by Kyle, Celia
The young thief was in an impossible position. After a lifetime without anyone she could really depend on, she had made the mistake of trusting someone who took advantage of her. Kiki reeled at the idea that the first person this girl had ever really had faith in turned out to be a monster.
“I don’t suppose you’d tell me what your name is?”
“I don’t suppose I would.” Fair enough. The girl fixed Kiki with the stare of someone who wasn’t about to fall into the trap of giving up her trust again.
“Well, that’s fine.” Thayne was still in full bad-cop mode, and it set Kiki’s teeth on edge. “Your name isn’t important to us anyway. You can tell it to the judiciary agents when they get here.”
“Are you kidding? We’re not calling the judiciary.”
Thayne flared up and turned on Kiki. “What the—? Are you serious?”
“I am.”
“But she’s a thief. She confessed. Not only that, maybe the judiciary can get that Jasper son of a bitch.”
“We can’t just turn her over to the judiciary,” Kiki protested. “The last thing she needs is to be thrown into some jail cell.”
“Not that I would make it easy for them,” the girl smirked.
“She’s. A. Thief.” He was on the verge of genuinely losing his temper. “Hell, you were the one who wanted her caught. And now that she’s got some sad story, you just want to let her go? There’s a jackass running a ring of child thieves and this girl is the key!”
He stabbed his finger at the young woman in the chair, who sat impassively watching the whole thing unfold.
“I’m the wronged party, and I refuse to report the crime. Full stop.”
The two adults had reached an impasse, and the girl raised her hand as if she were sitting in class. “Can I ask y’all a question?”
“What,” Thayne and Kiki snapped in unison.
“Are you guys having some kind of lover’s quarrel or something? Because I can wait outside.” If the room had been small before, it seemed to shrink to half the size. All the air rushed out at once, and Kiki flushed as if she’d been caught. The girl smirked again. “Thought so.”
“You keep your mouth shut.” Thayne was apoplectic with rage. His whole body exploded with radiant heat, and Kiki stepped back from him in surprise. “I don’t know where you come up with that kind of shit, but you need to knock it the fuck off. Now.”
The last word rattled the room, and the smirking kid put her palms up in a mock surrender. “My bad. Jeez.” If anything, this only added fuel to the fire.
“The last thing anyone in their right mind would do is get involved with an Enchantress. I’d have to be a complete idiot. The only reason I’m here in the first place is to catch your ass, so now that the job is done, I don’t ever have to see that woman again.”
His vehemence stung Kiki, almost as much as his behavior the day before. If Thayne was good at anything, it was cutting her right to the bone.
“So, you’re telling me you two have never slept together? Okaaay.” She rolled her eyes again, and Thayne sputtered for a second before spinning on Kiki.
“You told her.” It was like he hit her in the chest. Kiki blinked for a second, bewildered by yet another accusation.
“What?”
“You told her. About yesterday.”
“Nailed it,” the little brat reached up as if to tick off her victory on a scoreboard.
“Will you shut up?” Thayne snarled.
“I’m sorry,” Kiki found her voice at last, “but when exactly would I have told her anything? You have been here literally the entire time I’ve been in the room. Furthermore, why in the world would I come face-to-face with the girl who has been stealing from me and just decide to tell her that you and I had sex yesterday?”
She had him there. Dead to rights. Even he couldn’t argue with the logic of that, and Kiki had learned that he was the kind of man who would argue with just about anything. For one blissful moment, he was silent.
“Hang on,” he said smoothly, a spark going off in his eyes. Turning back to the girl in the chair, there was a new kind of calm about Thayne that left Kiki oddly unsettled.
“I know what this is. You’re really something, you know that?”
“I’m a lot of things.” She had resumed her impassive position with her arms folded across her chest.
“I bet you are.”
“Thayne, what are you talking about?” Kiki was more than a little lost.
“She read us,” he said. “She read me. This little critter has been sizing us up from the first moment we got her back here. And I know exactly what she is.”
