Inclining my head, I received a dipped chin in answer. That was about the length of a normal conversation for Walt.
Aside from us, the Marshal was empty this time of night. That’s what residents paid for—peace, quiet, and anonymity. They didn’t meet for drinks in the downstairs bar or get mani-pedis in the spa on the weekends. They kept to themselves. It was safer that way. For all of us. Including the clueless humans swarming the city, blind to what prowled the streets alongside them.
The ride up to the penthouse might as well have come with a punched ticket for a rocket ship. In a blink, the doors opened on a long hall carpeted in rich reds and golds. I waited a minute while my stomach caught up with the rest of me, then I squared my shoulders and marched to the heavy oak door with a golden number one proclaiming this as the primest of prime real estate. I palmed the master keycard in my coat pocket on reflex, but the owner had called in the repair order. He was home for a change. All I had to do was knock.
Yep.
Any minute now.
Gods, I was too tired for this.
A text message chimed, and I rolled my eyes at the threat from Sven to get a move on. Proof he had the building, even these hallowed halls, wired for sound and video. Security was a big deal. Residents paid through the nose for it. But it sure made working here feel like you were living under a microscope.
After shrugging off my coat, I hung it from a light fixture three feet away, far enough the resident shouldn’t notice, and let my knuckles do the talking.
The door swung open to reveal a man who loomed over me. Granted, that wasn’t too hard to do considering I barely cleared five feet without my neck-breaker heels, but he was easily a foot taller than me. He was lean, but not thin. Muscular, but not bulky with it. And gorgeous—natch.
His amber eyes sparkled like sunlight on the water, and his mahogany hair was threaded with black strands that hung almost to his hips. The spiraled horns, ebony and gleaming, that curved over his skull screamed his inhumanity, but mortals didn’t come this pretty anyway. His lips were narrow, or maybe that was just his scowl thinning them.
This guy must be fae. They did haughty better than anyone, and he was in danger of drowning if it rained. He held his nose so high in the air, I should have seen straight into his brain, even without the height difference.
“I don’t pay for sex, and I don’t require it purchased for me either.” He tightened his hand on the knob. “Tell Augustin his idea of a joke doesn’t amuse me,” he said, and then he slammed the door in my face.
For a stunned moment, I stood there, tempted to take the out I had been given, but all too aware of the electronic eyes watching from the ceiling. Even without security monitoring me, when help didn’t come, Penthouse would call Sven, and then Sven would call me. Then I would have to explain to him, based on the curl of Penthouse’s upper-crust lip and the fact he tossed me out on my can, that he must have thought I was a hookergram.
Gritting my teeth, smile long gone, I banged the side of my fist beneath the ego-boosting numero uno. This time, when Penthouse gave me an opening, I wedged my foot in the crack before he hit me with whatever insult was pursing his ripe berry lips.
“Hi.” I planted my palm on the doorframe. “I don’t know who Augustin is, and believe me, I’m aware I look like a joke—I do check myself in the mirror before I leave for work each day—but my life isn’t amusing or lived for your amusement.” Lifting my plunger, I waved it like a magic wand. Or, okay, like a baseball bat. “I’m here to unclog your toilet.”
Frown crinkling his wide forehead, he swept his gaze down my scantily clad body then up again before settling on my face. “You?”
“Me.” I braced the wooden handle on my shoulder. “Unless your toilet magically unclogged itself?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” I never got that lucky. “Can I come in, or…?”
“Yes.” He tucked a sleek lock of hair behind an ear with a delicate point then stepped aside to let me enter. “Forgive my earlier rudeness. I didn’t realize—”
“—management would send a French maid to do a plumber’s job?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why they pay me the big bucks.” The guy clearly had no idea what was going on in his suite if my appearance had stumped him. Maybe, since he was Mr. Penthouse, the Marshal paid for my services instead of him personally. The fact they had retained me and not one of the other girls was more telling than his horns or his ears. I got the clients no one else could survive. “The master toilet?”
“Yes.” He gestured through a set of double doors I had never seen thrown open. “It’s right through—”
“Oh, I know.” I tossed him a flirty smile I got paid for by the hour. “I’m your usual girl.”
“My girl,” he said softly, his nostrils flaring. “Your scent.” He leaned down, shocking me into stillness, but all he did was skate his nose up the column of my throat in a shiver-inducing glide. “I recognize it.”
“You should.” I planted my palm on his chest and shoved him out of my personal space, surprising him with my strength. First-rate customer service, right here. “I come once a week.”
Amber eyes aglow, he trailed me into his room, his presence tingling along my spine in a primal warning I had no choice but to ignore. “Only once?”
Unexpected heat leapt into my checks, and I was grateful he couldn’t see them burning. I was not talking about my dry spell with this guy. Nah-uh. No way. No how. Especially now that I suspected he wasn’t my actual employer but the recipient of a ruffle-butted perk.
