[THIS DARK EMBRACE] 01 — Devyn

“Once again, selling crystals and talismans in the break room during operating hours is against company policy,” the supervisor rattled off from the notes on his phone, taking the time to push up his glasses before continuing. “Push your side hustles when you clock out.”

Devyn Kinsley shifted and rubbed his arms as some of the other couriers nudged each other with snide remarks about getting caught. The supervisor continued to scroll through his phone with a sigh and rattled off a few other instructions about changing routes and delivery updates, but Devyn couldn’t help but bounce on the balls of his feet. That overwhelming urge to move nipped at his heels.

“You good, Dev?” the guy next to him whispered. A brown, muscular bicep elbowed him before he felt those deep, coffee-colored irises fix on him. Conall.

“Y-yeah. Sorry.” His shoes stuck to the vinyl tiles again.

Conall shook his head. “No wonder you get so many deliveries done whenever you clock in. I don’t know where the hell you get all that energy. Does being cooped up as a boy witch do that to you?”

Devyn stiffened. His question was laced more with curiosity than he expected. Devyn’s own dark eyes slid over to the druidic emblem hung around a cord on the guy’s neck.

“I’m… not sure. Maybe,” Devyn admitted, squeezing his arms a little tighter. “I’d just rather be out working than sitting around the house all day. Don’t really want to be a burden.”

The guy snorted. “Never really understood why covens treat men like criminals. They act like banishing them to a house will keep them out of trouble somehow.”

Devyn’s chin dipped down into his sweatshirt collar, hating how his ears heated. Goddess, why was he feeling so guilty now? Sure, he’d felt a little uneasy when he’d first taken this job a few months ago, but his moms hadn’t really dissuaded him from doing it. Granted, they hadn’t been completely thrilled with the idea either, especially once they heard the courier service he’d be working for delivered to anyone and not just magically-inclined humans.

He glanced around at the other people in the breakroom: a small army of druids holding cups of stale coffee or water bottles, rolling their eyes as their boss droned on about new company policies. And then there was Devyn­—a single witch in their midst. A black sheep trying to fit in, even though they could all see right through him with his lack of tattoos of Celtic knots or flowering trees, his unpierced ears and nose, his bulkier sweatshirts and jackets instead of form-fitting leather.

Devyn’s eyes wandered over the others in the room until the supervisor cleared his throat and boomed out a druidic word he always did at the end of his meetings. “All right. You’re all dismissed. Remember to file the proper paperwork for any damages or returns. We can’t afford to get lax on that again.”

Some of the couriers half-shoved each other into the walls as they filed into the corridor, cackling about something to do with selling incense from their locker last week, but Devyn could only think of wanting to grab his delivery bag and hurry out into the street. He wove between a few of them to the shelf with ‘KINSLEY, DEVYN’ stickered above it.

“Dev—”

Devyn spun around to Conall again as he hoisted up his own bag.

“You’ve been kind of quiet recently. You sure you’re okay?”

He started to nod before blurting out, “Yeah. I’m good. Really.”

Conall’s frown persisted as they started outside together, stepping into the side street behind the building with dumpsters and bicycles crammed up against the brick walls. Silence pooled between them as they dragged themselves to the main road, the sound of cars momentarily interrupted by obnoxious laughter spilling out the exit behind them as the rest funneled out to start their routes.

Conall his throat. “Um, so… I was thinking…”

Devyn hummed for him to continue as he plotted the addresses on his list for his map.

“You want to get a drink tonight?”

He inwardly cringed at the thought of being surrounded by numerous coworkers, along with trying to talk his moms into letting him stay out a little later instead of running home to help with dinner. “I… don’t know. I’m not exactly fond of dealing with a bunch of drunk druids,” he said with a laugh, hoping to soften the blow.

Conall his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and blew out a nervous chuckle as he reached for the back of his neck. “I was actually thinking it’d just be the two of us.”

Oh. Devyn’s heart lept into his throat. “I- I can’t,” he choked out. “N-not that you’re not—I mean—” He flinched as Conall’s brows knit together, and Devyn tried to stammer out a reason that didn’t make him sound like a total dick. After all, this guy was pretty. And nice. And okay, maybe he wasn’t quite Devyn’s type, but it’s not like he’d really had the chance to meet many other guys outside of his coven with the routine of going to school or work and then straight home. “I’m pretty sure my moms would kill me if they heard I was seeing a druid.”

“Well, um—Have you considered converting?”

Devyn clutched his phone a little tighter, blurring the screen around his fingers with the sweat on his hands. “I know that coven life may seem really weird to you, but I” —he shook his head— “I can’t abandon my family. I’m also not trying to discount how kind you’ve been to me by showing me around and hanging out with me, but I’m kind of just coming to terms that I’m probably better off not seeing anyone since my only options are other girl witches and a bunch of wizards.”

“You act like someone’s not going to come along and try to sweep you away,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “Dev, I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

“My family isn’t super high-ranking in the coven, which means I don’t have much power in my blood. I’m sort of worthless,” Devyn mumbled. “That’s why I took this job—”

He grabbed Devyn’s shoulder right before they hit the corner, the stoplights changing before one of them would be given the signal to escape this horrible conversation. “You’re not worthless,” Conall whispered, his eyes filled with remorse. “The fact that your coven has even pushed that idea onto you is just… wrong.”

A chirp of the crosswalk and Devyn shrugged his hand away. “Rules are rules. It’s what I have to sacrifice to stay with my family. I don’t like it either, but I don’t want to lose what I have.” He hesitated, wishing he could find something better to say—something to remove that weight settling in his gut now. “I’m sorry.”

