, he eased the biggest knife he had out of the wood block. Maybe he wouldn’t win, but he’d go down fighting.

“Sebastian?” a voice called. “Sebastian? You here?”

He knew that voice, but he still hesitated. Then he swore silently and slipped the knife back into its slot. There were very few things in the Den that couldn’t be bought, but trust was one of them.

Moving to the doorway that separated the kitchen from the main living area, he peered into the room and studied his visitor.

The other incubus stood on the threshold, almost bouncing with nerves. Yet his eyes were bright with curiosity as he looked at the simple furniture and the framed sketches on the walls.

“What do you want, Teaser?” Sebastian asked.

If Teaser noticed the harsh note in Sebastian’s voice, he ignored it and bounded into the main room. Then he stopped, spun around, and closed the outer door before moving toward Sebastian with the cocky swagger that was at odds with his blond hair, blue eyes, and boyish good looks. Women were often deceived into believing he acted the way he looked.

With Teaser, sometimes that was a serious mistake.

As youths, they had trolled the Den’s streets together—blond-haired, blue-eyed Teaser projecting an image of a boy out for a bit of naughty fun, while Sebastian was the handsome piece of danger with his sable hair and sharp green eyes. They’d played their games of seduction, providing physical sex to women who crossed over to the Den from the daylight landscapes or using the power of the incubi to connect with another mind through the twilight of waking dreams, feeding on the emotions they created by being fantasy lovers. Unhappy wives. Foolish girls who wanted the romance of a mysterious admirer. Lonely women who craved the warmth of a lover, even if that lover came to them only in dreams. They were all prey to the incubi.

For five years, he and Teaser had rented adjoining rooms at an expensive bordello and trolled the Den. Then, when he turned twenty, Sebastian could no longer ignore a growing need for something beyond the Den and the sexual games, so he walked away from the colored lights and the dark buildings. He found a dirt lane that began a few steps away from where the Den’s main street ended—a lane he was certain hadn’t been there before. He followed it, not sure if he was just taking a walk or really leaving the one place he’d felt at home.