Cage’s POV:
Blood looks beautiful on polished leather.
The bastard’s still breathing. That’s my first mistake.
See, when you’re the “Porcelain Prince” of the most in-demand boy band in the world, people expect pretty. Pretty face, perfect smile, badass body. What they don’t know is that a monster has been growing behind that mask.
Ziggy Kwan made me. Broke me. Used me. Tonight, I’m returning the favor with interest and fangs.
But the sick fuck’s been busy. He knows things. Has pictures. The kind that could burn my world down and take my brothers with it.
Here’s the thing about cages, though—sometimes the thing inside is more dangerous than what’s trying to keep it locked up.
Welcome to my nightmare, Ziggy. Hope you choke on it.
CHAPTER I
Cage
I push the door slowly and step inside, one shiny black shoe in front of the other. The shoes must always be perfect for these occasions. There’s something about the trail of blood splattering onto the leather when I finish with them that fulfills me. Each taste of vengeance is worth celebrating. This right here is so much more than feeding.
Muffled women’s moans are like background vocals in each and every one of these situations, because most of these sick bastards are usually having their way with a number of them. I’ve learned to plan my hits around these nights. I push aside the glittery curtain that shields his crib from the sitting area, adding visuals to the sounds. Ziggy Kwan’s sweaty white belly glistens in the light from the city skyline, his black silk robe open and hanging at his sides as a woman half his age pleasures him with her mouth. Another pair of hands slither around his body, while he pours champagne over the girl’s small white breasts, and licks the liquid greedily off her brown nipples.
The girls are putting up a good act, but I can smell their disgust in their pheromones. I can see it in the finest twitches of their face muscles. But in the end, there’s competition for the privilege of sleeping with one of the most powerful media moguls in the city, and hell, who am I to judge. There aren’t many other ways to get to the top for girls like them, not with men like Ziggy Kwan running their world.
Which is one other reason I’m going to enjoy this.
My fangs push long and sharp out of my gums, redness heating up my eyes as it seeps into my irises. The scent of hormones and body fluids creeps up my nostrils, making them flare as feral thirst travels up my throat. I take a few moments to picture all the ways I could do this. I could move as smoothly as a ribbon of silk, and they wouldn’t even know I’m close until it’s too late.
The bastard wouldn’t know what’s coming at him until I’ve grabbed what’s left of his hair, pulled his head back, and stared him red-hot in the eye before I exposed my fangs to him. I’d bathe in the satisfaction of his horror before I sank my fangs into his flesh and took the first drag of his blood that would taste of sugar, disease, and cocaine.
But I can’t do that. I can’t show him just how weak and powerless he actually is, how exposed to my whims. I’m gonna enjoy revealing to him how the tables have turned since we first met. But I have to get the girls out of the way first. Hypnosis has long ago stopped being a viable way to keep them silent. You never know when memories can start coming back to them.
I clear my throat.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had company tonight. I was in the area, and I thought I’d come up. Since you said last week I could visit anytime I pleased.”
Ziggy Kwan snaps up, his wet mouth twisting. I lean against the wall, arms folded across my chest, and give him a sideway grin.
“Cage. What a pleasant surprise. Oh yes, of course you can visit, of course.” He waves his hands rapidly, prompting the girls to stand, and gathers the sides of his robe around him as they scramble for their clothes on the floor. They redden to the tips of their ears, even though they don’t even dare look me in the eye.
“You must forgive them,” Zig says as he makes his way to the bar by the far wall. I walk slowly after him, keeping my eyes on the girls. Of course it unsettles them, and not entirely in a good way, but hell, if it gets them to reconsider their values. One of Zig’s favorite pieces of wisdom is, Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your celebrity crush to catch you doing. I’d say it’s bullshit on any other occasion.
“It’s not every day that Cage Knox walks in on you while you suck off a dude,” he mocks, laughing as the girls scurry to the door, stepping on each other’s feet. He loves humiliating them, as he loves humiliating everyone else. I stare him down, disgust locked behind my expressionless face as he spreads out his arms with a bottle of champagne in one hand, and two glasses in the other. “You’re the country’s golden boy. Vocalist and main dancer of the Dark Angels. You’re an idol! Every woman’s wet dream.” He winks. “And many a man’s, too.”
