“My mother was too high to raise me. So did you or didn’t you?” I had one hour. We would not waste a second of that time with small talk I didn’t give a damn about.

  “Your mother was going through a difficult time,” he said. “I was infatuated with her. I would have given her anything she asked for.”

  “Except yourself,” I said.

  “I had a family at home,” he sighed. “My wife was pregnant with Lucy. Your mom knew I wouldn’t leave them.”

  “Then maybe you should have kept it in your pants.”

  “I wasn’t a good man when I was younger,” he said. I watched for that quick spark of guilt in his eyes again, but it didn’t come. No, he’d rehearsed that statement. It was the correct thing to say, but he didn’t really mean it. “I made a lot of mistakes that I regret now. When I was cursed, I made even more poor decisions. You seem to have turned out okay.”

  The noise that huffed out of me hung in the cold air with my breath. “Did your magic whatever-you’ve-been-spying-with show you anything else about me?”

  “It only showed me when you needed my help,” he said. “After I left, I lost track of you and your sister for a while, but once I could find you again, I wanted to make sure you were okay. I have things to make up for.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said. Turned out okay. Caring for my mother. Falling in love with Seth. Killing. Hungering for power. The tree. The Guardian. Quin. The metric fuckton of alcohol I’d had in six years.

  I was very, very far from okay.

  I shook my head and moved down my mental list of questions. “You came back once, when I was four.”

  “I’m surprised you even remember that.” He shifted a little, though I wasn’t sure if his discomfort was from this conversation or from the cold seeping in from the bench. “Walk with me.” He stood and rubbed his gloved hands together, his eyes darting around before we headed toward the fountain. “I came back once, just to see how you were doing. You seemed fine, and I thought, with the curse as bad as it was, you’d be better off without me.”

  “That’s the kind of thing very selfish people say,” I told him. I wrapped my arms around myself and toed at some pebbles along the footpath. “I wasn’t better off without you. None of us were.” Not me or my mom. Not his real family. “What’s the curse do?”

  “Weakens me. Each year I have less and less power. My body is giving out, too. I’ve searched all over for a way to break it, but there’s nothing, and I’m almost powerless now. It cost me a great deal to break off a piece of my power for you, and there isn’t much left. A bargain to gather the objects was the only way for me to survive.” He glanced over his shoulder and then turned back to me. “I wouldn’t have involved you and your sister if there was any other way.”

  “I tried to find you,” I said. “I traveled the astral plane looking for you. You were blocking me.”

  “You knew? I didn’t realize you’d been investigating it all so deeply.” Distaste crawled across his features and was gone as quickly as it came. “Fae bargains are complicated. I couldn’t have you finding me before the time was right, until you retrieved all the objects.”

  Liar. That prickle started at the back of my neck, warning me to pay attention to what was in front of me and what my gut was telling me about it.

  “Why Lucy’s birthday?” He walked quicker against the cold.

  “Unfortunate timing.”

  “She still has faith in you, you know.” Although, the longer we talked, the less I thought he deserved it. “She’s forgiving.”

  “And you are not.”

  “She and I are about as different as can be, but she is my sister. That might be the one good thing I got out of your mistakes.” My hands were numb from the biting cold, but I couldn’t wake up my numb emotions, either. It was too easy for him to concoct thin excuses for everything he’d done. I wondered if he believed them, if he painted himself as some kind of self-sacrificing hero in his own mind. “She’s going to be heartbroken if you kick it on her birthday.”

  “Then give me the objects,” he said. Adrian and I knew it was a bad idea, but even Colin had warned Lucy against handing the coin, lock, and ring over prematurely. She’d listened, which meant deep down she didn’t feel so sure about our dad either.

  “Prove you deserve them.” The wind picked up, and I’d gotten most of the answers I wanted. Christopher looked around again, and I got the distinct feeling that we were being watched. I just needed to pry a little more, to figure out what he was after.

