The Pledge (The Pledge 1)

He inspected her, his eyes devouring her, appraising her from head to toe.

Brooklynn didn’t mind. She grinned, trying her best to look alluring, and I had to admit, she was convincing. Better than convincing. It was no wonder she’d attracted the attention of so many military men throughout the city.

My stomach turned as he dissected her through half-lidded eyes. His gaze paused over the bare spots of her skin: her neck, her shoulders, her arms.

When he was finished, the burly man gave a quick nod of his head to the almost undetectable girl who stood beside him, lost in the shadows of his bulk. Her inky-black hair was swept up into a cascading ponytail, with tiny black wisps skimming her pale face, making her look young. Too young to be in a club.

Just like Brook and me.

The girl skipped forward, reaching for Brook’s hand and marking it with a stamp, the ink indiscernible in this light.

And then it was my turn.

I pressed my Passport into his enormous hand, hoping to avoid his scrutiny, but he stared anyway.

It was impossible not to feel violated. I did my best to block out his gaze from my mind, but goose bumps broke out over my skin wherever his eyes roamed.

When I felt him studying my face, I looked up again, locking eyes with his. My shoulders stiffened, and I refused to look away.

He grinned at my show of defiance, pleased, his teeth flashing scarlet beneath the glow of the red lights overhead, his lips thinning around them. This was a man who didn’t belong to any class in particular—at least not any longer. Of that I was certain. Everything about him spoke of something else entirely. I wondered which class it was that had cast him aside, or whether he’d simply been born to Outcast parents, condemned through no fault of his own to a life in which he was never permitted to speak in public . . . not even in Englaise.

I tried not to be the first to blink, but he was better at this game than I was, and too soon I turned my head away, training my eyes toward the floor.

His laughter boomed above the music, and from the corner of my eye I saw him nod again. The slight girl with the pony-tail hopped forward, grabbing my hand in hers and marking it before she disappeared behind the bouncer once more. As always, the skin beneath the hand stamp tingled, a little something they added to the ink to loosen up the patrons. Particularly the female patrons. Especially the underage ones.

We considered it the price of admission.

He ignored the fact that neither of us was legal as he scanned both of our Passports before handing them back to us. I had no idea where the scanned information went, but I knew that it wasn’t the military tracking us here, since the clubs weren’t exactly legitimate.

They weren’t necessarily illegal, either, but only because no club ever stayed open for more than a few days. A week at most.

Brooklynn took my arm and dragged me away from the entrance, pulling me toward the hypnotic music coming from within.

I could feel the steady rhythm of the bass thrumming through my veins, and my heart Bgh m my hear beat in time with the flashing lights that were mounted in the rafters overhead. And, for the moment at least, I forgot to be irritated by the flesh examination I’d just been subjected to.

It had been far too long since I’d been out, too long since I’d listened to real music, the kind that came from an electric sound system. It slithered beneath my skin, finding a warm, safe place there.

“This place is amazing, isn’t it? Are you out of your mind? Do you love it here?” Brooklynn’s manic speech patterns would have been impossible for anyone else to keep up with, but I’d known Brook since we were children. I could eat her rapid-fire sentences for breakfast.

I followed her eyes around the club. She was right. It was amazing.

It had all the right things. The mood was dark and sensual, amplified by throbbing red, blue, and purple lights that pulsed to the music. A glass-and-steel bar had been built into an entire wall of the massive interior.

Impressive, considering it probably hadn’t existed yesterday and could be gone as early as tomorrow.

The large dance floor was crowded as bodies rubbed together, sliding, grinding, and swaying to the seductive beat. Just watching made me want to join them, as they moved in and around one another.

The beat continued to thread its fingers around me.

“What did you say they were calling this club?”

“Prey,” Brook answered, and I grinned.

Of course it was Prey. It was always something dark and dangerous. Something carnal.

Brooklynn dragged me toward the bar, reaching into her purse to pull out some loose bills. “Can we get two Valkas?” The tremor in her voice was barely noticeable.

The bartender was a sinewy woman with lean, bare arms. She was strong and looked like she could be a bouncer in her own right. Her short, spiky hair was a deep shade of blue, and her tongue shot out to touch the piercing in her lower lip. She was beautiful in a strangely androgynous way, and her comfort in her own skin was evident in the way she moved as she reached for a bottle. She narrowed her black eyes at the jumpy girl in front of her bar.

Brooklynn squared her shoulders and met the direct gaze as unwaveringly as she could.

Finally the bartender set two glasses on the countertop and filled them with a shimmering blue liquid. “Twelve,” she stated in a raspy voice that was both hard and sensual at the same time. As she slid the drinks toward us, I was instantly very aware of just how underage we really were.

Brooklynn dropped a single bill on the bar, and the woman pocketed it. There was no discussion of change or tips.