“I’m not everybody’s wet dream. There are five of us Angels,” I reply, leaning against the bar counter and taking a glass straight from his hand. He’d frown at the audacity had it been anyone else, but he smiles and licks his lips instead, because it’s me. “And they all have a fair share of the market, as you well know.”
“Yes, I know, I made you what you are today, for crying out loud. But you’ve always been my favorite, you know that. My bias.” He grins with dirty meaning as he uses the term our fans use for their Angel crushes.
“There was always something about you, a beauty,” he says as he leans in, glass in his hand, swaying a little as he inspects me. His pupils are as big as quarters. He’s high as fuck. “It’s not just all the years that our company has polished you, all the training, the stylists, the fashion, the life. There was something there before. They started calling you The Porcelain Prince long before the Dark Angels made it big. I’ve always wondered what it was, but could never really put my finger on it. But I discovered something recently, and now I might have a theory. Wanna be the first to hear it?”
I don’t reply, but I guess I don’t need to.
“I mean, just looking at you, I couldn’t help thinking. What if you weren’t entirely human?”
The world stops for a moment, and Zig grins like he has me right where he wanted me.
“Most people wouldn’t think of it, because you’re a pop star. They think your beauty is all make-up, plastic surgery and special effects. But I’ve seen you without all of that. I know for a fact that’s the real you. So I did some research, and guess what? I found something.” He comes closer, lowering his voice. “You are, indeed, no simple human, are you, Cage?”
I grit my teeth. He’s fucking bluffing. For all the world is concerned, the existence of my kind is pure fantasy, so he can’t possibly mean that.
“I see you’re reluctant to answer me. Don’t worry, you don’t need to,” he continues, overly confident with his expanding chest. “I have proof. I’ve had it since the day I invited you to pay me a visit whenever you felt like sharing an evening with me. You see, I knew that when you did decide to come, it wouldn’t be because you discovered you responded to my affections. I may be in lust with you, but I’m not stupid. What you want is revenge, and you know what? It’s understandable. The stuff I did to you—” He bites his hanging lower lip and shakes his head as if in shock at what I’d been put through as a kid, but we both know he’s reveling in the memory. “So I needed some leverage. And I shared that leverage with one other person. Just one. If anything happens to me, your secret is out into the world like a fucking nuke.”
My jaw flexes. If the information really leaked, then all the Dark Angels are in danger. All of my kind is.
“Oh come on, Porcelain Prince. As long as you keep obeying my orders, you have nothing to worry about. Come, sit down with me, let us talk. I have a proposition for you.” He holds out his hand, inviting me towards the designer couch overlooking the shiny billboards that mark the city skyline. “A proposition that I’ve been thinking about ever since I discovered the truth about you.”
When I don’t start walking, he reaches up, trying to cup my jaw and run his finger over the seam of my lips. I pull back. The bastard must be out of his mind to be risking this, especially if he knows.
“There’s no mistaking your anger, pretty boy, you know that? No mistaking the expression on these beautiful lips. Oh, these lips that get fangirls and fanboys wet. This beautiful porcelain jaw.” He tries to touch me again, but he stops. His pupils shrink visibly, which means the redness must have started to glow in mine. Fury swirls behind my eyeballs.
“Oh my,” he says, wisely stepping back. “Fascinating.”
I need to pull myself together. I have to discover exactly what proof of my nature he’s talking about, and who he shared it with. Sure, I could drink his blood and find out, but there’s always the possibility that his blood doesn’t surrender this particular piece of information, and I need it. I sit down on the couch, leaning back with my champagne, merely cradling it as Zig sips his, fascinated eyes still on me.
“Oh, dear boy,” he slurs. “I knew from the moment I recruited you that you were special. You were always so damn intriguing. That devilish look in your eye, it messed with men and women. You could charm a fucking pack of cigarettes if you wanted to. But you couldn’t have been back then what you are now. Otherwise you would have—”
My upper lip curls over my teeth as I finish the sentence for him. “Otherwise I would have killed you. And the others.”
At this point, someone listening in on our conversation would think they understand. They wouldn’t. I almost wish things were that simple.
“Who or what turned you into what you are now? When did it happen?” he presses on.
