Chapter 32
Zion
Ipound on my tablet. I need to work, but I can’t stop thinking about how everything went down tonight. I’d really hoped, when Clark took Blair to the observation area with Sterling, they might have a breakthrough with the blue whale of a male.
“What did that tablet ever do to you?” Clark asks as he sits down next to me.
“Nothing, but it’s better than taking it out on Sterling.” I put my tablet down on the sofa between us because I’m not getting any work done tonight. I should go to sleep and get back into the office tomorrow morning.
“Is he back yet?” Clark asks.
“No.” And yes, I’ve been watching the door since he left. I’m not sure why. I’m not going to get through to him. I haven’t been able to help him since . . . well, ever. “What are we going to do about him?”
“Him? I’m not worried about Sterling. He’ll come around,” Clark says, but there’s a crease between Clark’s brows that tells me he’s worried enough about something else.
“I don’t have your faith. But what’s got you twisted in a whirlpool, then?”
“It’s that noticeable? That’s not good. Driftwood, Staal, and others. There are enough other pods who have lost their mate in the city. And with Blair bringing it up?” Clark turns away.
“You were in the kitchen. You saw how happy she was, dancing around. We’ve got a connection with her already. Something other pods don’t have. She’s ours.”
“She’s not ours until we mate her, and this is far from over.” Clark’s eyes darken. “The other pods aren’t going to fight fair.”
“This is the Veiled City. No one ever fights fair,” I say.
“Driftwood wants us to back off. Specifically me. They’ve insinuated that if I don’t, I won’t win the bid for the next dome.”
“We knew this could happen. But she’s worth it. I know you want to design that dome. But there will be other designs.” He’s always talking about his legacy, how he wants to leave his mark on the city. “Besides, the Maelstrom is your legacy,” I say.
“The foyer to a government building? I want more.”
“Ho, so the Maelstrom is just a government building now? There will be other domes once people see the completed foyer. It’s the reason the Tinom have you under contract.”
“How many other pods are there who want a chance with Blair? More than one in each dome. Every single male in those pods has tons of siblings and family members. Siblings who are influential in making decisions if they aren’t themselves.
It may never come. If we mate Blair, I may never get this chance again. ”
“But then you might,” I say.
I’ve read the same brief twice now. And it’s not good––my attention, not the brief. The brief is fine. Numbers are up. We’re moving more steel than this time last quarter.
I stand and cross my office from my desk to the windows and shut the blinds, closing off the outside world.
From a top floor in one of the nicest buildings in the financial district, I’ve got a great view of the Maelstrom going up.
They’re almost finished with Clark’s portion of it.
He’s come here a few times to stand and watch.
It’s easier than being in a vehicle and safer than swimming around the job site.
I can’t stop thinking about Blair. And how she left.
How Sterling drove her away, figuratively and .
. . I’m a male obsessed. I’m a male of action, not one who sits around and waits for a date to bake cookies with her.
I don’t mind waiting when I believe in a plan.
But it’s cookies, not sweeping her off her feet.
Though she’s not someone who can be bought.
It would be a lot easier if she could be, but then would we even want her?
No, I want her because she can’t be bought.
There are several other problems I don’t want to deal with, the biggest one being that I’m needed in London. And the last thing I want to do is leave the Veiled City right now.
A message flashes across my screen from my assistant. I have two unscheduled people in my waiting room. Two males I don’t want to see. I could have my assistant get rid of them, but that would make a bigger scene than I want to deal with later.
But I’m not seeing them behind closed doors, that’s for sure. I throw open my office door. “Axel Pontides and Torin Driftwood. Koralli and Tinom are here to see me. What brings you here today?”
Torin Driftwood is six-four with green eyes.
He’s got light brown hair glowing from the light in the window behind him.
Under normal circumstances, I don’t hate the guy.
I’ve met up with him a few times for business when I was staying in London.
Axel Pontides I could do without, but then there are many people I could do without.
He’s got inky black hair around the same shade as mine and amber eyes.
And he’s a touch shorter than both Torin and me.
His feet are shoulder-width apart, his hands behind his back in a military pose—though I don’t remember him being in the military.
“Cut it out, Mason. You know why we’re here,” Axel says.
Torin moves from the windows to me. “We all belong to an unfortunate club.”
