by Karen Lynch
Two smiling male attendants greeted us. One took my coat, and the other directed us to a glass table in the corner. I was surprised to see a selection of beautiful masquerade masks in various designs and colors.
“It’s a masquerade?” I asked Tennin.
He touched one of the masks. “Davian didn’t say, but he likes to add fun little twists to his gatherings.”
“Choose any one you like,” said the attendant.
Most of the women’s masks were elaborately decorated with sparkling stones and feathers. I reached for the nearest one, but Tennin stopped me before I could pick it up.
“You don’t need all that adornment.” He picked up a silver Venetian mask decorated with delicate glittering swirls and helped me put it on. After he’d secured the ties, he stepped back and smiled. “Perfection.”
He chose a black and silver mask for himself and donned it. Then he lifted his arm. “Shall we?”
Feeling bolder behind the mask, I smiled and took his arm. We passed through the double doors into a hallway. To our left was a winding glass staircase to the second floor, and farther on were more doors. We turned right and entered a great room unlike anything I’d seen before.
The first thing that caught my eye was the incredible view of the city through the arched windows on two sides of the room. The floor was a dark herringbone hardwood adorned with beautiful rugs, and from the high ceiling hung glass orbs containing Fae crystals that cast a soft glow over the room. Everywhere I looked, there were exotic plants, tapestries, and accents that appeared Fae in origin. The room was warm and inviting, nothing like I’d imagined I’d see in a billionaire’s penthouse.
I turned my attention from the décor to the room’s occupants. There had to be at least thirty people milling around, and based on their height and build, I suspected over half of them were faeries. I couldn’t be sure because, like us, they all wore masks.
Several black and white clad waiters walked among the guests with trays of wine. One of them approached us, and I gave him a polite shake of my head. I was here for one reason only, and I needed to keep my head clear for it.
Tennin leaned in. “What do you think?”
“I can’t imagine living in such a beautiful place. I love it.”
“I am glad you approve,” said a male voice from behind us.
Tennin and I turned at the same time to face our host, the only person in the room who wasn’t wearing a mask. Davian Woods didn’t look much different from his photos, but he was shorter than I expected. He was an average looking man with light brown hair and brown eyes, but he had a great smile, the kind that made you feel like you knew him already.
“Tennin, so glad you could make it.” Davian’s gaze shifted to me and lingered appreciatively on my dress before lifting to meet my eyes. “And who is your friend with the exquisite taste?”
“Davian, this is Jesse,” my date said. “Jesse loves faeries almost as much as you do, and I knew she’d enjoy meeting you.”
“Is that so?” Davian held out a hand. “It’s always nice to meet someone who shares my passion. But where has my friend been hiding you all this time?”
I smiled and took his hand in a firm handshake. “He hasn’t been hiding me. I was in high school, and my father would have hunted him down if he’d taken me to a party before I turned eighteen.”
Davian threw back his head and laughed. “Well, I am honored to be your host. Perhaps I can give you a tour of my home after I greet all my guests.”
“I’d like that.” I felt a pang of disappointment that I had to wait to talk to him more, but I was excited about the prospect of seeing the rest of his home. Everything I’d read about him told me he was too smart to give away his secrets, but you could learn a lot about someone by how they lived and the things they valued.
Someone called Davian’s name, and his smile tightened as he waved a hand at them. “If you will excuse me, I believe the governor would like a word. Please, have a drink and some of the wonderful food my chef has prepared.”
“The governor?” I whispered to Tennin after our host had left us.
“You never know who you’ll find at these things. So far, I see three A-List actors, a British royal, an NBA star, and one…no two supermodels.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “And one bounty hunter.”
I scanned the room, trying to pick out the celebrities. Violet was going to die when I told her about this. “How can you tell who they are beneath their masks?”
“It’s my job to know faces. I’ll introduce you to them if you’d like.”
I wanted to say yes because I would never get another chance like this. But I shook my head. “I think I should stay in the background and not draw any attention to myself. I would like to know what smells so good in that kitchen, though.”
He chuckled. “Let’s go see what delights Davian’s chef has for us.”
The penthouse dining room and kitchen were as impressive as the main room, with dark wood and glass cabinets, stone countertops, and state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances. A chef in a white jacket opened an oven door and lifted out a tray of food. He transferred it to a platter and carried it to the long table covered with trays of mouthwatering appetizers.
We went to check out the food, and Tennin told me which foods were Fae so I could avoid them. I filled a small plate and refused a glass of wine from a waiter, who fetched me mineral water instead. After we’d sampled some of the delicious appetizers, Tennin and I strolled toward the other end of the great room where he identified the new guests as they arrived.
I only half listened to him as I thought about my next move. I’d made it inside the penthouse, but I hadn’t really planned what to do once I was here. I’d grilled Tennin about Davian and his home, and he’d told me Davian’s office and private collection were upstairs. He had also informed me that Davian had an aversion to security cameras, which was strange for a person who made his living off technology. Or maybe he wanted no recording of what went on in his home. Thank God for eccentric, paranoid billionaires.
