Chapter 3
three
KAT
Neither of us spoke as Liv drove me to Fae Row, the endless strip of homes built on an equally endless road that went up and down many massive, rolling hills.
Now that Callum was nowhere to be seen, my wolf was asleep, completely uninterested in the spring fae queen who could probably kill me with the flick of her wrist.
Sometimes, being a werewolf was complete shit.
We flew down busy roads, weaving around other vehicles, and I clutched the sports car's oh shit handle while wondering what kind of house Callum would live in.
A mansion, undoubtedly.
I hoped it wasn’t far. Mostly because I hoped I could get the hell out of Liv’s vehicle before she accidentally killed us by driving like there was a cop chasing her.
Music played from the speakers so loudly that my ears ached, a mixture of pop and hard rock that was slightly confusing and extremely headache-inducing. Everything had a heavy beat, so I supposed that was what it had in common.
The drive was only about fifteen minutes, but it felt much longer.
Liv parked in front of a gigantic, contemporary mansion that was all windows and sharp edges. It looked cold and unfriendly, and if I hadn’t been so excited to get as far from Liv’s vehicle as possible, I wouldn’t have wanted to go inside.
My head pounded as I opened the door, eyeing the monstrosity.
I really needed coffee. And space from insane fae.
"Merrily will text you with details about the ceremony and some other shit," Liv yelled over the music.
Merrily was the name of the other fae queen. There were four fae royals, total. Callum was over winter. Liv was over spring. Merrily was over autumn. And Darius was over summer.
"I don't have my phone," I yelled back.
"Callum will bring it."
"Am I safe here?" I called out.
"Depends how much you piss him off."
I scowled.
She shooed me away again. "I have things to do!"
I slid out of the vehicle reluctantly. It was drizzling outside, like always. I was still slightly damp from the walk to the Lamborghini earlier.
Neither of us had umbrellas. I was pretty sure Liv could keep us dry with her magic somehow, if she wanted to, but she didn't seem to give a shit about how wet her hair was.
She rolled my window down and shooed me yet again, this time toward the house. The music already sounded even louder.
Letting out a harsh breath, I walked up to the front door, my brown Crocs squeaking as I went.
"Pick better shoes!" Liv shouted behind me.
"Go to driving school!" I yelled back.
Considering she needed me to mate with her best friend to keep him out of prison, I didn’t think she’d kill me for the sass.
Her responding laugh confirmed it.
My eyes skimmed the trees towering above and behind the mansion, and my wolf stirred.
At least if I had to live in the world’s least-comfortable mansion, I’d have the benefit of a forest behind me.
And yes, I technically could've shifted and made a run for it. But, even if Liv couldn't stop me with her magic somehow, I would eventually run into the wards that prevented anyone from entering or leaving Rumor without spellcaster assistance.
I had no interest in living in the forest, and I hadn't sold my soul to open a cafe just so Sable could sleep on the dirt. She’d complain about it endlessly. So, even if I ran, I’d have to come back.
And I was pretty sure that when I came back, Callum would be even more difficult.
For the moment, the best call was just playing his game, being his pretty little werewolf. I had gotten the cafés out of our deal, so it was technically fair. And hey, maybe I’d find a way out instead of being forced to mate with a guy who was just using me to avoid being punished for murder.
He was gorgeous, but the situation still wasn’t great.
I reached the front door, escaping the onslaught of the rain outside and looking back at Liv. Her car still waited on the curb, with her music literally shaking the vehicle.
She made a shooing motion for what felt like the tenth time.
I flipped her off.
She grinned wickedly as she flipped me off in return.
Turning back to the door, I reluctantly grabbed the handle.
Part of me expected the thing to electrocute me. Or freeze me, since it was the home of the winter fae king.
Nothing happened when I touched it.
I stepped through the door, and closed it behind me. As soon as it was shut, I heard Liv's car rev, and she peeled away.
I looked around the house as I walked through the foyer, past a massive office, and into a kitchen that stretched into a giant living room.
It was the absolute opposite of what I had assumed based on the unfriendly exterior. Yes, everything was clearly expensive, but it was all really… warm.
Beautiful stone tile met soft, cream walls with landscape photos of forests. Plush rugs stretched over the hard, cold floors, warming everything up and bringing in soft shades of sage, forest green, and emerald.
