by Aileen Erin
But as I pulled into my parking space at the apartment, I decided that this dinner with my neighbor was going to be fun. At least, I hoped it would.
I got out of the car, beeped the lock, and told myself I was overthinking things again. I was making entirely too much out of my neighbor being friendly, and all this time obsessing over it was a total waste. Once he saw me eat, he wasn’t going to want to hang out with me ever again.
Oh man. That would suck. I didn’t even know Dastien yet, but the idea that he’d ditch me was painful.
Okay. I was just going to have to not eat. Or I’d just pick at stuff. It was already past six, which meant I didn’t have time to eat before I went over there, but I could eat when I got home.
But I was so hungry.
I was so hungry that sometimes I wasn’t sure I could get out of bed, and I wasn’t sure that it mattered. I wasn’t sure I mattered.
And yet, I got up. I went to class. I kept doing all the things I was supposed to do when none of it made me feel anything at all.
I guessed that was why I’d said yes to Dastien. He was the first thing that made me feel since I woke up in the hospital a little over a year and nine months ago.
I usually felt like a stranger to myself, and I was so damned tired of being alone and confused. But in just a couple of conversations, Dastien made me feel like I wasn’t so alone. Something about the way he looked at me when he smiled made me feel like he cared. Like he really, truly saw me. That was a big deal.
A really big deal.
I pressed the button for the elevator and listened to it creak and moan its way down to me.
I needed to go home and change—not just my clothes but my attitude. I’d shove all my insecurities away and be thankful for whatever time Dastien wanted to spend with me. Because if there was one thing that my accident taught me, it was that you’re never guaranteed a tomorrow. Every day had to count. So, I tried to find joy in every day that I had.
Some days the best I could come up with were some Cheetos, an ice-cold Diet Coke, and watching The Princess Bride.
Today, I had a little more to be thankful for. A hot neighbor who wanted to be friends.
I’d make today count.
I got into the parking garage elevator and leaned against the back wall. A car pulled down the ramp, and I leaped toward the buttons, pushing the door closed again, again, again.
It was those same two guys from campus.
The doors slid closed, and I could breathe again. I leaned back again and closed my eyes.
This was just a coincidence. Just a coincidence. Life was full of them. It didn’t mean anything.
It didn’t mean anything.
I thought the words in my head, but there was some part of me that knew it had to mean something.
Those guys were following me.
But why?
Why would anyone care about a nobody like me?
Chapter Twenty-Two
DASTIEN
When I got back to the apartment, the security guy nodded at me and took a breath. For a second, I thought he might want to say something to me, so I waited. But he didn’t.
The sickly sweet stench of fear hit me, and when he still hadn’t said anything, I decided he didn’t really want to talk to me. He was just afraid of me.
Fine. I was used to that reaction from humans. I wasn’t offended by their fear, but I wasn’t about to stick around and taunt them. That wasn’t my bag at all.
I started toward the stairs, but the sound of him clearing his throat had me pausing.
I looked back at him, and he waved me over.
Okay. The guy did want to say something to me, but he was afraid of me. If he was pushing past his fear to talk to me, it must be important.
I let go of the stairwell door and strode to his built-in desk. The Art Deco style fit in with the newly remodeled building.
I rested my arms on the metal top. “Everything okay?” I asked softly, so I didn’t scare him more than I already had.
The balding man was incredibly fit for his age and smelled faintly of cigarettes. He was either quitting or sometimes around a smoker. The man kept his gaze firmly planted on the desk in front of him. “I wanted to give you a warning.” He met my gaze for less than a second before breaking it. “I know who you are.”
That wasn’t new. When humans found out about werewolves, I got recognized everywhere I went. We’d been off and on the news for months. Sometimes humans saw me and just remembered that I was a werewolf. Others would yell my name, and the really daring ones wanted a picture. Which was fine. Even before the new council took over, all the Alphas agreed that presenting a welcoming and safe front around humans would be in everyone’s best interest.
After Tessa was taken, I disappeared from the public eye. At first, because I had to. The media had gone crazy about Tessa’s kidnapping and the reward I was offering for any information about her. It had been necessary but also made it impossible for me to go anywhere. Not that I really wanted to go anywhere unless it was to find Tessa.
With no leads and no new developments, the story eventually faded away to nothing. By the time I finally ventured out again, I found out that most everyone had forgotten all about me. It was the only good thing to come from all of this.
I hadn’t been in the news for a long time. What did the guy remember about me? That I was a werewolf or that I was Dastien Laurent, the werewolf who lost his mate? “Do you know what I am or specifically who I am?”
“You’re Dastien Laurent. It’s been a couple years now—maybe more than—but I won’t forget you or any of your friends from the footage that day.”
The guy had a much longer memory than most humans, but that still didn’t explain the fear. “I’m not here to hurt you or anyone else.”
“No, I wouldn’t think that about you. But I’ve put together why you’re here. You must’ve found your missing mate. That’s what you call your wife, right? Your mate?”
