The House of the Wicked (The snake and the raven #1)

Prologue

My Favorite Kind of Prey

D eath has a curious way of fucking with my brain chemistry. Like the steady hands of a seasoned potter slipping and sliding over a mound of wet clay—it shapes and reshapes me each time I walk beside it. And death’s been a near-constant companion for most of my life.

I was fifteen the first time I felt its icy touch. Standing at the foot of my mother’s bed, horror contorting the features of my teenage face as she rattled out her final breath.

Anguish was slow to settle, as if this devastating loss—the death of the one person who loved me more than life itself—was eclipsed by an abrupt reshaping of my soul.

A hole formed inside me that day, a hole that should’ve been filled with grief. But while everyone hovered around me with tear-streaked faces, lost in their sadness, I was stuck wondering if she’d known what was coming. Wondering where she was now, where she’d gone, wondering if death was as final for her as it felt to me. The last day she’d climbed into her bed haunts me, the cancer devastated her frail body, turning h er into a shell of the woman who raised me, the mother I loved… Had she known she was climbing into a bed she’d never again get out of?

Yeah, death fucks with me, of course it does. But it wasn’t watching cancer eat my mother alive or comforting Mimi as she sobbed through the loss of her daughter. It was everything that came after—after burying my mother, after shouldering my grandmother’s grief. It was my calculated choice to pull death closer. It changed me with each brush of its whispering fingers and continues to change me with each breath I draw. A dark and slippery kind of metamorphosis that makes life—actually living —feel brittle.

Yves says I’m full of shit. Because it’s not death alone fucking with me—it’s killing, it’s my decision to make a job out of murder. Each life I steal steals a piece of me in return. It’s a slow drip, this self-inflicted demolition of my entire state of being.

Now, I crave those kills. Each death feels easier than the one before, and it should disturb me, it should terrify me, but just like the grief I should’ve felt after my mother’s death, my remorse, my guilt, remain absent.

Tonight, I’m unusually nostalgic. There’s a longing somewhere in my heart, a distant call for the life I had before I knew death. The moment when I was just a fifteen-year-old boy, the moment before the hole in my heart stretched into the gaping maw it’s now become.

My eyes dart to the left as loud laughter cuts through my thoughts. The gallery’s teeming with people tonight. Turning away from the crowd, the bartender catches my signal for a refill. My fingers mindlessly toy with the phone in my hand, glaring at the screen as it vibrates for the third time. Alley’s face flashes in time with each vibration and against my better judgment, I stifle the sigh fighting to claw itself free from my throat, and finally answer.

“Boss?” she greets, before I say a word. I’m not her boss—not technically—but I’ve given up reminding her of that.

“Hey.” I could’ve managed more than the vacant greeting, but a flash of emerald green catches my eye.

“You okay? You sound weird.” Good to know I’m not the only one worrying about my mental health.

I force my eyes away from the woman in green and try to focus on the phone call. “Yeah, I’m fine. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to let you know those I.D.s are all sorted. Dropped them off earlier this evening.”

Swirling the gin around in my glass, I take a slow sip before replying, “Yeah? That was quick.” There’s nothing more to say. Case closed.

“I guess the contact I have had a slow week,” Alley answers. “You ready for tomorrow?”

“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.” I laugh, devoid of emotion. “Hey, I’ve got another call coming in,” I lie. “Can we catch up later?”

“Yeah, of course.”

I grunt something like a goodbye before hanging up.

Alley means well. She’s made it her mission to be the bridge that will lead me back to my humanity. She doesn’t know I have a role to play outside of the one I’ve carved out in our day-to-day business. And I play it well. It’s a role that holds no space for humanity.

The role of the snake.

The monster.

The nightmare creeping through the damp, dark shadows of this godforsaken city.

But nights like this are strange. I could choose to shed my skin, to pack away the pretense. But lately, the pretense, the skin, the mask, feels more tangible—more real—than whoever the real me is supposed to be.

Everything changes tomorrow. The wheels on this nightmare bus will finally begin to turn and God alone knows where that will lead. But tonight? Tonight, I’m just a man. Not a man who kills. Not a man who hurts. Just a man. Tomorrow I’ll become the snake once again... Fuck it. I don’t want to think about tomorrow or work, or the obligations placed on me by my father. This whole mess would likely end with me dead, anyway.

The blunt edge of the wooden bar counter pushes against my spine as I swirl the clear liquid around in the cheap glass tumbler. The barman said they’d run out of ice but as the spicy burn of juniper and citrus fills my mouth; I find myself unimpaired about the room-temperature gin at all: that flash of emerald green is back.

It’s brilliant; vibrant but dark. It reminds me of a bedtime story my mother used to tell me. A tragic tale of a princess in a tower on a mountain. Years of neglect and isolation left the tower crusted in a deep green moss where a vile cretin of a man held the princess captive while she waited for her prince to rescue her.

Smiling softly, I watch the woman. At first, her jewel-toned dress sparked my nostalgia. But now… The way her body fills the dress, those curves—God help me—I can’t look away.

She’s not a princess, we’re not in a tower, and I’m for damn sure no prince. Despite that, I lean forward, my body quietly reaching for her.

Trac king her steps as she elbows her way through the crowded gallery, I’m in awe of how her eyes seem to mark each person as she passes them. The subtle movement, the way she notices everyone close to her, would’ve been easy to ignore if it didn’t stand out so significantly in this room full of people who couldn’t care less about those around them.

Who is she?

It’s unsettling that I care to know. I’ve spent over a decade of my life numb, not caring about anything or anyone. Yet here, in this crowded gallery, those old feelings resurface. That buried niggle calling for human connection reignited, slowly burning back to life.

She turns to face the bar; for a moment I’m lost. Lost in deep brown eyes that catch mine as her gaze sweeps the atrium; lost in the soft upward turn of a perfectly full mouth; lost in the rich terra-cotta skin that glows under the warm lighting of the exhibition space. But more than anything, I’m lost in a need to know her.

Even if it’s just for tonight.

My eyes follow her as she almost floats up the pretentious glass staircase to the second floor of the exhibition space.

The gin still clutched in my hand, warmer than it was moments ago. I absentmindedly set it down on the bar, chewing on my lip. It takes a second to decide, just a second to give in. I follow her.

An ember of awareness whispers to life inside of me, quietly reminding me I haven’t shed my skin at all. Even tonight, during my last moments of freedom, I’m still a predator. A snake.

And I’m about to hunt my favorite kind of prey.