I throw my head back, laughing. Of course he’s desperate to find that out, because if it happened after my recruitment, it means it escaped him, and he hates not being in full control. In fact, he can’t afford for anything to escape him. His is one of the biggest production companies in the whole country, and when he gets youngsters under contract, he becomes master of their entire lives. He recruited us years ago, and ran the Dark Angels like a fucking slave master. He cracked his whip over us, took over our family ties, banned dating—not that we would have been interested in the first place, not with the lives we led—and controlled our phones and social media. We all lived together in shared accommodations, with spycams in every corner. And we never complained. It’s how this gilded prison of fame works, and we knew what we were getting into from the start.
What we didn’t expect was what he asked of us later on.
“Believe it or not, it wasn’t something I wanted,” I tell him. “But then again, I always had a knack for attracting unwanted attention. I suppose it’s the dark side of an idol’s fate. The price we have to pay. That’s what you told me the day we met. What you didn’t tell me was all the shit you’d have me do later on.” I let my sharp fingernails run over the side of my glass. “Now it’s payback time, and you’ve got no one but yourself to blame.” I reveal my fangs, and he freezes for a moment.
“I’ve turned you into a god,” he says through his teeth. “I put the world at your feet. I got you out of that shithole village, and put you on international stages. You owe me, and if you don’t give me what I’m owed tonight, things are gonna get difficult for you and your band brothers.”
I stand, putting the glass down with sleek movements, much in contrast to what I really want to do. I imagine what it would feel like to punch him in the face, my rings ripping flesh off bone.
“Indeed, you did. You made me who I am. You made all of us. And you’re gonna get what you’re owed.” I wrap my hand around his arm and pull him up. It’s too easy. He weighs no more than a teddy bear. “I’m about to pay you back for all of your favors.”
“You probably need to hear what I want first,” he stammers, trying to appear still in control, but control is slipping through his fingers. Fear drives the drugs’ effect from his system, and he starts becoming aware of the danger he’s in. My own thrall works like an anesthetic, it’s what beasts like me are naturally endowed with to subdue their victims, but there won’t be any of that relief for this bastard. I won’t make this easy on him.
“You should really listen to me, there’s so much I want to offer you and your brothers,” he insists.
“Oh, you’ve done more than enough for us.”
“Peanuts! It might look like you’re on top of the world, Cage, you and the other Angels, but there’s so much more room up. Think about it.” He backs away towards the floor-to-ceiling windows, motioning to them. There’s a neon ad behind him with our perfectly made-up faces sliding to the side, promoting our new album, ‘Love Run Deep Underground’. “You could be behind the scenes. That’s where the real power lies, and you know it. You’d have more influence, more money, and more freedom. In time, you could even gain anonymity, be able to live your lives as you please. You could run your own projects, even get a part of the company. A big part.” I keep advancing on him, which intimidates him, no matter how hard he tries to keep up the appearances. “The biggest part! I’ll make sure the other shareholders cede you up to fifty-one percent!”
“We both know that, as long as you live, we will never be fully free. If I let you go now, you’ll find a way to bounce back. You wouldn’t have made it this far in life if you’d done things any other way. So, at this point there are only two things that interest me, Zig.” I back him into a corner, speaking in the seductive tone he loves to bank on when we do our PR. Once his back is plastered against the glass wall, I run a finger down his bulldog cheek. Beads of sweat roll down his temple as he tries to determine whether my sharp fingernail is merely grazing or slashing his skin, because he’s too drenched in adrenaline to actually feel it. “Only two things you can give me—the name of who else knows, and the proof you have of what we are.”
“You’re asking me to hand over my bargaining chips? How stupid do you think I am?”
“Well, you were stupid enough to believe you could keep yourself alive by blackmailing me.”
“I thought you were a sensible man! I’m offering you the world!”
“Come on, Ziggy Kwan. What you’re offering is a little more room in the gilded cage you built around us. You wouldn’t give up control of the Dark Angels if it killed you. Which is about to happen.”
He’s frozen here against the wall, sweating and staring into my eyes with the despair of someone who’s searching for a last-minute solution, but his mind is stuck on pause. I scoff, and wipe the sweat off his forehead with the back of my finger.
“Poor old Ziggy. If you knew what I was, what the hell were you thinking, inviting me over, and not securing protection?” I look around the room demonstratively. “Not that bodyguards would have helped you, but still. Oh, wait. Now I know.” I purse my lips and rest my finger against them, acting all sweet. Just the way he likes it, both on camera and in person. “You had hopes for tonight, didn’t you? For you and me?” I give him a dark smile, and the dirty look that I know gets his hormones running. “How could you, despite knowing the truth?”