This guy was smart and courageous for talking to me about this, even when he was afraid of me. “Yes.”
“She’s Cassie. Apartment 309. You haven’t officially moved in, but I know Steven moved into 512 overnight, and someone else moved in across the hall from her. You paid good money to make that happen. Must’ve cleared it with the owners because the leasing office doesn’t know anything about it.”
I didn’t know this security guy. I shouldn’t trust him with the truth, but the scent of his fear mixed with the scent of floral hope. It told me enough. “That’s right.”
He pulled a chain from under his shirt. It was a dull metal, and from the way it smelled, it had to be steel. Dangling from the chain was a little sack, and whatever was inside, I had a feeling it had to be some sort of magic.
“I’m retired from the force—took this gig to get out of my wife’s hair a few days a week—but my daughter works for the FBI. When everything about you guys came out, she gave me this little bag.”
This was getting good. I leaned closer, trying to get a whiff of the scent, but all I could smell was the sharp tang of magic and the man’s faded cigarette scent.
“My daughter said that you werewolves were the good ones, despite what Hollywood types made out about you in their movies. She said vampires are scary but easy to avoid.” He paused and finally looked at me as if challenging me.
“Both are true. I’d be biased about the werewolves, but your daughter is right. Both are true.” I tilted my head as I studied him. If the necklace wasn’t for werewolves or vampires, then what was it for? “What else did your daughter tell you?”
“Nothing has been confirmed in public, but most of us humans assume all the things we’d thought were myth or legend are actually real. My daughter confirmed some of that for me. She said this necklace would help me know when a fairy was around, and to be very, very careful with what I said and did when that happened. The chain protects me a little from their magic, but whatever’s in the bag grows hot whenever there are fairies
around.”
Tessa didn’t believe she was lucky. She didn’t believe in coincidences either. But this was lucky, and if it wasn’t a lucky coincidence, then it was an act of God to have this man guarding this building.
Or maybe an act of Eli.
Now I could find out how closely the fey were watching her. “Are there a lot of fairies around this building?”
“Fewer these days.” He shrugged. “When Cassie moved in, it was warm all the time. Now, it’s only warm when Cassie’s blonde friend is around. And she’s always here checking up on her. Even bothers me about whether Cassie’s ever with someone. That little fairy scares the shit out of me. She gets a look in her eye that…” He looked away from me again. “Being on the job meant that I got to see all kinds of people, all walks of life, all kinds of bad. Nothing much surprises me or scares me anymore, but I can recognize evil. That one is colder than ice. She’s up there now.”
I straightened. “She is?”
“Yep. She asked if I saw you or any of your kind around.”
I didn’t like that at all. “What did you say?”
“I said that as far as I’d been told, no one new had officially moved into the building. Which is true. I don’t know what she thought of that. I haven’t seen Cassie return on the elevator security camera, so I’m not sure what that fairy girl is doing alone in Cassie’s apartment, but I had a feeling it’s got to do with you. I wanted to warn you before you went up. She’s been up there about five minutes.”
Damn it.
I called the Wayfarers’ number. Meredith’s brother answered before the first ring tone finished. “Max. Where is she?” I asked.
“She’s taking her test. I’m watching her now through the window. It’s just her and her professor in the classroom. No other doors or windows.”
I took a breath. Tessa was safe. “A fey is in her apartment, possibly looking for me. Stay alert.”
“She won’t get out of our sight. I’ve got Micah with me outside the classroom. Four more just outside the building. No one’s getting to her here.”
“Good. Be alert.” I hung up, and a growl rose in my throat. Part of me—most of me—wanted to go after Tessa. But the rest of me knew that I had to go see this fey and what she was doing. I couldn’t let her get in between me and Tessa. Not ever again.
“Are you okay?” the guard asked.
I checked his nametag. “I’ll be fine, Mr. Kirkall. Thank you for the warning.”
“Not a problem.” He tucked his chain back under his shirt. “One more thing.”
“Yes?” I tried to watch my tone, but now I was wasting time. Time I might not have.
“The woman that Cassie calls Mother? The charm burned me the one and only time she showed up. Second degree. It seems to me she’s someone to avoid.”
I nodded. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll do just that.” I grabbed a notepad and a pen from his desk. “Will you do me a favor? Any of them show up again, text me.”
“It’d be my pleasure.” He took back the notepad. “Good luck with your mate.”
“Appreciate that. And thanks for the help.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed Cosette.
“We’re almost ready to leave,” she said as soon as she answered. “Just give us—”
“The building’s security guy just warned me that there’s a fey girl that always shows up to check on Tessa. This fey is currently in the building.”
“Don’t fight her. Don’t you dare even approach—”
I rushed up the stairs. “Fuck that, Cosette. Fuck that. I’m giving you a warning because—”
“I’m not joking. If she’s from my court, if she’s part of my mother’s magic, she could control you. With your wolf like it is—”
I growled at her.
“Stop. Think.” There was magic in her words, slowing me down.
