Dark Promise by Annika West

3

His fear intensified when he beheld my vengeful visage. And with good reason.

This asshole should be afraid of me. I could blow up kitchens with one botched cookie recipe, and I wasn’t afraid to turn that power on him.

Would he be able to scrape out the chunks of singed chocolate from his shiny hair once I was through with him?

Only the gods could say…

But I’d certainly find out.

I took one angry step forward when a huge body blocked me.

Hux walked calmly toward Mr. Creed. My enigmatic, usually murderous employer towered over the visitor.

Any outsider would say that Hux’s blank face was professionally disinterested.

I knew better.

His eyes flared with amber fire. His jaw ticked ever so slightly, and that smooth, icy expression meant only one thing: his emotions were running wild beneath.

Oh, shit. What did Mr. Creed do now?

My breath caught. “Did you almost eat someone else in the sewers?”

Were we about to get another Indentured Employee under this roof?

I mean, it might be nice. August couldn’t ever take a proper joke, and Willow never hugged me like I needed her to.

I was living with selfish, selfish people. It was probably time to get some fresh blood in here.

Without preamble, I announced, “They can take the spare room next to mine!”

August, Willow, Hux, and Mr. Creed all turned their attention to me, wearing equal expressions of utter confusion.

Hux rumbled, “Might I remind you that we are not privy to the colorful scenarios you create within your head? Context, Aster. Context.”

Willow sighed. “She thinks you’re about to get another I.E. Because she’s an idiot without an iota of logical filtration. I’m going to take a shower. There’s sand in my bra.”

With that, she strode up the stairs, leaving me to wonder how Willow, of all people, understood me best of all.

“Maybe my surprise hugs are finally paying off,” I wondered aloud.

The vampire, with her enhanced hearing, whipped her head to the side, glaring down at me with crimson eyes. “They’re not.”

She disappeared into her room.

“Aster. August. We’ll convene at our meeting table in twenty minutes. Be sure to inform Willow.”

A sliver of fury leaked through his expression. His brows furrowed just a touch. “Mr. Creed. Do follow me upstairs.”

Mr. Creed, understandably, appeared very close to shitting himself.

Probably because he knew what kind of threats I was threatening in my head. More likely that he agrees that Hux is a scary fucker, but I’m really banking on the fact that my exploding acid gives him nightmares.

I was about to shrug it all off and gorge myself with cookie dough in the kitchen. But as Mr. Creed followed Cayne up the stairs, the wyvern shifter met my gaze.

For a moment, time suspended.

Fear poured from his tight expression.

The pinprick pupils in his eyes seemed to bore into me.

Chills skittered down my arms.

He looks like a man about to fight for his life. But he came here, right? So, why was he the one on a pincushion? Was that even a real saying? I don’t know. Good grief, someone pull me out of my own head. It’s dangerous in here. I’m rambling to myself now.

Creed’s gaze left mine, and the two men walked out of view.

His presence nagged at me.

Why? Why was he looking at me like that?

I mean, it’s possible that he was worried I’d sneak out and destroy his hoard whilst cackling gleefully, my eyes dark with inner demons and a little bit of hangry energy.

I wouldn’t put it past me either.

Maybe he’d finally butchered his pet pig, and her spirit was floating in between us, connecting us forever in this eternal landscape of energetic bullshit.

Less likely.

Yet it was preferable to the final option I could think of.

He was here because of me.

I knew I’d always had a knack for being self-centered. Hux and Creed had known each other long before I was born and had decades of business to discuss.

But I couldn’t shake that feeling that I was somehow a part of this meeting.

I shoveled a generous spoonful of cookie dough into my mouth and did what I did best, second only to stockpiling candles and sugar: follow my instincts.

They haven’t gotten me killed.

Yet.

I reached into my soul room, the place where my magical energy resided, and triggered my magic. The switch that had always been there was gone now.

After the entirety of my magic had been released, and after I’d decided to accept it, my soul room changed. It was much more fluid. It was larger too. The walls weren’t stone-hard, and energy flowed freely around me.

Instead of flicking a switch, I sank into my own intention.

And shifted realms.

Sound disappeared. Scent too. The only thing available to me from the physical realm was sight.

I steered myself upward. Floating through the air turned out to be a skill that didn’t exactly come natural to me, but it was part of my independent training.

I was really good at sending myself into a direction.

But stopping?

Less hot with those skills.

It felt like I was in space, just floating onward at the same constant speed until something stopped me.

