Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Aminute later, Cheryl from HR knocked. “Your next applicant is here.” She handed me a piece of paper.
“Thanks, Cheryl.”
A stunning woman walked in behind her—tall, slim, with long honey-blonde hair scraped back into a perfect ponytail.
Thick rimmed tortoiseshell glasses both highlighted and took the edge off her model-pretty good looks.
I admired her sharp navy pantsuit for a second.
“Please come in, uh…” I checked the name on the resume Cheryl had handed me. “Donna.”
“Thank you.”
I scanned the paper quickly. Donna looked a lot younger than her resume suggested she was. I flicked my gaze back towards her and unfocused my eyes. Hmm. Nope, no magic. I’d have to get her skincare routine. “I’m Susan. It’s lovely to meet you.” I held out my hand for her to shake.
Donna took my hand. Her fingers were smooth and soft, her palm warm and dry, the handshake firm, and…
if I wasn’t mistaken, she held onto me for a fraction longer than was necessary.
“It’s wonderful to meet you too, Susan,” she murmured.
The eye contact, too, was quite intense. A seductive smile pulled at her lips.
I blinked, and with a little effort, tugged my hand out of her grip. “Uh… Okay. Please take a seat, Donna.”
“Thank you for seeing me today.” She elegantly draped herself into the chair opposite me and crossed her long legs.
“Thanks for coming in on such short notice,” I replied. God, she was pretty. Her resume said she was a team leader for a medical alert hotline.
She met my eyes warmly. “I will be honest with you. Your reputation is fierce and mighty within this, er, department.” Her gaze kicked up a notch, going from warm to positively smoldering. “I have dreamed of working… underneath you for quite some time.”
I eyeballed her steadily, then unfocused for a second. Nothing. Maybe I was wrong. “Perhaps one day you will find yourself working on top of me.”
Her eyes sparked, and she leaned forward eagerly.
“Ha.” I pointed at her and shot little finger guns. “Cress.”
She swore. “This glamor is exceptional. It will fool even the most experienced magic user. How did you see through this one?”
“It’s not the glamor. It’s you.” I cocked my head. “I appreciate the ego boost, but isn’t Donovan going to kill you if he finds out you’ve been hitting on me again?”
“I am so bored.” She pouted. “While the others are out looking for signs of my evil brother, I’m stuck here in your office, making sure there are no assassins coming to kill you, which is pointless, considering that you now possess enough magic to crush anyone’s skull the second they raise their hand against you. ”
“Well, to be fair, Cress, you’re not here to guard me. You’re in time-out. If you keep being rude to Violet, she’s going to keep opening up holes in her walls and tossing you outside.”
Cress crossed her arms over her chest. “For a House, she is too sensitive.”
“And I told you to stop harassing the vampires.” Jillian, Bart’s accountant, had called me again to shout at me about Cress picking fights with her people in the vamp-run nightclubs downtown. “They’ve already told you everything they know about Connor.”
The Devourer had disappeared. According to the vampires, he’d tried to break into their realm again last night—this time, with the help of a traitor.
One of their own had tried to sneak Connor into their home world—a small realm made up entirely of enormous castles on top of windy moors and icy mountains.
That traitor was now cemented inside the wall of a castle in the vamp realm, minus his fangs.
The vampire spark stone was still safe, thank goodness. The vamp elders had started discussing their options. None of them wanted to lose their magic, but they didn’t want to halt their evolution, either.
“There is nobody to fight here in this realm,” she said sulkily. “The shifters are too ‘civilized’ to brawl in public, and they won’t let me into their realm to fight them there.”
I sighed. “Have you thought about other forms of entertainment to keep yourself occupied? Anything other than, uh, fornicating or fighting?”
She chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “I cannot think of anything else worthy of my time.” She let out an enormous exhale. “I must go, anyway. I have an appointment.”
“What for?”
“Prince Donovan has arranged for me to see Lady Bronwyn on the hour.”
My spine involuntarily contracted. “Oh, dear God, no.”
“Believe me, Chosen, I am not happy about it.” She scowled. “He has given me an ultimatum. I am to see her, or he will send me home.”
I groaned. “Damn, I forgot to cancel that appointment.” I liked Bronwyn. She was an amazing therapist, a little unconventional, but she was incredibly intuitive and always knew exactly which buttons to press to get you to open up.
Getting Cress to open up would be like throwing a match into an oil tank.
Unfortunately, Donovan liked Bronwyn, too.
He’d taken to the concept of therapy like a honey bear takes to a full beehive.
She’d helped him redirect some of his anger from himself to the people who were rightfully deserving of it—namely, his mother, who I guessed was pulling all the strings in his kingdom, and his brother, who was trying to take over the world.
Delighted with how effective my therapist was, Donovan decided to see if she could tackle Cress’s various personality issues. I put my hands together in the prayer position. “Please, Cress. Please behave yourself at Bronwyn’s office.”
She looked offended. “Of course I will. I would never do anything untoward in a human’s private domain. I always behave with the utmost respect.”
“You tried to strangle that deli guy at the corner store on Columbus.”
“I thought he was a yeti.” She pouted. “We have not ascertained the safety of their spark stone, yet. And, for a human, he was ridiculously hairy.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Just… just go, Cress.”
“Fine.” She stood up, paused, and threw me another hot gaze. “But if you ever change your mind about working underneath me?—”
I arched an eyebrow. “Does your brother know you’re still hitting on me?”
“No.” She shrugged. “And it does not matter. As far as I’m aware, he has not been successful in seducing you, yet. I am not sure what the hold-up is, Chosen, but he has not won. The game is still afoot. I’m still a Twin Star, you’re still the Chosen, we could still bond and rule all the Worlds.”
“Christ on a bike,” I muttered. “It’s not going to happen. I’m not gay, Cress.”
She smirked. “You were that one time in college.”
I looked away. “Damn it, Cecil,” I hissed under my breath.
“I will take my leave.” She blew me a kiss, managing to make herself look like a dashing pirate trying to steal a lady’s virtue, and stalked out of the meeting room.