  He whirled to face me, his careful composure failing as his lips drew back from his teeth, but in an instant, he smoothed it all away. It reminded me of Lucy when she was angry. “Prove it how?” he asked. “What is it you want from me?”

  I didn’t know what I wanted. I pressed my hand against my chest, hating that there was a piece of this man that had refueled my powers. He could make it up to Lucy, maybe, but I failed to think of anything that would be enough to change things between him and me.

  “There is nothing I want from you,” I said. “Make it up to Lucy. Do whatever you have to so that she wants you to stay because I don’t care if you die.” I left him standing in the bitter wind with his mouth hanging open as I turned and walked away.

  “You’re in luck, Trouble,” Adrian said when he opened the door shirtless. “Dr. Orion is in.”

  I glared at him and slammed his door.

  “Oh, I’m going to guess it really didn’t go well.” He sat down on the couch. “Sit. What the hell happened?”

  “He answered all my questions.” I sat where I had before and rested my head in my hands. “It didn’t change anything.”

  “Did you think it was going to?” he asked. I shook my head. Of course I hadn’t. I had only met with him to confirm what I already knew.

  “Can we skip this and find a distraction instead?” I asked.

  His hand started at my knee and slid up the inside of my leg. “That is avoidance,” he said, “but I’ll allow it. You’ve probably talked enough today.”

  Climbing into his lap and straddling him warmed my feelings up, chasing away the numbness as lust took its place. I took his face in my hands and kissed him hard. It felt more natural now, taking, demanding. I was over fighting this; we both liked the urgency, the frantic grasping for satisfaction. He wound his fingers in my hair and pulled until my scalp pinched, tugging my head back to reveal the length of my throat. He nipped the skin there, alternating sides until he found my mouth again.

  “Come with me,” he said, moving me off his lap and extending his hand.

  “Where are we going?”

  He didn’t answer, just pulled me into the bathroom and shut the door behind us.

  “Shower or mirror?” he asked. My brain short-circuited as I tried to understand what he was asking me. “You have five seconds to choose.”

  “I—”

  “Four…three…”

  I looked between the shower and the mirror over a small counter with a sink.

  “Two…”

  I didn’t like shower sex. I could never find a position that didn’t make me feel like I was drowning. What was he going to do with the mirror?

  “One.” He pressed me over the counter, so the edge dug into my hips and my boobs squished over the sink. He tilted my head back and kissed the side of my neck, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “Stay still.”

  He bent down and undid my jeans, slid them low with my panties, and I stepped out of them. His hands roved up the sides of my legs as he stood, then he unbuttoned his own pants and removed them.

  “How attached are you to this shirt?” he asked as he reached around me and grasped the collar. It was plain black, the same as almost every other shirt I owned. I shrugged. He ripped the fabric right down the middle and palmed my breast.

  “I won’t have any clothes left if you keep that up,” I mumbled.

  “You can borrow one of mine.” His hands moved down my back, his fingertips lighting my spine up like a Christmas tree, until he cupped my ass. Then they moved lower, to the space between my thighs, where his thumb traced my wet slit. He brought it to his mouth and sucked it devilishly, making sure I saw it in the mirror. Then he reached into a drawer on the side of the vanity to pull out a condom.

  “Is there anywhere in your house you don’t keep those?” I asked.

  “I am spontaneous,” he said, lining his cock up against me. “I never know where I’ll end up.” His dark eyes locked on mine. “Now, watch me fuck you.” His first thrust pushed my hips so hard into the counter it hurt. I wiggled a little, spreading my legs further and pushing back so I was more comfortable.

  One hand steadied him at my hip while the other reached under my torn shirt and played with my nipple in maddening circles. With each exhale, my breath fogged the mirror, the puffs of air coming faster as my moans met his pace. I watched the way his face went slack with bliss, his eyes half closing, then all of his features tightening when he came. He took a few breaths and squeezed my hip before he pulled out.

  I frowned, then yelped as he spun me around and lifted me onto the counter, kneeling in front of me.

  He flicked his tongue over my clit and arched an eyebrow. “Worried I was going to leave you hanging?”

