The Dark City Chronicles ⁓ Book Three
The apocalypse looms ever closer! Steamy romance, heart-stopping action, seductive vampires, magic that defies nature, sprinkles of dark-humor, and, as always, the everlasting bonds of friendship.
Hannah's strug...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Sterling.
They hadn't seen each other since he'd failed his mental assessment at the Bureau and got kicked to the hell that was desk duty. He got a new partner and a girlfriend. He'd moved on.
The man hadn't crossed Lucas's mind since he'd stopped being an agent.
Maybe a few times, but his memory of Sterling fizzled out quickly.
Admittedly, Lucas hadn't thought about a lot, except killing himself, at the time.
"So, assholes, ready to die?"
Sterling didn't have a death wish. He would need one to dare waltz in here and pick a fight with Kane and Milton Rainer back from the dead.
Not to mention Kiernan, who, up until he told Gabriel to go fuck himself, was one of the big boys. The agency had a briefing on the vampire once. It was a bunch of political bullshit that Lucas took as, kill him before he killed you.
He also saw Gianna in the fight at the club through that pink smoke. Alone, she could give Sterling major trouble.
Something wasn't right.
"Sterling..." Lucas was going to tell him to drop the magic he was obviously using to glamour himself. But his words caught when a hazel-green gaze found his.
He tried to not think of memories that were better left buried.
Sterling was reading his thoughts, narrowing his eyes slightly.
Even ten years later, Sterling had hardly changed. He effortlessly passed for that inexperienced, raven-haired boy.
Sterling should never have been allowed to become an agent. Lucas always suspected Sterling's gift was why he was kept on and trained harder than everyone else. For a while, they used him to interrogate prisoners. Then, when Lucas needed a partner, they sent him the only person who had gotten lower than him on the mental assessment.
Until he outright failed the assessment years later.
No one wanted Sterling as their partner. Most people aren't keen on being known that invasively.
He was classified as a seer, so Sterling couldn't be in the field without a partner. Even though he couldn't see the future, the Bureau gave anyone with a gift a folder with a damning S stamp, and then they were theirs for life. It was their way of keeping their precious prisoners safely on their leashes.
Sterling was always fumbling for praise and acknowledgment. If you were a guy who could read minds and hear all the insults people kept inside, meeting someone like Lucas, cold and uncaring, would have been a breath of fresh air.
Sterling got Lucas's acknowledgment, alright.
Bloody hell, Reid. Lucas didn't want to contemplate how similar the two were. Because it would turn his head into a mess. On the surface, they may have had the same yearning for praise and were boyishly vulnerable, but they weren't the same.