“And?” I’m not going to make this easy. Clark might be afraid of losing the Driftwood seal of approval for his dome, but while Torin controls a good portion of the Tinom major cooperation, he’s not the only market in the world.
Most of my market is with humans. Hence why I have to go to London, and soon.
“We’re––”
“You don’t speak for me, Tinom,” Axel says, cutting off Torin.
“Fair enough. My pod wants a chance with Blair,” Torin says, stepping closer to me.
“You have your chance. I’m not stopping you.
But we’re not backing down. How do you think Blair will take it when I tell her you came to my office today, threatening me?
” I lean against the waiting room sofa. My assistant pushes back from his desk.
I give him a quick look to tell him not to go anywhere.
“Threatening? We’re having a conversation,” Torin says. “I thought we should talk about the materials we’ll need for the new dome we’re putting up.”
“Just a minute. Boden, can you round up whomever you can find in the hall?”
“Sure,” my assistant says, pushing back from his desk.
“Hold up there, Boden. What’s your point, Mason?” Torin says. “You don’t need witnesses.”
Boden moves toward the door but stops. I shake my head, and he doesn’t move.
“Don’t I, Driftwood? You can’t blackmail two Mason pod members with the same project.
You’re going to need to be more original.
Besides, I make ten times the profit level from the humans.
I only do business in the city because it looks good.
You don’t want the best steel in the world?
Fine, use some inferior product. I don’t care.
I do, however, care about Blair Portsmouth.
I’ll get that on record. And what about you, Axel? What are you going on about? Say it.”
“We want her too. And we’re not letting you or the Portsmouth pod stop us.”
“I’m not concerned about what you want,” I say.
“You should be.” Axel crosses his arms over his chest.
“No, not in the least. The only person I’m concerned about is Blair. What she wants and what she thinks.”
“We can give her so much more than the Mason pod. Seven males for a human? That’s too many.” Torin points to Axel. “And you have podlets at home. She’s not going to want to raise a podlet, not when she has an adult daughter.”
“You don’t know that. She might want podlets,” Axel says. “She’s young enough. She could have her own podlets.”
I’m watching them like a tritonaxis match, my eyes wide.
Axel’s words reverberate in my head. But then, my parents had a surprise podlet in their forties.
I have three older brothers, then me, then my sister, and then one more brother eight years after my sister.
My dad always said he loves my youngest brother but he’d never known the kind of exhaustion he experienced the first ten years of my brother’s life.
“That’s not for you to decide,” I say. “Rotten shrimp shells, have you even talked to Blair? Had a conversation with her?”
“No, Mason, I haven’t. Because I haven’t had a way of getting close to her,” Axel says, leaning into me.
“She can’t consider every widowed pod in the city.”
“Like you said, Mason, I don’t care about others. I only care about myself and the Pontides pod. We will have our fair chance. Stay out of our way.”
“And you’ll stay out of our way,” I say. But I don’t mean it. The reality is that while I might lose an order of steel for the Tinom dome, Axel could hurt my business more. He runs with some of the same suppliers in London.
“I’ll see you around.” Axel moves to the door. “Maybe in London.” He’s out into the hall.
Torin’s left staring at him and then me. He furrows his brow.
But I don’t respond. I can’t let Driftwood know that Axel Pontides, Koralli and CEO of their second largest business, could bring me down. The last thing I want is the two of them working together.
“Have a nice day, Driftwood,” I say finally.
“You do the same,” he says, and I don’t believe a word.
The doors close behind Torin, and when I’m sure he’s gone, I turn to Boden. “Get me set for a week in London.”
“Leaving tomorrow?” Boden asks.
“No, no. I have to make cookies first.”
Boden looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Next week.” I grip the side of the door into my office.
I normally take a solo. Pilot myself to Greece and then take a plane from Athens.
“And find me an auto pelagic voyager, a good one. Make sure it doesn’t smell.
New mattress, clean kitchen, fully stocked.
Fuck it, buy me one—a new one. Top-of-the-line force field. ”
“Okay . . .” Boden says. “Pelagic voyager. Got it. A new one?” He recoils. A new one costs what he makes in five years.
“Yes.” It will be worth it. “And have my London apartment deep cleaned.”
“Sure . . .”
Because I’ve got an idea that I know the Portsmouth pod and Sterling are going to hate. But Blair? Blair might just love it.