  “No.”

  “Liar.” He teased his thumb over my pussy. “I would never leave a woman unsatisfied.” He put just enough pressure on my clit to make me arch back, my shoulders landing against the cold mirror glass. “Women’s bodies are a fucking gift on this earth. Any man who isn’t worshiping them like they deserve isn’t doing it right.”

  His fingers dug into the skin of my thighs as he ravaged me with his mouth until I screamed, the sound bouncing off the bathroom walls as I came. I rested my head back against the mirror and tried to catch my breath.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  “What?” I struggled to form a coherent thought, and I was sure I would dissolve right off the counter onto the floor.

  He lifted me up and turned me the other way, so my trembling knees supported my weight on either side of the sink. He traced the curve of my waist and kissed the small of my back.

  “Hold on tight,” he said. I braced my hands against the mirror and he slid two fingers into me, angled just right to hit the sensitive nerves that made me gasp. He pushed them in a steady rhythm until I could feel the tension inside me coiling tight. I threw my head back, waiting for the burst of pleasure that was coming.

  “No.” He tugged a strand of my hair. “Eyes on the mirror.” I did as he said and saw the kiss he pressed to my shoulder, his eyes full of hunger as he pushed me toward the brink. I was an ecstatic mess, grinding myself on his hand. My hair fell into my face and my torn shirt barely hung on my shoulders, my breasts bouncing with our movements. “Watch how sexy you are when you come.”

  His words shoved me over the edge. I saw myself fall apart in my reflection, my teeth biting down hard on my lip to soften my cry as I looked into my own eyes, until the sensation passed and they fell closed. I looked feral under the work of his hands, and if the smirk of his reflection when I looked again was any sign, that was just how he wanted it.

  20

  Chapter Twenty

  I rolled away from the lamplight in the living room and buried my face into the couch cushions. Adrian’s couch was the broken-in kind of comfy, and I’d slept well under a warm blanket the night before.

  “Slow down…what did he say?” I heard Adrian talking to someone on the phone as he moved around the house. “No, I didn’t…she’s here. Yeah, she slept on the couch last night. I’ll tell her. Okay.” He set his phone on the coffee table behind me with a soft thunk.

  I grumbled and rolled back toward the noise, and when I opened my eyes, Adrian stood naked over me, his dick a foot from my face. I blinked a few times.

  “Hi,” I said as I quickly flicked my eyes back to his face. The corner of his mouth tipped up.

  “Hi.” He threw a gray t-shirt at me, and I remembered my shirt was in tatters on the bathroom floor. “It’s about 5:30 and we need to meet Colin and Lucy before she goes to work. Get up and get dressed. Fair warning…she’s upset.”

  I held the shirt up and looked at the trippy Pink Floyd motif on the front. “Why is she upset?”

  “Colin’s nerd buddies found out something she didn’t like about the objects your dad wants,” he said. He disappeared into his bedroom without elaborating, and when he reappeared, he was dressed.

  I spent the entire bus ride wondering why Adrian couldn’t just magically create a door to Lucy and Colin’s so we didn’t have to take public transportation. This was way earlier than I liked to be up, and I had had no coffee before Adrian rushed me out the door.

  The sun was still far from up when we went up to their apartment, and this time I accepted the sugary concoction Colin handed me. Caffeine was caffeine, and beggars couldn’t be choosers before sunrise. Lucy paced back and forth in the living room like her feet were on fire.

  Colin and Adrian exchanged a look.

  “Why don’t we all sit down and talk?” Colin suggested. Lucy stopped and leaned over the back of the couch.

  “I’ll stand,” she said. The rest of us sat down and sipped our coffee.

  “What’s up?” Adrian asked, cutting through the awkward silence.

  Colin glanced over his shoulder at Lucy and took a deep breath. “My friend that studies fae history is a magician at cross-referencing. Pun kind of intended.” Lucy’s scowl said she did not appreciate his well-timed pun. “There was a magician once who had two of the objects: the ring and the lock. He did some not-so-nice things.”