Smart guy, he figured out I wasn’t playing ball and killed that line of inquiry. “How is it we’ve never met?”
“You’re never home.” I stalled out at the foot of his bed, at the utter chaos ruining the space I kept model-home perfect, my fingers itching to snatch the clothes littering the floor and toss them into the hamper. A shirt dangled from the light fixture overhead as well, and I ducked to walk beneath it. Then again, maybe he wasn’t a slob. Maybe he had a temper. He had slammed the door in my face. Yet another reason to shake a tail feather and get my butt home. “I’ll just get to it then.”
With Penthouse acting as my shadow, I set to work unclogging the toilet. Braced for the sight—and smell—of what normally caused stoppages, I blinked at the tight ball of fabric clogging the trap. A plunger wasn’t going to fix this. I’d have to get my hands dirty.
Years spent cleaning up rich people’s messes had taught me to always come to work prepared for anything. One of my necessities were heavy-duty dishwashing gloves I kept folded in a pocket I had sewn into my skirt. After snapping on a pair, I sank my hand into the chilly water filling the bowl and wriggled my fingers into the knot.
A shadow fell across me, and his deep voice rumbled, “I wouldn’t have called if I had known…”
Flashing my ruffled butt, practically a job requirement, I grunted and yanked until I lost my grip. “Step out of my light, please.”
Darkness retreated, but the fresh prickle of intensity washing down my spine informed me he had decided to stay for the show.
Great.
Damn ruffles.
Whatever this guy had flushed, it did not want to get unflushed. That much was certain.
“I…apologize,” he said, as if testing how the words sounded. “I didn’t realize what she had done until it was too late to prevent the damage.”
She. Probably his girlfriend. Probably his jilted girlfriend if she was mad enough to flush designer labels.
“It’s no problem.” I knelt on the tiles and put my back into the heave-ho action. “It’s easily fixed.”
“Are you aware your underwear is showing?”
A lot more than my bloomers were on display. “Yep.”
“Hmm.”
Taking a break to flex my aching fingers, I glanced back at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I would have made an effort to visit more often had I
known what I was missing.”
This guy was a real piece of work. His girlfriend just flushed several hundred dollars’ worth of shirt down his toilet in a fit of pique, and he was hitting on me.
I offered him a smile as fake as Riley’s boobs. “Well, now you know.”
The porcelain cut into my stomach as I strained, but the blasted clog popped free at last. I hit the chilly tile on my butt, and the shirt smacked my chest with a wet thunk that smelled mercifully like bleach.
A single huff of laughter escaped the peanut gallery. “Would you like a towel?”
“I’m good.” I held up the shirt, a little bit proud of my accomplishment. “Where would you like this?”
He cut me a look that suggested I might want to get my head examined. “The trash is fine.”
“Suit yourself.” I dumped it in the small trash can at my knee then peeled off my gloves and tossed them in too. After tying off the bag, I lifted it out and then replaced it. I flushed the toilet, and it whispered in an almost silent whoosh. “My work here is done.” Standing, I hefted the bag in a one-armed salute then collected my unused plunger. “I’ll show myself out. Enjoy the rest of your night.”
Penthouse filled the doorway, preventing my exit. “What is your name?”
“Elle.”
“Elle,” he echoed, a curious lilt I hadn’t noticed in his voice. “Brielle? Umbrielle? Karielle?”
Taken aback by his off-the-cuff recitation of unusual names, I admitted mine, “Elliana.”
Pleased, he gifted me with a tight curl of his lips that might have been a smile had his teeth not been so very white and sharp behind them. “Do you have a last name, Ana?”
“I do.”
“Will you tell me what it is?”
“I was already off the clock when my boss called me about your emergency.” I didn’t use air quotes, but only because my hands were full of soggy shirt and plunger. “I would like to go home now, if you don’t need anything else.”
Heat pooled in his gaze as he dropped it to my lips. “And if I do?”
“There’s a menu beside your phone.” I smiled at him, showing a few teeth of my own. “There are maids who cater to the various predilections of the clientele here at the Marshal Building.” I nudged him aside with my shoulder when he continued blocking my path. “I’m not one of them.”
“I meant no offense.”
“None taken.” I was used to dealing with entitled jerks. It came with the bloomers. “Just stating facts.”
Penthouse reached for me, clamping his hand around my upper arm. “Ana—”
“My name is not Ana.” He let me struggle in his ironclad grip, and I lost it. “Get your hand off me.”
One dark eyebrow climbed his forehead. “Or what?”
There was no implied threat, not exactly, only more of that damnable curiosity from him. And his nostrils—he kept flaring them, drawing in my scent like he wanted to memorize it at its freshest.
That wasn’t creepy at all.
“I will break your fingers, joint by joint, one by one,” I informed him, “until you decide letting me go is the smartest decision you’ve ever made.”
As a thoughtful noise scratched the back of his throat, he squeezed my biceps as if he was checking for ripeness on the produce aisle. I half expected him to thump me next. “Are you that strong?”