“Oh yeah?” A tiny smile flickered across her face. “What am I?”
“You’re a dark fae.”
The truth of it bloomed in the center of Kiki’s mind. Given the absolute mess the girl had made of her shop, and the woman who would testify to the fact that it had all been done with her mind alone, this was the only explanation. Couple that with the way she had been essentially running the room during her interrogation, and there couldn’t be any doubt.
“Are you seriously coming at me with that shit?” For the first time, the little bandit bristled up in her chair and leaned forward until she was practically tipping onto Thayne’s shoes. “So I gotta be a ‘dark fae’ because I’m black. Is that it?”
“Well, uh, wait,” Thayne sputtered.
Kiki was sure of it now. That was a brilliant chess move, and she watched as all of the authority Thayne had built up deflated in an instant. Looking thoroughly trapped, he stammered, trying to find some way out of the snare.
“Or wait, no.” A glint in her eyes told Kiki the girl was about to go in for the kill. “That’s not it. You’re just pissed because I can tell she’s your soul mate.”
Kiki immediately ran cold all over. Her mouth fell open, and the girl looked over at her and did the damndest thing. She gave Kiki a wink.
“By the way, my name is Maeve, if you must know. Everybody just calls me Mae, though.” She leaned back in her chair, looking thoroughly satisfied with all the grenades she had just lobbed into the tiny room.
Oh, this girl was a killer, alright. And she had just gotten two birds with one very well-timed stone.
Chapter Six
It felt as if someone had emptied a bucket of cold water over Thayne’s head.
He gritted his teeth, narrowed his eyes into two thin slits, and looked down at the annoying thief. Folding his arms over his chest, he adopted a posture that told the girl he wasn’t an idiot who would fall for her tricks. He stopped short of baring his fangs at her, which he thought wouldn’t sit well with Kiki.
“You’re lying,” he growled, doing his best not to let his full-blown anger show. “You might think you’re good at it, but I can see right through you.”
“Lying?” One of Mae’s eyebrows wiggled up, an amused smile spreading across her lips. Mirroring Thayne’s posture, she crossed her arms in a defiant gesture. “Hey, man, if you don’t want to see it, that’s on you. I’m not lying here. You’re the one lying, and the worst part is that you’re doing it to yourself.”
“Yes, you are lying,” he insisted. “I know what it feels like to be enchanted, and that’s what’s happening here. This one,” he jerked his thumb at Kiki, “has cast a spell on me. That soul mate—Beloved—bullshit isn’t real. It’s just an illusion.”
“If you say so,” the thief showed him the palms of her hands in a gesture of surrender. Still, her tone remained sarcastic and defiant. She was enjoying this, and it drove Thayne absolutely crazy.
“Will you stop it with those stupid accusations?” Kiki’s undivided attention now pegged to Thayne. Her eyebrows were knitted together, and a scowl twisted her face. Despite that, she remained as beautiful as ever. God, why did she have to look like that? “I didn’t enchant you.”
“Yes, you did,” Thayne countered.
“Why would I freaking enchant you?” she continued, the annoyance in he
r tone shifting into anger. “I don’t even like you, Thayne. Why would I cast a love spell on you, of all people? That’s moronic.”
“Oh, you don’t like me, huh?” he threw back, surprised at how fast the words flew out from his mouth. “It didn’t seem like that yesterday. In fact, it seemed like just the opposite.”
“You’re such an idiot.”
“I’m not the one going around enchanting people.”
“Will you cut it out? I’ve already told you—”
Kiki was cut short by the sound of a bell jingling in the shop, and both she and Thayne looked at the place where the thief should have been. Of course, Mae was nowhere to be found. They had been so engrossed with their stupid discussion that Mae had slipped out like a mouse. The girl was smart, that much Thayne couldn’t argue with.
“Dammit,” he growled, pushing Kiki out of the way. He burst out of the room like a wild animal ready to pounce on its prey and vaulted over the counter. He ran at full speed down the center aisle, half-expecting to see the door open and no sign of Mae anywhere, but that wasn’t the scene he came across.