  “Such as?” Adrian asked.

  “Well,” Colin said, “he was an advisor to a king. The lock forces people to keep secrets. The key won’t come out because you turn it to work the spell. When he got the ring and the lock, he spent years manipulating the court through influence and forcing them to keep secrets whenever he did something underhanded…until he could convince them to overthrow the king, and he took the throne.”

  “So what?” Lucy muttered. “Just because someone did something bad with them hundreds of years ago doesn’t mean our dad is doing the same. He said they were for the fae.”

  “I didn’t say he was doing anything wrong,” Colin soothed. He sighed like he’d had this conversation a few times already. “I’m just saying that maybe it’s not a good idea for all of those objects to be in one place with one person until we know more about what is going on.”

  “That isn’t enough information to make me suspicious. He texted me and asked me to meet him with Vivian tomorrow at the diner. I can just ask him what they’re for.”

  “He might lie,” I said. The look Lucy gave me was ferocious.

  “Fine. Do your little mind reading thing if it makes you feel better,” she said, and she crossed her arms. “I’m not going to because I’m not so quick to expect the worst from people.”

  I tried to think of how to calm her down, to appease her so she might hear reason. The tingling intuition at the back of my neck almost burned, and I wished there was a way I could transfer it to her, make her feel just how wrong all of this was.

  “I will, if that’s what gets us the truth,” I said, which was apparently the wrong thing. Lucy turned around and disappeared into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  Colin rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, guys. She’s really upset about this. She’s closing down the store tomorrow and everything.” The last couple of times my sister had closed the store were when I had disappeared or done something dangerous and she had to come to my aid. If she was willing to do it for our father, she was becoming completely unbalanced by everything that was going on.

  “I’m going with you,” Adrian said.

  “I have to work.” Colin drained his mug of coffee. “Will you let me know what happens? I’m worried about her. I’ve never seen her like this.”

  “You think this is suspicious, too?” I asked.

  “I wish I didn’t,” Colin said. “I hate seeing her like this. She’s wanted answers for so long…but the evidence isn’t looking good.”

  I slept in my apartment that night, or rather, didn’t sleep. The anticipation of breakfast made me so nauseous it could have put me off food for a year. I hugged my angry bear and turned over on my side. We were meeting at the diner at 8:00 and I’d vowed to Colin that whatever happened, I’d keep Lucy safe.

  Christopher waited for us when we arrived, seated at the same table as before, and he looked like shit. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and his hair was a mess. His rumpled clothes looked as if he’d been wearing them for a few days, and he gazed blankly at a spot on the table. He didn’t look up until we sat in our chairs.

  “Good morning.” He forced a smile that missed the mark of friendliness.

  “Are you okay?” Lucy asked him. The waitress came by and we ordered drinks. “You look sick.”

  “The curse,” he said, smiling again with effort. “You should order breakfast when she comes back. I’m buying. Did you…did you bring the objects with you this time?”

  “They’re somewhere safe,” Adrian answered. He rubbed his thumb over the handle of his coffee mug and stared our father down.

  “I’m running out of time,” Christopher said as he scrubbed his hands over his face. “If I have nothing to trade, they won’t help me. I can make everything up to you, but I need those objects.”

  I played with a packet of sugar, bending the corner back and forth. “You have three months. What’s the hurry? You sound pretty desperate.”

  “Vivian, stop!” Lucy said. She leaned across the table toward me. “Why are you being like this?”

  “Lucy—”

  She cut Adrian off. “I’m sick of all of you ganging up on me. You’ve even got Colin convinced now…”

  “Convinced of what?” Christopher asked.

  “That you’re somehow going to fuck us over if we give you those objects,” I said, leveling him with a stare. “See, Chris…Lucy is naïve about the whole thing. Yes, naïve,” I said when she opened her mouth to interrupt me. “She’s being like this because she still hopes her dad is coming home. Everyone else sees through you.”

 

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