“I would never dream of making you do something you don’t want to do.”
“Now, we both know that’s not true, Ziggy. The only reason I escaped your lust was because you wanted to break me before you fucked me, that’s why you did all those other things to me first. Now say it. I want to hear it from your mouth—what do you think I am? Say the word.”
When the words come out of his mouth, they’re a shaky breath. “You’re a vampire.”
There’s something about the way a sleazy bastard like him says the word to my face for the first time—vampire—that gives me a unique kind of high.
“And I want you to make me one, too,” he says quickly, under his breath, mustering all of his courage. “Unless you want the word in everyone’s mouth out there.” He wedges himself from in between the wall and my body, keeping eye contact as if I were a wild beast. I stand still as a statue, not moving an inch, following him with carnivore eyes.
“Here,” he says, unlocking his cell with face ID, and throwing it in my direction. I catch it in the air and look down at the screen, trying to understand what I’m seeing for a few moments. When understanding kicks in, it’s like a punch in the gut.
“I know, I was as surprised as you,” Zig says. “But you must admit, they’re exquisite. And they show you exactly as you are.” He manages a short, snorted laugh. “Must feel like the ground has been pulled from under your feet, doesn’t it?”
No. It’s like I’ve been stripped naked, and exposed in the limelight. I’m staring down at an illustration of me, and it feels like I’m seeing myself for the first time in the mirror. I swipe left, driven by sheer curiosity. What I find is even better. Whoever made these, they see me. They must know. There’s no other way they could paint reality so accurately.
The drawings are artistic, like the covers of vampire novels. Except they’re exceptionally well done. The face is contoured into an expression that maybe only the trained eye of my brothers would recognize. They don’t even portray me as the prince of seduction the company has groomed me into, and yet they’re compelling.
I delete them with a few quick swipes of my thumb, and throw the cell back at Zig. The cell lands on the rug at his feet, but he laughs as he bends down for it.
“Deleting them from my phone doesn’t delete them from the world, Cage. Even if you manage to get them down from the site where she uploads them, you won’t stop her making more.”
“Her?” I repeat coldly.
“I don’t know if she has actual information about you, or if she has some psychic ability of seeing through you, but I know this—” He points with the phone at me, growing confident. He’s a fool. “The moment I saw those drawings, I recognized you. The truth of you. And the more of those she draws, the more your fans will start seeing it, too.”
“Are these drawings the proof you were talking about?”
“More investigation is underway. But one thing is certain, you must agree—this girl knows. Tsk, tsk.” He shakes his head. “Just imagine. The reality of vampires that has stayed hidden for millennia, poof—” He mimics an explosion with his hands, widening his eyes. “Exploding out into the world.”
“Well, I guess I’m gonna have to hurry and contain the danger then.”
In a split second I’m chest-to-chest with him, trapping him against the glass wall that overlooks the city, which is the only thing that stands between him and a free fall.
“I must make sure that my secret doesn’t land out there.” I bring my lips close to Zig’s face. His gaze drops to them, and my stomach revolts in disgust. Even now, face to face with death, he still imagines them around his cock. I start to release the monster inside, my fangs growing, my irises reddening and my features changing.
“Make me what you are,” he whispers in my face, red in the cheeks. “And I will make you a powerful man, I swear. More powerful than you’ve ever dreamed. The world will never know your secret. Our secret.”
“Hmmm, wouldn’t that be a good bargain?”
I run my fingers over the back of his neck. I struggle with myself to keep from crushing him, coating my hatred with tenderness. But it seems that what enthralls him most, like all the other bastards I took down before him, is the violence they feel simmering behind my light touch. He closes his eyes, and his lips fall open as he leans his head back.
“Yes, that’s it, my beautiful boy. Give it to me.”
The words make my skin crawl.
“Oh, I will. But there’s just one more thing I’d like added to our deal. One more piece of information. Who else knows besides the girl? Who did you share the secret with?” I ask softly, seductively, messing with his head.
“My brother, Lear,” he says, his voice fading, his eyes closing. He’s lost in my touch. In a matter of seconds, he’ll have no more free will. I activate my enthralling scent to wrap him tighter in my deadly grip, like a spider weaving its cocoon.
“Does he have proof? Does he know about the girl?”