Standing in the shop’s doorway was Cora Nicolaides.
She was blocking Mae’s only escape route, arms crossed over her chest and a cocky smile on her face. The thief clearly hadn’t expected to find someone blocking her path, and now she was looking back and forth between Thayne and Cora, almost as if she was trying to decide who to fight first.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Thayne asked Cora.
“Your job, it seems,” the siren replied, her casual snarkiness coming through.
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
“But it sure seems like you need it,” she sing-songed. “After all, you almost let the most wanted fae in Othercross escape.”
As she spoke, her eyes turned to Mae, whose face now betrayed how anxious she truly felt. That was almost enough for Thayne to feel sorry for the girl. The keyword in that sentence was almost.
“I’m a wanted fae?” Mae repeated, forcing a nervous laugh out. She took a couple of steps back but then stopped once she realized Kiki and Thayne were blocking the aisle. Between them and Cora, she had nowhere to go. “I’m nobody. Why would I be wanted? I didn’t even steal anything big. I swear.” Her voice trembled slightly, her words coated with a thin layer of panic. “I’m not a bad person.”
Thayne was curious, too.
What could Mae have done to earn the interest of the Othercross Judiciary? Usually, the higher-ups like Sentinels didn’t bother with shoplifters and small-time thieves. They had bigger fish to fry. Still, Cora was here, and that meant that the girl was important.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Cora’s snarky tone was replaced by something that resembled gentleness. Thayne had never seen Cora being gentle to anyone this easily, so he struggled to hide his surprise. “Just because you’re wanted doesn’t mean you’re a criminal.”
“Then what the hell does it mean?” Thayne questioned, no idea what Cora was going on about. If Mae wasn’t wanted because she was a criminal, why was the Othercross Judiciary after her? It didn’t make any sense. “Care to explain, Cora? Or are you just going to keep on talking in riddles?”
Pursing her lips, Cora leveled a flat look at Thayne. “Mae is a fae.”
“I know. She’s a dark—”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong,” Cora cut him off. “Mae isn’t just a dark fae. She’s a spirit fae, which means she’s a mix of light and dark. Fae like that are extremely rare, especially considering how powerful Mae is.” A smile returned to Cora’s lips, and she looked back at Mae. “Powers like yours haven’t been seen in Othercross for hundreds of years, Mae. You are very unique.”
Mae opened her mouth as if to say something but then clamped it shut. She was as stunned as Kiki and Thayne. This was a lot to drop on a kid, no doubt about it. To go from petty thief to powerful magical being in the span of a few minutes? That was bound to mess with anyone’s head. Even Thayne struggled to accept it.
“Since you entered the foster care system,” Cora continued, her tone gentle and kind, “both the Arcane Judiciary and the Fae Council have been watching your powers flare, but we struggled to locate you. I’ve spent months chasing after you. You’re a hard girl to find.”
“And what do you want with me?” Mae’s voice was hardly more than a faint whisper. It was as if she was walking on thin ice and was afraid it would crack under her feet. “Can’t I just go?”
“Well, I can’t exactly force you to do anything,” Cora replied, “but I think you should hear me out. We want you to go to school at Othercross University as a ward of the Fae Council. It’s high time you’ve put your talents to good use. You can finally start learning how to control your powers, Mae.”
“U-University?” the young woman repeated, almost as if the word was meaningless to her. She probably believed she’d never step foot inside a lecture hall unless it was to pocket something illegally. Now, here she was, facing an open invitation to attend Othercross University and turn her life around.
“That’s right,” Cora nodded. “As a Sentinel, I’m an approved guardian, and I’ve gone through all the necessary hoops so I can be your representative. Whenever you’re not at school, you can stay with me. Well, with me and my husband Deo, but I promise he’ll be nice. So, what do you say?”
Mae rocked on her heels for a moment, and Thayne could see the girl was torn. She hadn’t expected any of this to happen, and part of her no doubt believed this was a trap. That’s what Thayne would think if he were in her shoes. After all, if something sounded too good to be true, it probably was.
