Dangerous Dream (5 page)

Lennox stood behind Sampson. “He’s a Darkborn.”

“What the hell is that?” Ridley had no idea what he was talking about.

“When the Order of Things was broken, it changed things,” Lennox said. “You should pay a little more attention to the world around you.”

“I’ve been busy,” she said calmly.

But inside she was starting to panic.

Ridley rose, her knees wobbling, and looked up at Lennox. “You guys cheated, so the game doesn’t count. I’ll see you around.” She started to turn away, and the bouncers moved toward her.

Lennox walked between the bouncers and stood in front of Ridley. He tucked a stray strand of pink hair behind her ear. “No. You cheated, Little Siren. Now you’re going to pay the debt you owe me.”

“You weren’t even in the game.”

Lennox smiled. “Sampson was playing for me. His debts are mine, and so is his take.”

Ridley remembered what he had whispered in her ear—what he wanted from her—and she felt sick. She couldn’t do it.

Never.

He ran his finger gently down her cheek and across her lips. “I’ll see you soon.”

When he reached the door, he stopped and turned back to look at her. “I almost forgot. I’m opening a new club in New York, and these guys are my house band.” He glanced at the members of the Devil’s Hangmen.

Ridley gave him a blank stare. “That concerns me because?”

“You owe me a drummer. And you’d better find one before my club opens,” Lennox said. “In Liar’s Trade, the winner calls in his markers whenever he chooses. I’m calling that one in now. You might want to study up on the rules before you play at the big girl table.”

Ridley tried to keep her expression unreadable.

Lennox winked. “Next time.”

He disappeared down the hallway, and Ridley stared after him.

His marker.

A drummer.

New York City.

She frowned.

Even for her, this was cold.

Still.

Ridley twirled a strand of pink hair. “I think I know just the guy.”

Don’t miss the exciting first book in a new series coming in 2014.

Dangerous Creatures

Some loves are cursed.…

Others are
dangerous
.

There are only two kinds of Mortals in the backwater town of Gatlin, South Carolina—the stupid and the stuck. That’s what they say, anyway.

As if there’s any other kind of Mortal anywhere else.

Please.

On the other hand, there’s only one kind of Siren, no matter where you go in the universe.

Stuck, no. Stuck
up
? Maybe.

Stupid? Never.

Powerful? Do you even have to ask?

Not to mention powerfully hot.
Third Degree Burns
hot, if you want to get technical. Ask my sort-of-ex-boyfriend, Link. He’s been burned more than anyone.

I should know. I’m usually the one holding the match.

It’s all a matter of perspective, and here’s mine: I’ve been called a lot of things, but no matter what, I’m a survivor—and while there are more than a few stupid Supernaturals, there are zero stupid survivors.

Consider my record. I outlasted some of the Darkest Casters and creatures alive. I withstood whole
months
of Stonewall Jackson High School. Beyond that, I survived a thousand terrible love songs written by a clueless Mortal boy who became an equally clueless quarter Incubus—and, by the way, not the most gifted musician.

For a while, I survived wanting to write him a love song of my own.

That was harder.

This Siren gig is meant to be a one-way street. Ask Odysseus and two thousand years’ worth of dead sailors if you don’t believe me.

We didn’t choose for it to be that way. It’s the hand we were dealt, and you won’t hear me whining about it. I’m not my cousin Lena.

She was meant to be Light. I was meant to be Dark. Respect the teams, people. At least learn the rules.

Let’s get something straight: I’m
supposed
to be the bad guy. I will always disappoint you. Your parents will hate me. You should not root for me. I am not your role model.

I don’t know why everyone seems to forget that. I never do.

My own parents disowned me after the Dark Claimed me as a Siren on my Sixteenth Moon. Since then, nothing rattles me—nothing and no one.

I always knew my incarceration in the sanitarium that my Uncle Macon called Ravenwood Manor was a temporary pit stop on the way to bigger and better, my two favorite words. Actually, that’s a lie.

My two favorite words are my name, Ridley Duchannes.

Why wouldn’t they be?

Sure, Lena gets all the credit, being the most powerful Caster of all time—aka Queen of Perfectland. It doesn’t make
me
any less excellent. Neither does her too-good-to-be-true Mortal boyfriend, Ethan “the Wayward” Wate, who, like, defeats Darkness in the name of true love every day of the week.

There’s a shocker.

They should have their own Caster talk show. They could cohost interventions and turn Dark hearts to good instead of evil, and they’d be every bit as popular as Oprah.

And that gag-fest is why my name is my favorite two words in the whole language.

So what?

I was never going for perfect. I think that should be clear by now.

Crystal.

I’ve done my part, played the game, even thrown in my hand when I had to. I’ve bet what I didn’t have and bluffed until I had it. Link once said,
Ridley Duchannes is always playing a game.
I never told him, but he was right.

What’s so bad about that? I always knew I’d rather play than watch from the sidelines.

Except once.

There was one game I regretted. At least, one that I regretted losing. And one Dark Caster I regretted losing to.

Lennox Gates.

Two markers.

That’s all I owed him, and it was enough to change everything. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Everything started long before that, with a pair of gardening shears stuck halfway through an Incubus’ chest. There were blood debts to be paid—though this time it wasn’t up to a Caster or a Mortal to pay them.

Ethan and Lena? Liv and John? Macon and Marian? Whatever. This wasn’t about them anymore.

This was about us.

I should’ve known we wouldn’t get off easy. No Caster goes down without a fight, even when you think the fight is over. No Caster lets you ride off into the sunset on some lame white unicorn or in your boyfriend’s beat-up excuse for a car.

What’s a Caster fairy-tale ending?

I don’t know, because Casters don’t get to have fairy tales—especially not Dark Casters. Forget the sunset. I’ll tell you how the whole castle burned to the ground, taking Prince Charming down with it.

I’ll tell you how to turn that prince into a frog and spin a little gold into straw—just in time for the Seven Dwarfs to go all ninja and drop-kick your butt straight out of the kingdom.

That’s what a Dark Caster fairy tale looks like.

What can I say? Payback’s a bitch.

But here’s the thing:

So am I.

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl came up with the concept for
Beautiful Creatures
, their debut novel, over lunch. Margaret had always been captivated by fantasies, while Kami loved stories set in the South. With nothing to write on, they scribbled their ideas for a story that combined their shared passions on a paper napkin. By the time they left,
Beautiful Creatures
was born. Kami and Margie live with their families in Maryland and California, respectively. Now they write on computers instead of napkins. Margaret and Kami are currently working on their solo series—Margaret Stohl’s
Icons
and Kami Garcia’s
Unbreakable
are available now. They invite you to visit them online at margaret-stohl.com and kamigarcia.com.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. To the extent any real names of individuals, locations, or organizations are included in the book, they are used fictitiously and not intended to be taken otherwise.

Copyright © 2013 by Kami Garcia, LLC, and Margaret Stohl, Inc.

Excerpt from
Dangerous Creatures
copyright © 2013 by Kami Garcia, LLC, and Margaret Stohl, Inc.

Cover design by David Caplan

Cover photograph copyright © Stephen Mulcahey / Arcangel Images

Hand lettering © 2013 by Si Scott

Cover © 2013 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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First ebook edition: December 2013

ISBN 978-0-316-40501-0

E3