Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
My tiny apartment walls melted away immediately, leaving me back in my luxurious drawing room, face to face with Donovan. Or face-to-chest anyway. The man was so tall.
After the horror of sharing a tiny space with Seraphina and the memories of the darkest time in my life, the sight of Donovan was such a relief, like a cloud of cool mist on a blistering hot day. I had to fight the urge to sink to my knees.
He was real. Magic was real, my sentient House was real, my bitchy miniature duocorn personal stylist was real.
But if everything that was happening to me now was real, then that meant—
Donovan stared at me, those blazing dark-emerald eyes boring into me, like I was a puzzle that he couldn’t quite figure out. “So, it did happen.”
“What happened?”
“The siren stone gifted you some of its magic. It emanated right before you closed it.”
I frowned. The sea witch had asked me if it had, too, and at the time, I’d said no. I didn’t feel any different. “No, I don’t think so.”
“It did. You sank magic into your voice and used it to command, just like a siren. When you faced the sea witch, you ordered her to stop, and she froze.”
He was right. I hadn’t spent much time thinking about it, because I assumed it wasn’t real to start with.
“And just now, you ordered that… that… girl—” He sank so much derision into his tone, I almost melted with gratitude. “You told her to get out, and she left.”
“Oh. Oh, no. I think she realized I was about to punch her.”
“Nope,” Cecil snorted. He clomped over and shoved a fresh passionfruit margarita into my hand.
“You did siren magic. I heard it loud and clear. That was what Connor was after, you know. That’s why he’s trying to devour all the stones.
” He chuckled. “You’re getting the power he wants, and you don’t even have to eat them.
The stone gifted you the magic of the merpeople. ”
I stared up at the fae prince. “That’s why your brother wanted the stones? So, he’d have the power to order people around?”
Donovan’s eyes iced over. “Yes.” I waited for him to say more, but he turned away, and took up his spot by the window, glaring out at the city. The tension returned to his shoulders.
Bart saluted me with his cocktail glass. “It’s your power now, Sue, honey.”
Absently, I rubbed my throat. “Huh.” My voice had sounded different when I told Seraphina to get out.
And she had left very abruptly. It wasn’t like her at all.
Seraphina usually drifted around gracefully, floating like a delicate soap bubble.
She didn’t march jerkily like a robot. “But… mermaids lure people in. They don’t push them away. ”
“They only lure people in when they want to eat them,” Bart explained. “They can also make nosy researchers go away by commanding them to scram. If you draw some magic up and express it from your throat chakra, you can probably do the same thing.”
I took a breath and blew it out. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that kind of power.”
Bart chuckled. “You command people every day. You’re a manager, Susan.”
“I don’t command. I gently request that my team do their jobs. And if they don’t, I gently manipulate them until they do.” I furrowed my brow, rubbing my throat again. “This feels… too much. I would never want to take away someone’s free will.”
“Get used to it,” Cecil said cheerfully, throwing back the rest of his martini. “You’ve got it now, and you can’t give it back.” He pointed with a hoof. “Now, honey, get out of that dress. You’ve got twelve, maybe thirteen more to try on before we do hair and makeup.”
I groaned. “No more dresses.” Stirred up by my exasperation and confusion, the hot feeling in my belly flared again.
“It’s a black-tie dinner.” Cecil struck a pose, still standing upright, one hoof on his hip. “We have to get this right, Chosen. This is your rebranding. Your coming out party. You have to strike exactly the right note. You—”
I drew up a little heat from the depths of my belly and sank some power into my voice. “Go get the red one.”
Cecil jolted. He tossed his empty glass behind him, fell to all fours, and pranced stiffly like a dressage pony, clip-clopping straight out of the drawing room, his tail flicking behind him.
Bart chuckled, shaking his head. “You are a fast learner, Sue.”
I still felt unsettled and edgy, so I paced back and forth a few times, my enormous tulle skirt rustling in the silence of the drawing room, breathing in and out, trying to rid myself of all the excess energy swirling in the pit of my stomach.
The feeling of imminent catastrophe was hard to shake, but it was dissipating slowly.
I knew how close I’d come to losing control in front of my husband’s new fiancé. I could have killed her.
“Are you sure Seraphina is a human?” I asked the room in general. “She’s the only person who’s been able to really get under my skin like that.” I shook myself, bristling, and tried to brush off the lingering sadness and despair that clung to me.
