Chapter Two Finn
Seraphina holds midnight in her beauty and her heart.
She’s everything that a red-blooded male desires but fears, with her hourglass shape and sultry features, and a wit and brain to match.
But she’s also selfish and uncaring, the polar opposite of Zoe, and all I want—all I’ve ever wanted—is to see the last of her.
I’m beginning to doubt I should live so long, and my Kind, the Fae, are preternaturally long-lived. Then again, she’s my Kind, too. Unless something changes, she’s going to be the wife presiding over my eventual funeral. At least, I’ll be glad of the escape.
“Sweetie, you’re looking tense. And who was that you were talking to? She looks familiar. Human, right?”
I shrug and force my mind away from Zoe, though it never goes too far. “Just an old client. I doubt you’ve met.”
If Seraphina recognizes Zoe, the least of what will happen is her skewering me in a scene to end all scenes.
The worst is something I can’t contemplate.
But would she leave me? I can’t help the adrenalin of hope that rushes through me at the possibility, even though Seraphina leaving me would be a disaster.
I’ve given too much to this relationship. I’ve given up my very soul.
So, I push out the words I need to say. “You’re probably right. Human, and she’s clearly not from our set.”
Ignoring her sneer is hard. Failing to defend Zoe is harder.
I clear my throat and reach for the wine the waiter has already poured, gulping it down like it’s nothing but water.
He knows what we favor. For the past year, Seraphina and I have regularly dined at her reserved table.
Orchard is my fiancé’s favorite restaurant.
Figures. It’s owned by a Dark Fae. Everything served tastes of ashes and magick to me.
It’s an eatery that Zoe should hate. She’s the opposite of pretentious.
Sure, she appreciates elegant fixtures and good food as much as the next person, but the restaurants she preferred while we were dating were those with heart and soul, not a popular watering hole like this one, frequented by those who wish to see and be seen.
What’s she doing here? And who’s the guy she’s with? The peach roses tell me it might be a first date, and if so, I should congratulate him. She’s a sucker for the romantic gesture. And unlike the woman I apparently intend to marry, her appreciation is always genuine.
My heart cracks a little more. I drink more wine and ignore it.
“Finn? Hello, earth to Finn.”
“Sorry.”
“Bad day, sweetie? Is it that Brighton-Wallace merger?” Seraphina settles back in her chair, her perfect posture relaxing for once in a way that almost makes her seem human.
“I swear, if you’d just come to work for Daddy, you wouldn’t need to sweat the details of these boring old cases.
You’d have a whole office full of subordinates to sweat them for you.
Besides, once we’re married, Rookwood is as good as yours, so there’s no reason, really, you should be holding onto your ridiculous little job out of some misplaced sense of pride. ”
“My ‘ridiculous little job’ is one for which most attorneys would slay their mothers,” I remind her, careful to keep my voice light.
Sure, I’m still a junior partner rather than fully vested, but I’m all-but running the M&A department.
I’ll be made senior partner next year. It’s as much of a sure thing as anything in law ever is.
Plus, I’ve managed to move up the ranks on the basis of my brains.
I didn’t have to pull a single strand of magick.
I have a certain innate talent for bringing businesses together, and I try to do it in a way that generates the least number of casualties.
Most of the time, I manage to do so without injuring anyone at all.
That pleases me. It just does.
Seraphina waves her hand. “Human concerns. It’s beneath you, Finneron. At least, if you worked for Daddy, you’d be working for your own Kind.”
The gap between the Dark Fae and the Light could swallow the globe, but I bite back the distinction, just as I bite back so many others.
“We’ve discussed this. Kinds aside, I’m my own man, not some sycophant hanging onto your heels.
Besides, I prefer working at a firm rather than for a defense contractor. ”
“Oh, please. Money is money.” She clicks her tongue against her even white teeth. “Who cares if people think you’re marrying me for the company? I know you love me.”
I almost laugh, except the reality is so sad that I feel sorry for her instead.
Even Seraphina should be loved for who she is rather than what she can bring...
and even if her assumptions about my feelings make my blood boil.
I’ve never said the words to her. I would, if I had to, but I don’t foresee the need.