He moves his head from side to side, giving in to the sensation as my sharp fingernail slides down his hairy chest towards his belly. I don’t draw blood yet, but he hisses, his skin pebbling with a mixture of pleasure and fear.
“He saw the drawings. He might well go after the girl.” He opens his eyes to meet mine, heavily. In them, I can see that he knows this is his end. They all know when the moment comes. “Ah, what a sensual dance you can make of death, Porcelain Prince.”
“Your last dance.”
He throws his head back, laughing with a sick sort of satisfaction. “If you finish me now, Cage, there will be no more containing this. Lear will go after you.”
“Then it will be between Lear and me. But at least I know he won’t expose me. He won’t share the secret with anyone else.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because he wants the same thing you do.” I wrap my hand around his neck, squeezing just enough to rip a moan of pleasure from his lips. It revolts me, disgusts me, does all sorts of bad things to me, but seducing those we despise has become second nature to my brothers and me. We turn them on, and let them choke on their own lust. To most of them, we’re just jerk-off material anyway. Might as well make them suffer for it.
I take one last look at the dirty bastard that trembles between my body and the glass wall. I sink my hand in what’s left of his thin hair, and tug his head harshly to the side. Instead of protest, he meets my violence with a groan, licking his lips.
But I won’t let him take pleasure in this. Not after everything he’s put me through.
The moment my fangs break through his fragile skin, I let an extra amount of venom travel down my fangs. He draws a breath to fuel a scream, but I cover his mouth with my hand, pushing his head against the wall. It’s all I can do to control my strength and keep from smashing his skull. He tries to struggle, but I pin him against the wall with my body, which must feel as hard as the armored glass behind him.
I can taste his emotions in his blood. Another perk of my condition. Once you drink someone’s blood, you take in their knowledge, their feelings, their essence. Most of us usually block the intake of information along with the blood, because it’s not always as nourishing to our minds and spirits as it is to our bodies. But this time, the transfer is necessary. We can’t risk the world finding out that vampires exist. The world would succumb to chaos, and fast.
Life leaves Ziggy Kwan’s body as I crush it between the wall and my chest, draining his blood. The chemistry of his emotions speaks to me. He marvels at the strength of the pretty boy he recruited years ago. Now, this pretty boy has the strength of a devil, and Ziggy is dying by the hand of the idol he created.
“My brother will come after you,” he manages with his last fading breath, gurgling as I lay him gently on the floor, my fangs still sunken in his throat. “He will…He will…” His eyeballs roll in their sockets. I see it as I rise, wiping the blood off my mouth with the back of my hand, taking in the information as I stare at his gaping face.
That Lear Kwan knows is bad news. The man is not just more powerful than his brother, he’s one of the top three most powerful men in the country. He pulls important strings in the political world, at a national level. If the info made it that high, we’re in danger of discovery. But if I know anything about Lear Kwan, it’s that he would keep such precious information to himself until he figured out how best to use it. He’ll probably want to talk to me first, like his brother, before he releases my secret into the world.
The girl. She’s where this disaster started, and that’s where we have to start containing it. Somehow, she saw things that no one else did. She saw behind layers upon layers of masks. I close my eyes and seek more information about her in the traces of blood inside my mouth. I trace her to a fan art account that she runs under the pen name AimeeBiased. I open my eyes and hitch my phone from the inside pocket of my jacket, looking down at Ziggy Kwan’s dead body. Time to call in the clean-up team, namely my brothers Onyx and Diesel. They’ll know what to do make all this look like an accident.
As soon as that’s done I turn around, typing the site’s name into the search bar on my phone.
Then her account name.
Luckily, she has a profile picture of herself, and not her work, which is rare for these artsy types. The picture is small, uninteresting, depicting a girl with her arms spread out atop a mountain. Most people would only be able to make out her slim frame, long dark hair, and her oversized white sweater with our band name written on it in stylish black and gold. But I have vampire eyes that can zero in on the details, and they zero in on her face. I punch the button to call the elevator to the penthouse, my eyes still stuck on her face.
AimeeBiased is a pretty girl, but that’s not what holds my attention. The world is overflowing with pretty girls, and there’s an abundance of world-class beauties around my brothers and me all the time. Women that are willing to fulfill our every desire. But there’s something about this one that I’ve never seen before. I can’t put my finger on it right away, yet by the time the elevator doors open on the ground floor of the RockOn Entertainment building, I have it.
***