Ugh. Grief. That was the one emotion that was so hard to shake.
I’d lost the love of my life, but he was still alive.
Maybe I’d never be able to shake it. “I’m a good judge of character,” I went on.
“And Seraphina always seemed so genuine. She comes off as the sweetest, most innocent young girl.” I shook my head. “But…”
“Considering her current circumstances,” Bart replied. “I know exactly what you mean. She’s human, though. I’ve never sensed a trace of magic around her.”
I chewed on my lip for a second, thinking.
Cecil trotted back into the room, holding a scarlet dress in his teeth.
“Seraphina’s such a delicate creature,” I said, almost to myself.
“And she’s so scared of me, Old Crazy Susan.
But she came here, to my apartment, alone, to ask me where Vincent’s alimony check was.
That’s not something you would do if you were scared of your partner’s ex.
” Suddenly, I remembered something. “Did you hear her saying something about a building deed?”
“We heard everything,” Bart replied.
I rubbed my lip where I’d bit it too hard. “I wondered what that was about. She said her lawyer thought I was hiding assets.”
Cecil spat the red dress out on an ottoman next to me. “Their lawyer probably got his hands on the purchase notification.” He scowled deeply, moved back up onto two legs, tossed back his hair and lit another cigarette. “I wonder how that happened?”
I was too confused to complain about the smoke. “What purchase notification?”
Cecil stared at me like I was an idiot. In the background, by the window, I noticed Donovan’s shoulders had tensed even further. “The building purchase notification,” Cecil replied slowly.
I sighed. “Can you elaborate on that a little more, please, Cecil?”
“Lord have mercy.” Cecil echoed my sigh even more dramatically and tossed his bangs out of his eyes. “I can’t graft the bones of a Domicile onto a piece of land you don’t own, Chosen. You didn’t own that tiny box you called your apartment.”
“Oh. So… you bought my apartment?”
He curled his lip. “Ew. Gross. No.”
“Oh.”
“The magic of the Domicile has to be grounded to work properly, and it must be secured to the master of the House for it to grow.”
I frowned. “I’m confused.”
“The mistress of Violet House must own the ground she sits upon. When his Highness installed me here, we found out you were”—he shuddered dramatically—“renting. So, we quickly purchased the building.”
My mouth dropped open. “You… You what?”
“We purchased the building. And transferred it into your name. So, I could graft the bones of Violet House to your living space properly.”
I mouthed stupidly for a minute. “How? How the hell did you buy the whole building?”
Cecil threw his hooves up. “Don’t look at me. His Highness ordered the purchase.”
From his spot by the window, Donovan threw me a quick glance over his shoulder. “I did what needed to be done, Chosen.”
“How?”
His massive shoulders hitched in a shrug. “We have human agents in this realm who look after these things.”
I gaped at him. “You… you can’t just buy an entire apartment building. This is San Francisco!”
“He’s the prince. Of course he can.” Cecil gave a supercilious snort.
“It’s not even difficult. The royal family's agents here hold several billion dollars in cash ready to make these kinds of purchases as needed. I doubt that the Queen’s treasurer even noticed the withdrawal from the mortal accounts. ”
“But… but you transferred it into my name? You can’t do that. Donovan. It’s… it’s insane.”
“Technically, you bought it from me for one of your mortal dollars.” He turned slightly, barely meeting my eye. “So, you owe me a dollar.”
“You can’t do that.” I shook my head slowly, unable to comprehend it. “It’s too much. It’s too much. Donovan… you can’t give me a whole building.”
Cecil snorted. “If you’re worried about that leggy redhead bitch and her lawyer trying to take it from you, don’t worry. The Prince and Princess’s human lawyers will eat her for breakfast.”
“I’m not worried about that.” I wasn’t. The terms of our settlement were very clear. Alimony would be half of my salary until Vincent remarried, and anything I purchased with my own money after our divorce was mine.
And all the beautiful things I owned before our divorce belonged to him, including my dream home, my heritage-listed dream home up in Pacific Heights.
It would be rude to say it out loud, but I’d trade the whole building to get my old life back. Instead, I faced Donovan. “This building would have to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s beyond generous.”
“I didn’t give it to you. You bought it from me. And it is nothing.” He turned back to the window again.
Cecil bristled. “It’s not the building you should be thanking him for.”
“Cecil.” Donovan’s tone held a warning.