“Where it counts, yes.” A growl rumbled in my chest, and I let it come. “Care for a demonstration?”
“Yes,” he said, and I swore his horns had lengthened, twisted, as I watched.
Infernal magic was my go-to power. Breaking was easier than fixing, injuring easier than healing, and I favored the path of least resistance when my feet had gone numb from squishing them into their pointy-toed prison twice in one day.
Mom was an agonae daemon, her gift inflicting physical harm without ever lifting a finger. Magic did all the dirty work for her, with medical precision. What can I say? Playing doctor was my favorite game as a kid, and he had volunteered for a round of Operation.
Without lowering my gaze, a rookie mistake when facing a predator, I homed in on the sensation of his fingers encircling my upper arm, and then I saw. An intricate map spread in my mind’s eye, highlighting the bones and tendons and ligaments in his hand. Starting with his pinky, I focused on the damage I wanted to inflict, and my eager magic leapt to do my bidding, snapping three bones in quick succession.
Penthouse didn’t flinch, merely puckered his brow and studied the results of my efforts.
“As much fun as this has been, I already covered the bit about how I’m not on the menu. I don’t cater to clients sexually, sadistically, or otherwise.” Shoving past him, I gave the suite a final once-over on my way out the door. “You have a beautiful home, but I won’t be stepping foot in it again.”
Proud of taking a stand, even if it cost me a lucrative client, I kicked off my heels in the hall as a reward. I grabbed my jacket, shrugged it on, and shot Sven the bird via video camera before carrying the blasted shoes with me into the elevator.
On the way down, I existed in a happy bubble of self-righteous fulfilment that burst when I stepped out into the lobby to find Penthouse checking his watch like I had kept him waiting.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he said, “I will double your salary if you come back and work for me.”
Work for me. There was the confirmation from his own mouth I had been a fringe benefit.
My heart pitter-pattered, but I had savings. I could afford to tell him no, so I did. “Nope.”
Hands balling into fists, he acted like he was resisting the impulse to reach for me again. “Triple then.”
The air thinned around my head until I had trouble breathing and squeaked, “Not interested.”
“Money doesn’t motivate you.” More curiosity, the guy must be part cat.
“Do you see how I’m dressed? Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to wear this getup five days a week? Do you have a clue how slimy I feel after coming home from this job?” I took a step closer, widening my path to veer around him. “I’m very motivated by money.” And other things. “But I don’t want yours.”
He angled his chin to one side. “Why?”
“I’m not for sale.”
“I don’t want to buy you, only your services.”
Mmm-hmm. Yeah. Sure. Right. Like it wasn’t one and the same to guys like him.
“I don’t enjoy inflicting pain on others.” That was a straight-up lie, but it was morally true. I didn’t want to enjoy hurting people, but it was easy, and I was good at it. Plus, it kept me safe from weirdos. Usually.
Ah, the paradox of being dae. Half fae, half daemon. Half good, half evil. Half right, half wrong. Half Dad, half Mom.
I was a hot mess of conflicting desires long before Ben entered the picture.
“I won’t force you to use your powers again,” Penthouse said, and it came out sounding like a promise.
“You’ll pay me three times my current salary to clean your suite? Cleaning? Nothing else?”
“Yes.”
A whimper escaped me, but I forced my head to turn from side to side. “No.”
Working for Penthouse was inviting scrutiny I couldn’t afford. The maid gig worked for me because, costume aside, the job title might as well have rendered me invisible. Sure, clients got their jollies checking out my butt, but they never paused to wonder if there were brains behind the ruffles.
Jaw tight, he zeroed in on the shoes dangling from my fingertips. “I’ll let you wear sneakers.”
Butter biscuit.
Picking up on my moment of weakness, he moved in for the kill. “And jeans.”
Butter biscuit with a side order of jelly.
“Fine,” I spat, hating myself for caving. “But I’m wearing flip-flops, not sneakers.”
So there.
“Done.” He stuck out his hand, which had healed in the time it took him to corner me, and we shook.
I might have be
en the half daemon, but I left feeling like I was the one who had struck a bargain with the devil.
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About the Author
USA Today best-selling author Hailey Edwards writes about questionable applications of otherwise perfectly good magic, the transformative power of love, the family you choose for yourself, and blowing stuff up. Not necessarily all at once. That could get messy.
www.HaileyEdwards.net
Also by Hailey Edwards
The Foundling
Bayou Born #1
Bone Driven #2
Death Knell #3
Rise Against #4
End Game #5
The Beginner’s Guide to Necromancy
How to Save an Undead Life #1
How to Claim an Undead Soul #2
How to Break an Undead Heart #3
How to Dance an Undead Waltz #4
How to Live an Undead Lie #5
How to Wake an Undead City #6
The Epilogues
How to Kiss an Undead Bride #7
How to survive an Undead Honeymoon #8
How to Rattle an Undead Couple (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 9) Page 19