There isn’t a bone in her body fashioned to consider someone else’s independent sentiments.
But that’s the way of the Dark Fae. We’re all just non-player characters in their schemes.
“I have no wish to work at Rookwood,” I repeat, before taking another swig.
Which is true. I’m sure the LFBI, the Light Fae Bureau of Investigations, has managed to hide my time at the Academy, along with my subsequent employment for them, under deep cover, but given enough time and interest, a good HR person at a defense contracting company, even if Human, might uncover a niggle of my past. Plus, Rookwood is owned by a Dark Fae.
It’s not impossible that the higher-up employees know more about our world than they should.
Because Seraphina sought me out, not the other way around, the initial assessment that she ran on me didn’t go deep enough.
I was prey, not predator, and so long as I keep it that way, I can maintain a ghostlike presence within the company.
I can roam the halls, plant bugs, look unassuming and avaricious, all while clocking movements without anyone looking at me too closely.
I’m the boss’s daughter’s fiancé. I’m golden, but adjacent.
I’m nothing to worry about. And with my magick locked deep inside me? I truly am mostly harmless. So far.
So far, because change is inevitable. With all the upset, my magick has loosened. It’s a hair’s breadth from exploding into a telling glow around me, in fact. My ears have even lengthened.
I really need to wrap up my current situation. Fast. And for so many reasons.
A pout draws down Seraphina’s pretty mouth, drawing my attention. “But you promised you’d think about working with us once we get married. You know I can’t stand the conflicts in our schedule. I barely ever see you, but if you work for daddy...”
“Let’s just say that I don’t want any confusion before we’re wed,” I say, interrupting her. “Now, tell me about your day.” I smile and lean forward, capturing her hand. “Was it very hard?”
The enormous diamond ring seems to add a hundred pounds to her delicate bones.
I didn’t buy it for her. She gave it to me with a small wink about a month into our relationship and told me to keep it for when the time was right.
I don’t even know where she got it. Did she buy it herself?
Steal it? Receive it from some ex that she ultimately decided not to wed?
It’s a modern style, not something her mother would have worn, so, yeah, any of the above is a possibility.
Too bad I don’t care. This engagement might land me married to her, but in my heart, it’s pretense. Still, the ring came in handy when my handlers decided we needed more of an incentive to get her to trust me. One engagement later, though, and I’m still out in the cold on the most important issues.
Don’t rush it. Let it flow naturally. She’s Dark Fae. Reticence and mystery are in her blood.
But damn it, I want to be done with this, already.
Seraphina launches into a recitation of every moment of her day: spa appointment, lunch with girlfriends, takeover of a hostile family’s holdings back in Dreadmore, the Dark Fae realm, and the inevitable complaints about her job.
Ostensibly, she works in customer relations at Rookwood, a job which involves wining and dining political leaders and gun runners, not to mention terrorists—or, at least, that’s what the LFBI thinks.
Honestly, I think her job is more graft than sweat.
But it’s why I’m here, undercover, the fate of multiple free worlds in my hands.
I need to turn the Agency’s beliefs into cold, hard evidence.
Sure, a nuclear bomb, skin-sloughing bioweapon, or climate-altering technology being put to use without official sanction would be great.
Illicit use of Dark magick in the human realm to influence events would be better.
But all we really need to find is actionable evidence of guns changing hands, so long as the deal is the power-changing kind that sends arms to bigtime assassins, those who play for small, Middle-Eastern countries with more ties to other terrorists than to their populaces.
Because the Fae aren’t allowed to interfere in the course of Human evolution. Though we do. Regularly, in fact.
But not like Seraphina and her daddy are alleged to have done.
But if I can find the evidence that I need, they won’t be doing it again.
So far, I’ve uncovered little more than vague rumors, shifty meetings from which I’m excluded, and interrupted glances.
I’m pretty sure I’m growing an ulcer, too, since every day that I’m forced into this pretense serves to march me closer to the altar.
Plus, there’s Zoe’s life on the line. What happens to her shouldn’t be anywhere near as important as the fate of entire realms—though it is. To me, it is.
Which is how they got me, of course. The LFBI knows how to entrap almost as well as the DFBI, though they keep their hands cleaner.