So, as I rose through the level’s subflooring and into Cayne’s upper home level, I had to shift myself back into the physical realm again.

That, so far, was the only thing that stopped my endless motion.

My feet touched the ground for just a second before I snapped away into invisibility again.

Why can’t the faeries just send me a manual?

This time, my feet stayed on the floor. And just in time, it would seem, since Hux and Creed just entered.

Shit. I had to move away as far as possible. I didn’t know how to turn off the mind-reading part of my quirky little fae power, and Hux could sense when I was in his head.

I had to be extra sneaky.

I kept my distance as the men moved to the office. When they were inside, I gently shifted into the physical realm once more.

Boots on the soft carpet, breath held, I scooted down the hallway, listening.

“…should have called,” Hux finished saying.

Creed replied, but it was too low to make out. I thought I heard the word ‘danger,’ though.

“You think I can’t handle a hound?”

This time, Creed rose his voice. “You might. I cannot!”

“You were always a coward,” Hux replied, cold and cruel.

Woah. And here I’d thought they were friends. Creed had calledHux to help him when I’d accidentally blown up his precious hoard, after all.

Creed snapped back, strained, “And not all of us have your resources. They won’t touch you! You mean to tell me you don’t know what she is? Even after the fae are after her? The best chance we have is to hand her over —”

His words cut off in a choke.

Creed knew I was fae? But how? I’d only just found out? And what is a hound?

Sweat beaded on my brow. A natural response to Hux’s clear preference of dangerous throat play.

Sweating like a cornered animal was a conditioned response at this point.

Hux growled, “I’ll advise you to rethink the end to your statement. We might be acquaintances, Creed, but no one will question your disappearance if I decide it’s best for me.”

My heart thundered. I really felt like I had to pee. I considered popping into the invisible energetic realm and testing if I could let it loose there.

Instead, I stared blindly at the cream-colored wall before me, ears trained on the obviously mafia-like conversation next door.

Creed gasped and coughed for several seconds. His voice was raspy when he sneered, “Don’t tell me you care for that fae bitch. Has the mighty king finally fallen? Imagine how much harder you’ll crash when the hounds get her and drag her back to Faery by her broken limbs.”

“They won’t get the chance, Creed. And you are on your last leg. You are here against my orders. Don’t pretend like you came here out of the goodness of your heart. You care about the Cut girl as much as I do. Just as much as she proves useful to you.”

Okay, now I was raging.

Now, I wanted to stab a pen right through one amber eyeball and kick him in the well-shaped dick.

Why was he talking about me like that?

Creed chuckled. “You act all tough. You forget that I know you, however. You love your little team, but you’re never this protective. She must be quite the slut in the —”

There were a myriad of cracks and thumps as Creed’s body likely smacked against an array of furniture, or maybe a wall.

The floor?

Probably.

Whatever he just injured himself on, I was happy for it.

The only creature allowed to call me a slut was Gladys, and even she was currently being preserved in a magical freezer.

I shoved down the rush of pissed-off Aster energy. How did he know the fae were after me, and why was Creed getting so worked up? Why did he care?

I crept a little closer to the door as Hux spoke again. “Come here again, and I will ensure you are incapable of leaving, Creed. I know where your family lives. I know where you keep your assets. Your life is so… easy to crush.”

“You… bastard!”

Another deep, bone-wrenching hit against skin sounded.

I knew two things.

One, Creed was a total dickwad.

Two, that was a problem for him, oddly enough. Maybe he was scared that we were connected.

And just for kicks, number three: Hux was a duplicitous fuck.

But I’d known that already.

I didn’t like hearing his cold words dismissing any feelings between us. Dismissing my importance. Even though my logic understood he was likely putting up a front for Creed and trying to pretend like I was nothing to him in order to protect me, his words still wormed their way into my heart.

I’d spent the better part of my life having shit slung at me. It helped to wrap myself in armor and psychotic tendencies.

A part of me — the stupid part — had thought I’d never hear that kind of stuff come out of Hux’s mouth.

Not any more, at least.

Now, fake or not, this was just pure fuel for my secret insecurities.

I don’t like having secrets. I don’t like caring about what others thought of me. It’s a stupid way to get yourself hurt.

I was just about to turn invisible and hightail the hell out of here when Creed choked out the next sentence.

One that would forever be burned into my soul.

“When you lured her into my lair, Cayne, I thought you were showing me trust.”