Athos rolled her eyes at her uncles, standing firm and glaring at her father. “I’m staying,” she said. “What do I learn by hiding? It’s your responsibility to teach me to survive without you someday.”

Michael stared at her, everyone around us falling silent as we watched Rika and her husband be the first ones to confront the day that we all feared, yet knew was coming.

Athos couldn’t be sheltered anymore. She was a beautiful young woman, and an heir to a powerful family that she would help lead one day after we were gone.

She was right. She had to learn.

The lump in Michael’s throat moved up and then down, and then…he reached down, underneath the table, and took out a box, hesitating for a moment before handing it to his Athos.

She opened it and peeled back the tissue paper, taking out a half-mask, red, just like her father’s.

Except it wasn’t a plastic paintball helmet. It was a lighter, form-fitting leather skull that covered the top half of her face, leaving her mouth free.

Her chin trembled, her eyes shooting up to Michael.

“The Red Death?” she whispered.

She loved Edgar Allan Poe.

He smiled down at her, all of us reaching under the table and pulling our masks out from our individual compartments.

The girls slipped on their jackets, Banks with a belt of knives around the thigh of her black jeans, Winter with her sheer red blindfold, Emmy with her gloves with the hooks, and Rika with a katana strapped to her back.

We had no idea what the Moreaus were going to pull tonight, but I took Em’s hand, looked over at Athos as she pulled on her mask, and gripped my own in my other fist, my stomach swimming with excitement.

We walked to the entrance of the hall they just left through, the door outside to the forest just thirty more yards away, all of us slipping on our masks as heat filled my veins.

“You either have my back,” Michael said.

“You’re at my side,” Kai continued.

“Or you’re in my way,” the rest of us finished.

“Be Lilith,” the girls said.

Athos pulled the Red Death over her eyes, all of us setting off as she whispered. “Never Eve.”

THE END

Thank you for reading! I hope the Devil’s Night Series has been a rewarding experience for you, and I want to thank all of the readers for their excitement, patience, and passion for this world over the last five years. Your support has helped validate all of us who truly hear it—the call of the void.

Birthdays

Michael Julian Crist: August 30

Kai Genato Mori: September 28

Damon Kirsan Torrance: October 19

William Aaron Paine Grayson III: May 9

Aydin Markus Khadir: October 16

Erika Isla Fane: November 5

Nikova Sarah Banks: November 8

Winter Sutton Ashby: January 19

Emory Sophia Scott: July 14

Alex Zoe Palmer: Dec. 16

Timeline

Please see timeline at pendouglas.com.

I’ve begun work on the first book in the Hellbent series, and I hope to have it to you in 2021, not to mention a couple of other surprises still coming this year.

Please turn the page for a sneak peek at my new adult standalone, Tryst Six Venom, also in the works now.

Tryst Six Venom Sneak Peek

Chapter 1

* * *

Clay

Confetti flies in the air, and I reach down, grabbing three more rolled-up T-shirts out of the bucket.

“More shirts!” I yell over to Krysten to restock.

The float bobs under me as the crowd cheers on both sides of the street, and I jump down off the step, stopping at the edge as I hold my hand to my ear.

“Ah!” little girls scream.

“Hi, Clay!” tiny, six-year-old Manda Cabot squeals. “Hi!”

She waves at me as her twin sister, Stella, holds up her hands, ready to catch.

A comfortable breeze blows through the palms lining Augustine Avenue, grazing my bare legs in my jean shorts as the potted pink lantanas hang on the street lamps lining the road and fill their air with their scent.

Just your typical balmy, Florida winter evening.

“We want a shirt!” Stella cries.

I shoot my arm up in the air, my white T-shirt with the word BIG shining in bold silver letters.

I smile. “You wanna be a Little?” I tease.

“Yeah!” they cry out.

“Then I need to hear it!” I move my feet, doing a little dance move. “Omega Chi Kappa! Come on!”

“Omega Chi Kappa!” they shout. “Omega Chi Kappa!”

“I can’t hear you!”

“Omega Chi Kappa!” they scream so loud their baby teeth damn near shake.

Oh, my God. So adorbs.

I throw them both an underhand toss and resume dancing to the music as the truck pulls us at a crawl, our float in the middle of a long line of floats, all celebrating the annual Founder’s Day.

“See you in a few years!” I tell them. “Be good and study!”

“Yeah, we only take the best!” Amy Chandler shouts next me.

Followed by Krysten’s chirp at my other side, “Be best!”

I snort, turning around to grab some more shirts. Balloons dance in the air along the sidewalks, and I toss some more bundles, the tingles in my head helping me play my part as I dance our choreographed little number in sync with Krysten to Swish, Swish.

The rest of our girls walk in front of or alongside the float, dancing along with us in the street, and every eye on us makes the hair on my arms rise. The attention always feels good. Rolling my hips, arching my back, and shaking my body, I know one thing for sure.

I’m good at this.

Our sorority is the biggest in any high school in the state, and while it’s service and academic-based, because that’s what gets us into college, we’re popular for other reasons.

We know how to look good doing what we do.

Whether it’s washing cars to raise money for cat saliva research, hosting the football team’s annual pancake breakfast, or helping clean Angelica Hearst’s house and do her laundry because she just had baby number four from daddy number four and she’s overwhelmed—bless her heart—we get it done, Instagram-style.

Krysten and I falter in our steps, laughing as we grab some more shirts and toss them to our future little sisters out there in the crowd.

“You see how fucking drunk they are?” Krysten says under her breath. “Again?”

I follow her gaze, seeing her boyfriend, Milo Price, smiling and sweaty in his backwards baseball cap. His flushed cheeks were his tell that he’d had beer tonight.

Callum Ames stands next to him, grinning with his arms folded over his chest, watching me like I’m already his.

Maybe. We’d make a decent picture at prom, in any case. That alone will make it worth it.

I swipe my water bottle out from under the papier-mâché clown fish and take a swig, the burn already intoxicating as it courses down my throat. Just the taste eases my nerves.

“I’m going to kill him,” Krysten gripes.