I reached the third-floor landing and gripped the stair-door knob, but I didn’t turn it. I didn’t open the door. I didn’t rush down the hall and tear into Tessa’s apartment to kill whatever fey was inside.
I stopped and thought about what I was doing.
“Van’s finishing something up. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“That’s too long. I need—” I heard a voice talking about me, and I stopped talking.
A woman. The fey woman that kept watch on my mate.
“Dastien? Are you still there?”
I hung up on Cosette and texted her that the fey was in the hallway. I slid my phone into my pocket and twisted the knob. I pulled it open painfully slow. Just a crack. That was all I needed.
I inhaled. Holly, pine, and moonlight.
The security guard—Kirkall—was right. There was a fey in the hallway. Not just any fey, but moonlight meant it was someone from the Lunar Court.
My first instinct was to attack, but I heard Cosette’s warning in my head. Stop. Think.
If I went through that door, the best thing that would happen was killing the fey and destroying the immediate threat to Tessa.
But if I did that, then they’d know we had her back. It would either start an all-out war, or they’d try to take Tessa again, or try to hurt her through the magic already on her. All of which I wanted to avoid. I didn’t want anything to hurt Tessa again.
I needed time to break through the magic that was embedded in Tessa’s soul. I wouldn’t get that if I went into the hallway.
So, I listened through the barely there crack in the door.
“—No. You’re not listening.” There was a pause, and her footsteps grew louder. “No, I understand that, but—”
Okay. The fey girl was talking on the phone, and now she was getting close enough that I could hear the other side of the conversation.
“And I’m telling you that I got a message from that mutant pup abomination. She was calling me from the hospital.”
And I knew that voice.
Helen. The queen of the Lunar Court. “That means that one of them—”
“I swear no wolves or witches or supernaturals aside from me and Tessa crossed her threshold today,” the fey girl in the hallway said. “None of the safeguards there have been triggered.”
“But the safeguards I built into the spell itself serve as a warning should any of her friends push too hard against my magic.” There was so much icy anger in Helen’s voice that I wondered why the fey girl wasn’t dusted in frost. “If she collapsed and went into a coma, then they’ve been triggered, and—”
“The pathetic security guy downstairs doesn’t have the ability to lie to me without me knowing.” The girl pressed the elevator button, and then ten more times.
Whoever this fey girl was, she had some guts to argue with the queen like that.
“I know I can’t read minds, but I’m not an idiot.” The fey girl punched the button again. “I can tell when—”
“Did you show him Cosette’s picture? She could—”
“Yes, I showed him Cosette’s, and he said he hadn’t seen her.”
The elevator door creaked open. Her voice sounded farther away as she stepped inside.
I opened the door a little more—just wide enough to point the camera lens of my phone through it—and snapped a picture.
Her back was to me, but I could see her long blonde hair. She was tall and thin, and the way she flicked her hair over her shoulder reminded me of someone.
“Cassie’s not here now, and no, she didn’t answer my texts. She’s probably at the store. She’s eating more and more. It’s revolting how much she can shovel in at once. I’ve never seen anyone eat like that. She said that’s why she passed out, and I believe her, Mother. I—” The elevator door slid shut, and I opened the door, stepping into the hallway.
I glanced down at my phone. I wished I had a better picture of the fey, but she’d called Helen “Mother,” which meant that the girl had to be one of Cosette’s siblings. That’s why she could argue with Helen.
I went to my apartment. As soon as I steppe
d inside, Van, Chris, and Cosette appeared in my living room. They all started talking at once, and I turned to them. “Shut up.”
I motioned to Cosette toward the balcony.
“What?” she asked.
“If the fey parked on the street, she should be outside in just a second. She’s one of your sisters.”
Cosette pushed past me, and for the first time since I met her, there was an echo of her mother’s ice-cold anger on her face. The look was part-ice, part-anger, part-demand to be obeyed, and all of it showed the fey she truly was. In that instant, I was glad she was on our side.
“Just wait.” I grabbed her arm. “See if you know who she is when she comes out. I don’t want to start something without knowing fully what we’re getting into and what they could do to Tessa.”
“Right, but depending on who it is, I might go out there and confront her.”
“As long as it doesn’t risk Tessa.”
She took a breath, and some of the ice in her eyes thawed. “Of course.”
I bit back my thank you and released her arm.
We stood at the balcony rails, staring down below. The blonde fey exited the building below us. I watched Cosette as she stared at the girl for a moment, and then she walked back into the apartment.
She stared at Van for a moment and then tilted her head to the side. His eyes widened just a touch, and then he gave a nearly unnoticeable nod and was gone without a word.
“Where did Van go?”
“The Lunar Court. You were right. That was my sister.” Cosette dropped into the loveseat and flicked her hair over her shoulders.
That was what I’d recognized. The fey girl had the same mannerism as Cosette.
“Van didn’t want to start a war without cause, and he didn’t want anyone spooking and doing something to Tessa. So, we’ve been careful.” She shrugged. “Now we know where Tessa is and who’s involved—other than my mother. His plan is adjusting a little.”