Of course, Cora wasn’t the kind of woman to spring traps on people, and Thayne was pretty sure her offer was genuine. The damn thief had gotten a lucky break, it seemed.
“Come on, Mae.” Taking a step toward the girl, Cora offered her right hand. “You can come with me.” For a moment, Thayne half-expected for Mae to duck under Cora’s arm and make for the door, but that’s not what happened. Slowly, Mae nodded, and then clasped Cora’s hand. “You’re going to be looked after, Mae, I promise you.”
“Well, I hope you can also promise you’re going to punish her ass for thievery,” Thayne cut in. Even though he felt sorry for the girl, he was still irked at how defiant she’d acted toward him. Not to mention that she had taunted him with all that Beloved bullshit. He was fine with Mae being offered a chance at a new—and better—life, but he still wanted to see justice served. “Or are you just going to brush it all off, Cora?”
“Do you seriously want to punish a young girl because she pocketed a couple of books and trinkets?” Cora arched one eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you feel threatened by a girl half your size.”
“First off, she’s not half my size, and she’s not just a girl. She’s a powerful fae, like you said, and a liar.”
“I’m not a liar!”
“Yes, you are,” Thayne said. “In fact, I think you’re more than just a liar. Since you’re so powerful and all, who’s to say you weren’t the one casting a spell on me? Maybe you tried to make me believe that Kiki had enchanted me. Then you spouted that soul mate crap.”
“And why the hell would I do such a thing?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you wanted to distract me. You’re a thief, after all. What better way to clean out the shop?” Mae clenched her fists, but Cora just laughed. “What’s so funny? Care to share?”
“You really think a fae could do that?” Cora asked him, shaking her head as she did. “Enchantments are the territory of witches, Thayne, not fae. Even if she wanted to, I doubt she’d be able to pull it off.” Before he could argue the point, Cora held one hand up and continued. “Now, not much is known about spirit fae but we believe Mae is very empathetic, which might explain how she knew you’re mates.”
“Get outta here,” Thayne pinched the bridge of his nose. Only then did he process what Cora had said. “Wait. Kiki and I aren’t
soul mates. She’s not my Beloved and I’m not her Resonate. There’s no way Mae would intuit that and—”
“Oh, so you’re telling me you’re not fated for each other, huh?” Cora smiled. Her eyes went from Thayne to Kiki, and then she burst out laughing. “All right, if that’s the story you guys have decided to go with.”
Before Thayne could say anything, Kiki stepped forward.
“You can sense it?” she asked Cora. Her words were heavy with anticipation. Even Thayne, who still refused to believe, seemed to be hanging on the edge of his seat. Could there really be a fated mate bond between him and Kiki? “Do you really think that we are, well, you know?”
“Kiki, sweetie, I’m not thinking anything,” Cora merely replied, the expression on her face stating this was none of her business. Smiling, she turned her attention toward Mae and laid one hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “What do you say we get out of here and let these two fight it out?”
“Sounds good to me,” Mae replied but not before winking at Thayne in a defiant manner. He glared at the little thief but, in truth, he was happy to see the matter resolved. Mae wasn’t a bad kid, and she deserved an opportunity to straighten herself out. “What about Jasper? I’m sure he’ll—”
“You don’t have to worry about that guy anymore,” Cora said as she led Mae out of the shop. “Right now, the only person you need to worry about is you.” And, with that, they walked out and turned a corner. As soon as they were gone, a thick silence settled into the shop. Slowly, both Kiki and Thayne turned so they faced each other.
Whether they liked it or not, it was time for them to confront the truth.
Chapter Seven
If any customers had been in the shop, Kiki probably would have asked them to leave. Fortunately, she had been left alone with Thayne and the full weight of the news that had just been dropped into her lap. When the bell stopped jingling after Cora and Mae’s departure, she was left to stare in absolute silence at the handsome vampire who had tormented her from first look.