Devyn stepped away and turned to jog across the street, feeling Conall’s eyes on him until he turned another corner. His pace slowed in the sea of people and creatures wearing the faces of things that appeared human. Everyone and everything around him put on a façade to ward off the things they feared or to undermine the fears of others. Learning to keep his head down and ignore them all turned out to be a better tactic than trying to puzzle each one of them out. The less he tried to decipher a stranger, the easier he slept.

He only wished he could undo his own soul-searching to lift that burden of being the perfect son his moms dreamed of, but he couldn’t imagine his heart ever belonging to a woman.

The sun beat down on the buildings around him by the time Devyn pushed into the pub with a box in hand. Dozens of eyes from darkened booths and tables tucked into corners flicked up to take him in before returning to their meals or laptops. He swallowed at the lingering glow of some of them, a tell-tale sign that the things lurking in here wanted others to know of their inhumanity.

He shuffled up to the counter, willing his arms not to shake as he nodded toward the bartender. “I have a package for a” —he tilted the label up as his mind blanked on the name printed there, despite reading it about ten times on the way in— “Heber Marina to sign for.”

The bartender jabbed his thumb toward a door. “I’ll go get him. Give me five.”

His shoes peeled off the tiles with every step on his way to the back of the pub, the sticky squelching making Devyn absently drum his fingers on the package while he waited. Devyn’s pulse picked up when a man a few seats down the bar slid him a look—something he felt more than saw out of the corner of his vision, especially since it was starting to tunnel in on the mirror along the back wall of bottles.

The sharp clack of heels on wood flooring approaching him sent every muscle taught like a bowstring. “Well, well,” came a husky purr.

He jerked in a half-turn, just in time to catch the woman’s hand cresting the bar top. Deep, glimmering plum nail polish on what he hoped were press-ons looked like shards torn from the sky. Devyn’s eyes followed the black, lacy blouse to the woman’s face, and his stomach twisted when he saw the gold irises peering back at him, cut through with a thin, elongated pupil—like a cat’s.

His back dug into the corner of the bar as a wicked smile spread across her face. “I never expected to find a witch here, of all places,” she mused, reaching for tousled waves of his hair.

That need to slap her away or recoil was instantly overridden by a freeze. His entire body locked up, head spinning as air cut off from his lungs, unable to breathe like his brain had malfunctioned, and decided if he became a statue that she’d leave him alone. Devyn clenched his teeth as her nails tingled against his scalp, and she suddenly seized his jaw, forcing him to meet her eyes again.

“Adorable and well-behaved…” A dark chuckle slipped past her glossy lips, and his heart plummeted at the glimpse of fangs. “How would you like to follow me home, little witch?”

The end of his promised five minutes couldn’t come fast enough. He tried to shake his head and winced as her grip tightened, threatening to crush bone. No one else in this establishment spared them another look. Not a single witch or druid in sight slid out of their seat to come to his aid.

Devyn squirmed, finally grabbing the woman’s wrist to try to pry her off of him until she took another step forward. Her body pressed against his, pinning him between the bolted-down stools.

“I think you should reconsider your actions,” she said in a low growl. “I’d hate to have to break you before—”

The man a little further down the bar slid off his stool, and her head snapped up, eyes narrowing on him as he reached for something Devyn couldn’t see.

“Leave the witch alone,” he said smoothly.

She bared her teeth with a guttural hiss that made Devyn’s hair stand on end. He tried to move his head to take in his hopeful savior, but her grip tightened on his jaw like a vice.

“Why don’t you fuck off, pretty boy?”

The man took another step, finally bleeding into Devyn’s vision. At least the demonic woman pinning him against the bar was right about something: he was pretty—beautiful, really. Steely eyes, near-black hair brushed into place, pinstriped suit, monogrammed tie clip with ‘L. R.’, and a cane at his side, a hand choking it right under the handle. He couldn’t be older than thirty, and with the way his thumb pressed up on the silver-dipped grip of the cane, Devyn quickly understood he wasn’t as alone as he thought.

“I don’t think you want to deal with Mr. Marina’s wrath because you decided to ruin his deliveries by snatching a courier and destroying his relationship with that agency. So, I’ll give you one more chance to let the witch go before I cause enough of a racket that he hurries to see what the fuss is about.”

She bared her teeth, fangs, and all before the pressure released from Devyn’s jaw. The woman stalked off, pushing through the front door with a jingle of a bell as he gasped out a shaky breath.

A hand clamped onto his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Devyn nodded, rubbing his jaw. “Y-yeah. Thanks. Didn’t mean to cause any problems.”

The man—wizard—pulled away and leaned his cane back up against one of the barstools. “I wouldn’t consider that to be your fault,” he said with a frown. “You were just doing your job.”

“But I didn’t exactly try to fight back either,” Devyn mumbled, feeling heat flood his cheeks with embarrassment. Another wizard he’d humiliated himself in front of, and an attractive one at that too. Great.

“Well,” the wizard said, glancing around the pub, like he was making sure everyone had gone back to their own business again, “if you feel like you owe me, I wouldn’t say no to a date.”

Devyn’s head whipped around so fast, the room almost tilted. He half-stumbled toward the wizard, righting himself as he grabbed onto the bar for support.

The guy rocked back slightly, biting his lip like Devyn might say no. Devyn, who’d only dreamed of a handsome wizard prying him away from the fate of being paired off with some random, woman witch within his coven he’d undoubtedly feel nothing for. His mouth felt like it was filled with cotton as he stammered out a “Y-yeah. O-of course.”

The wizard broke into a grin and offered him his hand. “I’m Lonán Reverie.”

“Devyn,” he blurted, thrusting out his own hand into Lonán’s while sparks prickled along his skin. “Devyn Kinsley.”