We turned into a hallway that had been concealed by potted trees and stopped outside a library. I wondered if I’d find any Fae books inside. Surely, someone obsessed with faeries had to have books on them, maybe some my parents didn’t own.
When a woman in a red dress and a feathered red mask motioned for us to join her and two other women, Tennin groaned. “I don’t suppose you will pretend to be madly in love with me for the next few hours.”
My lips twitched. “I’m afraid I’m not that good an actress.”
“You grow more like your mother each day,” he grumbled.
“Thank you.”
He set his wine glass on the tray of a passing waiter. “Care to mingle?”
“You go ahead. I’d like to check out Davian’s library.” I gave him a meaningful look, and he nodded.
“Stay out of trouble,” he whispered before he went to join the group of women.
I entered the library and took a few minutes to circle the room and appreciate the vast collection of books. There were thousands of titles, with one whole section dedicated to first editions and out-of-print books, and a selection of what looked like old Russian literature behind glass. There was also a large section dedicated to technology and finance, not surprising for a tech billionaire.
“Ah!” I stopped walking when I came upon three full shelves of Fae books. We had half of them at home, and a few of them I’d seen at the library. But there were two I’d hadn’t seen before. How could there be Fae books I’d never heard of?
I slid one off the shelf and turned it to look at the cover. I stared at the gold embossed drawing of a couple in a sexual position, and my cheeks heated when I realized what the book was about. That explained why I wasn’t familiar with it.
I was curious, but I replaced the book without looking inside. How embarrassing would it be if someone were to enter the library and find me reading a sex book?
I walked to the doo
r, and a male laugh reached me as I stepped out of the library. I froze because I’d know that laugh anywhere. What on earth was Conlan doing here of all places? If he was here, did that mean…?
My stomach quivered as I peered through the branches of a potted tree until I found Conlan standing by a window with Davian.
I let my breath out in a whoosh of air when I saw they were alone. Conlan was one of the last people I wanted to see, but it could have been worse. He could have come with –
Lukas.
My stomach sank when he appeared beside Conlan with a drink in his hand. Unlike most of the other guests, neither of them wore a mask. Power and authority emanated from Lukas, and I could tell by the way people moved around him that I wasn’t the only one who felt it.
I gnawed on my lip as I watched Lukas say something to Davian, who laughed in response. His and Conlan’s presence could ruin everything for me. It was too much to hope that they wouldn’t recognize me in my mask, and they’d know I was up to something the moment they saw me here. What if they outed me as a bounty hunter? Davian would get suspicious and kick me out of his home.
Lukas frowned suddenly, and his gaze swung in my direction. I pulled back around the corner, my heart racing. Had he seen me? Not waiting to find out, I hurried down the short hallway. On my right was what I assumed was the door to the master suite, and on my left was the same hallway we had walked through earlier with the stairs to the upper floor.
There was no one in sight as I approached the staircase, and I debated for a whole second whether or not I should ask someone if I was allowed to go upstairs. The thought of Lukas coming around the corner any second made the decision for me.
Better to ask forgiveness than to get permission, I thought as I started up the stairs. I winced when my heels clicked loudly on the glass steps, and after the first three, I stopped and removed my shoes.
At the top of the stairs, I walked a few feet and stopped to stare at the extravagance around me. Beneath a sloped glass ceiling was a dining area with a table that could seat twenty people. A wall of windows separated it from a terrace lit with soft lights and lined with potted fir and cypress trees. To my left was a glass room, but the foliage on the other side prevented me from seeing the interior. A greenhouse or atrium maybe.
I turned in the other direction. Aha.
Separated from the dining area by a textured glass and copper wall was an elevated area that resembled a gallery. Shoes dangling from my fingers, I walked over and climbed the four steps to Davian Woods’s private faerie collection.
I was drawn immediately to the framed artwork of Faerie landscapes painted by renowned Fae artists. The style reminded me of a Monet exhibit I’d seen once at the Museum of Modern Art, and I loved how vibrant the paintings were. If Faerie looked this beautiful in a painting, I couldn’t imagine how it was in person.
After my eyes had feasted on the artwork, I turned to look at Davian’s other Fae treasures displayed throughout the room in glass cases. There were carvings, books, jewelry, utensils, clothing, and various crystals. In the largest display, there was a strip of white fabric believed to have come from the goddess’s robe. I wondered about its authenticity because faeries were reverent of their goddess and would not relinquish such an important artifact to a human. The massive effort to find the ke’tain was proof of that.
In the same case was half a spear that supposedly belonged to the mythical Asrai. But it was the small white stone nestled in a bed of velvet that interested me most. The plaque said it was believed to be a goddess stone, but I knew with certainty that it wasn’t. A goddess stone stayed with its rightful owner until it was gifted to a new owner. If Davian had been goddess-blessed, as it was called, the stone would be on his person, not in a glass case.
At either end of the gallery was a door. I tried both and wasn’t surprised to find them locked. One of them had to be Davian’s office. I studied the lock on one and smiled. It was a standard five-pin lock and shouldn’t be much of a challenge. Luckily, I had come prepared for this.
