Part One
Blood in Rain
Prologue
WESTON
The first time I receive an invitation to a Zenith night, I don’t make it past the front porch.
The colossal door looms in front of me, tall and painted in glossy black with a prominent gold handle. It shines under the angled moonlight, but there are no other sources of light outside the house.
He’s here.
Sev Berlant is inside, somewhere.
All I have to do is go in and find him… then take what I want.
My heart starts to slam in my chest already. The potted white flowers flanking the door smell like fresh soil, and everything else about this house seems normal.
Does someone live here? Is it solely reserved for fucked-up Zenith club activities? It’s a couple of blocks past the edge of the Crimson College campus, on a street that usually would be reserved for professors’ homes or wealthy administration execs.
Not sex parties.
Sex parties that try to pretend they’re something else.
Or maybe they are something else, and I don’t even know what the fuck I’m getting myself into.
My heart weighs heavy in my chest as I shift my feet on the patio floorboards.
Just do it.
Quit being nervous, and do it.
I reach up and knock in the specific pattern that the invitation instructed. Two slow knocks, then two more in quick succession.
No one answers.
My skin flushes with heat as I second-guess every step that led me here. I don’t do things like this. People call me “Frat Dad” for a reason, no matter how ridiculous I think it is.
I run charity events. I take care of things. I don’t show up at shadowy houses late at night with a mask on my goddamn face and…
Fuck, what the fuck am I doing here?
I slide my fingertips over one of the flower petals in the cool air. White daffodils, just like our housekeeper used to plant every spring growing up. The petal is thin and velvety.
The thick door swings open and I jump back, the petal breaking off in my fingers.
“Why do you come here?” the masked man at the door asks, his figure silhouetted by the dim glow of light behind him.
Music comes from inside the house. Not loud like a normal college party, but low, deep and pulsating, filling the air.
The rules on the invitation were simple.
Say the fucking phrase.
Just. Act. Normal.
“To be unchained,” I answer, forcing my vocal cords into cooperation.