Chapter 1

After five years in prison, Ava was getting out.

Two men were there to meet me on the day of my release.

One was my fiancé, the man who’d perjured himself on the stand to make sure my conviction stuck.

The other was my childhood sweetheart, the one who’d sworn to always protect me, whose first time in a courtroom as a lawyer was to send me away.

They stood together, their expressions a complicated mess as they looked at my frail frame.

“Ava, it’s all in the past now, you’ve paid your price…”

A smirk pulled at my lips, dripping with scorn.

They had no idea that Ava was already dead.

She died two days before her release, offering her soul to me on a silver platter.

The price was simple: I would get her revenge.

I’m a demon that drifts through the countless realities, and I have a particular taste for wicked souls.

Which is why I only do evil, never good.

...

“Ava, you’ve lost weight.”

Grayson Vance leaned against his Maybach, his gaze cool as he looked up at me.

Five years hadn’t changed him, at least not from what Ava remembered.

He was still the golden boy of New York City's elite, God's gift to the world that everyone was now scrambling to please.

It was like nobody remembered that the Vance family had once been bankrupt.

That Ava’s grandfather, honoring an old friendship, had refused to break their engagement.

That he’d used the power of Ava's family to rebuild his empire, only to personally throw their sole heiress into a jail cell.

Ava’s parents had died in a car crash years ago, making her the family's single, shining hope.

After she was imprisoned, her grandfather had a heart attack and died within the year.

Just like that, the family name vanished from the New York social scene.

Beside him, my childhood friend, Caleb Hayes, trembled, a flicker of what looked like pity crossing his eyes.

He reached out, trying to grab my wrist. “Ava, what happened to you? You’re so thin.”

I tilted my chin up, dodging his touch.

My gaze swept past him. “Where’s Isla Vance?”

“I did five years for her,” I said. “On a big day like my release, how could she not show up to celebrate?”

Isla was now Grayson’s fiancée.

Five years ago, she was the one behind the wheel in the hit-and-run, but Grayson had pinned it all on Ava.

Now, Isla Vance was an A-list, award-winning actress, famous from coast to coast.

Grayson’s eyes tightened. “Ava, don’t say things like that anymore. You did the time. Let the past be the past.”

He always assumed Ava was hopelessly in love with him.

Just like back then, when she’d been tricked into taking the fall, never once suspecting Grayson had orchestrated the whole thing until the trial.

No one could imagine her despair when she saw Grayson take the witness stand against her.

Even if she had denied it, Grayson had already swapped all the evidence.

There was no escape.

“The past?”

I stared at him, my expression a mask of playful disbelief. “I only did five years in prison. But she’s the precious jewel of your heart, isn’t she?”

I found this whole thing incredibly amusing.

Their souls were so delicious, yet the flesh they wore was so putrid and foul.

Just being near them made me sick.

I would have to wait until they were dead to devour their souls whole.

“Ah, I see,” I mused aloud. “This is just how backstabbing vermin behave. It makes sense that filth like you would stick together, right?”

After saying my piece, I ignored Caleb’s ghostly white face and Grayson’s darkening scowl and started to walk away.

Since I’d taken one soul, I wasn’t about to make Ava’s revenge quick and easy.

Her soul alone wasn't enough to satisfy me.

I wanted to feast on a few more.

Seeing me leave, Caleb was the first to rush after me, looking lost. “Ava, where are you going?”

Ava’s family was gone, all its assets now in Grayson’s hands.

She was broke, fresh out of prison, with nowhere to go.

“Stay away from me,” I said, my brow furrowed, not bothering to hide the disgust in my eyes. “You reek.”

That pure, delicious soul, tainted by the stench of a human shell, was nauseating.

I had to fight the urge to snap Caleb’s neck right then and there.

For the final, magnificent feast, patience was a necessity.

Caleb’s face went pale, and he staggered back a step as if I’d struck him. “Ava, do you really hate me that much? Grayson fooled me back then, I didn’t know… I couldn’t betray the oath I took when I became a lawyer!”

In the face of hard evidence, all explanations are meaningless.

Caleb Hayes only believed in evidence.

I just found it laughable. “You never believed me for a second. We grew up together, and you wouldn't even listen to my side of the story. But it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s in the past.”

Those last words sent a chill down Caleb's spine.

He stared, stunned, at the young woman before him.

She was so fragile, like a gust of wind could scatter her bones.

It wasn’t hard to imagine how much she had suffered for the past five years.

He had been too ashamed to face her, so he never once visited.

I wrinkled my nose, waving away the foul smell that clung to him. “Don’t follow me. You seriously reek.”

His particular brand of stench, a mix of guilt and weakness, was the most disgusting.

At least Grayson was unapologetically rotten to the core.

My words stabbed at Caleb, making him tremble.

Seeing his pain brought a flicker of pleasure to my own heart.

Ah, so I hadn’t fully consumed Ava’s soul yet.

Her will still lingered.

Seeing Caleb in pain brought her a sliver of joy.

The little girl was finally learning to be a little bad.