I reached under the skirt of my dress for the pick set strapped to my inner thigh. My hand froze when male voices drifted to me from below. I cocked my head and strained to listen. Maybe they were passing by the stairs.
The sound of shoes on glass steps had me shooting upright and backing away from the door. I planned to pretend I was admiring the gallery, until I heard the unmistakable voice of a faerie prince I knew all too well. I bolted for the steps to the dining area and raced across the tiled floor, thankful I hadn’t donned my shoes yet. Quietly, I opened the door to the terrace and slipped outside.
There wasn’t time to brace myself for the frigid wind that stole my breath. I ran to the potted trees and took cover in the shadows behind them. The trees shielded me from view, but they offered little protection from the cold. I shivered violently in my dress, which was meant to be worn in Faerie’s temperate climate.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I watched the top of the stairs as Davian and Lukas came into view, followed by Conlan. The two faeries dwarfed Davian, who looked even plainer next to their male perfection, but he seemed unaware of it as he talked animatedly to Lukas.
The three of them ascended the steps to the gallery where Davian showed them one of the paintings I had admired. Lukas looked only politely interested, and that made me wonder what he was doing here in the first place. My conversation with Tennin yesterday had left me with the impression that Davian was a source of amusement to faeries. He was hardly the kind of person I expected Lukas to socialize with. But then, I had been wrong about a lot of things concerning Lukas. I was sure his real identity wasn’t the only thing he’d kept from me.
The trio walked to the office door, and Davian used a key to unlock it. He entered the room and touched something on the wall beside the door. My knees went weak when I watched him enter a security code. A few more minutes and I would have been caught breaking into his office.
Davian must have something important to conceal if he had a security panel on his office inside his own home. He was the CEO of a billion-dollar company, so it made sense that he would want to protect sensitive documents. But my gut told me it was more than that.
My teeth chattered, reminding me I had a bigger concern than the contents of Davian’s office. I hopped from one bare foot to the other because they were going numb, and there was no room for me to stoop and strap on my shoes without being seen.
I watched Davian and his guests enter the office as I waited for my chance to escape. The second they closed the door, I was making a run for it before I got too cold to move at all.
Several minutes ticked by, but the office door stayed open with Conlan visible inside. I looked around desperately and spotted an outside door to what I assumed was the greenhouse. Moving sideways, I crept along in the narrow space between the trees and the wall until I came to a four-foot gap in the trees. Cursing my luck, I peered through the branches at the office and saw Conlan’s back was to me. It was now or never.
My body tensed to spring across the open space, but movement in the gallery stopped me. Davian emerged from the office with Lukas and Conlan behind him. He said something to the faeries, who smiled and nodded in return. I let out a breath. Maybe they were going downstairs.
Or not. Lukas and Conlan stayed in the gallery watching Davian as he descended the steps and approached the terrace door. My eyes went to our host, and my stomach knotted when his congenial expression turned to a hard mask of anger that only I could see. He came out onto the terrace and waited for the door to shut before he put a phone to his mouth and spoke.
“Did I not make myself clear when I said you were not to interrupt me tonight?” he bit out. “This had better be worth pulling me away from the Unseelie prince.”
He went quiet as he listened to the person on the other end speak. Then, “Of course, this phone is safe! I designed the damn thing.”
I pressed against the wall as he paced in my direction while his caller
spoke. Gone was the charming host who had welcomed me to his home. This snarling man made me feel like a rabbit hiding from a predator, and I didn’t want to think about what he would do if he caught me spying on him.
He stopped several feet away. “What do you mean you don’t have it?” Pause. “Raided? And you’re only telling me this now?”
His voice rose dangerously, and he lowered it suddenly. Pasting on a smile, he looked at the gallery where Lukas and Conlan stood watching him. I didn’t dare move a muscle. Faeries had enhanced eyesight, and they might see me even if Davian couldn’t. The mask hid the upper part of my face, but my red hair was a dead giveaway.
Davian turned away from the gallery. “Find him and get it for me. I don’t care what you have to do. And remember, you are as expendable as your predecessor.”
On that ominous note, he hung up. He stood quietly seething and glaring at a spot less than a foot away from me. I couldn’t remember ever being as afraid of a human as I was in that moment. Physically, Davian wasn’t a threat to me, but he had the money and resources to do whatever he wanted to people who crossed him. The cold malice pouring off him told me he wouldn’t lose a second of sleep over it.
He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths to calm himself. Before my eyes, the anger disappeared from his expression, and the warm smile returned. If I hadn’t witnessed his rage, I never would have believed him capable of it.
Composed, he spun and went back inside to rejoin Lukas and Conlan in the gallery, motioning for them to return to his office. Conlan glanced at Lukas, who was still looking at the terrace. He couldn’t see me, could he?
Please, go. I wasn’t sure I could endure the cold for one more minute. Much longer and my feet were going to freeze to the stone beneath them.
After what felt like forever, Lukas turned away and walked to the office with the others. I didn’t wait for them to go inside. As soon as their backs were to me, I ran across the gap and behind the trees on the other side. From there, I only had to move another ten feet or so behind the trees before the office door was out of sight. Then I sprinted for the glass door of the greenhouse.