The cabinets were a neutral, natural wood color. The countertops glittered with creamy white marble, or something similar, and there was a large vase full of at least two dozen red roses on the island.
In the living room, the coziest-looking sectional I’d ever seen took up a huge portion of the space. It was forest green, about the same shade as the outfit I’d worn the night that Callum and I met.
If I’d had the time or energy to spend designing a home, I would’ve wanted it to look just like that.
I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant for my situation.
Had the fae king always lived in a house that looked like this, or had he somehow changed it when he decided to mate with me the day before?
Had he killed Simon out of the blue, or had it been premeditated?
And maybe most importantly, why had he continued showing up every time I went through heat?
Taking a mate just to keep him out of prison was insane. Immortals didn’t do things like that. If you picked the wrong mate, you were stuck with them. Forever. The bond created by making the mating vows was mental, and there was no way to remove it.
Yes, Shadowside Penitentiary was worse than a death sentence, but Callum wasn’t the kind of man who lost his temper and killed someone for no reason. Even someone as awful as Simon. He was too controlled and neutral for that.
Maybe if I looked through the rest of the mansion while he was gone, I could find some kind of clue as far as why he’d done it.
Snooping was definitely going to occur—as soon as I had coffee in my hand. My addiction was off the charts, and I had no desire to be free of it.
I considered my situation as I started looking for coffee.
Mated pairs could live separately, so bonding wasn’t the end of my freedom, even if it meant I would be mentally connected to the fae king. I could go back home after Callum used me as an excuse for the murder, assuming he let me, and didn’t have some ulterior motive.
If he used the bargain to force me to seal a mate bond with him, I was sure he couldn’t also use it to force me to stay with him indefinitely. His other magic was a different story, though. Pain and ice weren’t exactly easy to get past for a werewolf.
I needed to have a conversation with him. One where he wasn’t calling Jonah my boyfriend, and Liv wasn’t trying to get us out of my café as quickly as possible.
A real conversation.
Because I liked spending heat with him, but that was nowhere near the same as creating a permanent mate bond with him. Willingly or unwillingly.
I found two extremely expensive coffee machines on the otherwise-bare countertop. One was a grinder, and the other was an espresso machine. Both were the same brand I used in my café, and they looked brand new.
I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or concerned, because Callum had bought them for me, and they weren’t something you could pick up from the neighborhood Monstermart.
Things like that had to be special-ordered at least a month or two in advance from the humans who were willing to smuggle goods to immortals.
Outside of our protected cities, we were feared, hated, and hunted.
When I opened the cabinets above the machines, I found multiple bags of freshly-roasted beans from my favorite roaster in the city. The nymphs ran it, and the beans they grew were legitimately mind-blowing.
My wolf purred happily.
"Since when do you do that?" I asked her. "That’s not even a wolf sound."
"Since we have a mate."
"We're not mated to him yet."
She made a noncommittal noise.
"You know I have to try to find a way out of this, right?" I checked.
She wagged her tail lazily. "Smells good in here."
It did.
Like pine, and ice. Coffee beans too, now that I’d opened the bag. Ice didn't even really have a scent, so it was strange to label it that way, but that was the smell.
I sighed, and got to work making a shot of espresso. A cappuccino was exactly what I needed.
Between the cabinet, machine, and fridge, I found everything I needed to make it.
As I sat down in a barstool connected to the island and sipped my coffee, I decided not to be concerned that Callum seemed to know my drink of choice, and had ordered equipment for me.
There were bigger problems.
While I sipped, I spoke to my wolf in an attempt to process everything. "Alright. So, Callum wants to cash in our bargain by forcing me to seal a mate bond with him.
It sounded even more insane when I put it into words.
"Mmhm," my wolf agreed.
"It’s obviously not ideal to mate with someone I don’t love, even if he’s very good at helping me through heat. He’s never even let me touch him, and his magic is ice and pain. Plus, he murdered Simon. The world’s better off without that bastard, but still."
My wolf purred again.
The horny bitch liked that he was deadly, because of course she did.
"Deadliness aside, mating with him would mean spending immortality with him. We could live apart, but mate bonds come with a mental connection that we would have no way out of."
My wolf liked the sound of that, too.