May ran up at that moment, grabbing a juice box from my beach bag. She grinned brightly at Zara. “Did you know Willow and Severn are getting married?”
Zara smiled indulgently at the little girl. “The world seems to think so, but I think that was only a game, May.” At the last minute, she fixed me with a curious look.
May shook her head solemnly. “No, it’s for real. Willow slept in his room last night. I heard them hugging loudly. They’re going to get married!” With a mischievous grin, May sucked out the last of the juice box and ran back to her sandcastle.
I cringed even before Zara could slide me an accusatory look. She spoke her words pointedly. “Hugging? Loudly?”
“It isn’t like that,” I muttered while cringing in defense, but then my shoulder twitched. “Well, it is, sort of.”
She gasped. “Iknewit!”
I lowered my voice and hissed, “We didn’t have sex. And I didn’t spendallnight in his room. But…it was close.”
Zara cursed something in Russian under her breath. She tugged off her sunglasses and looked me squarely in the eye. “You do understand what the fae are, right? Assholes who get off on cruelty? Tricksters? Sadistic dicks? I mean, I’m all for rolling around with the sheets with a hot one, as long as you know what you’re getting into.”
“There’s no ‘anything’ to get into,” I grumbled moodily. “Severn turned me down.”
Zara crossed her arms over her chest, nodding in satisfaction. “Good. At least one of you has some sense.”
I rolled my eyes. So much for condolences from my best friend. But then again, she was probably right to warn me away.
When it came time to pack, it was hard to say goodbye to her. She assured me she’d be back in New York in a few weeks and made me promise not to do anything stupid until then.
“And I’ll text you if I find anything about the, you know,Werewolf King,” she said in a low voice, glancing around to make sure we weren’t being overheard. “Until then, please be safe.”
We hugged. I squeezed her so hard she pretended to gag. But the truth was, I missed having Zara in my life every day. The fae I shared a building with were a poor imitation of friends.
The flight back to New York was short. I kept Puck in my lap and barely glanced at Severn the whole time. Henry and May were too excited to see the city from above to pick up on any of the weirdness between us. By the time we were safely back in Wilde Tower, I felt overcome with relief. The whole getaway had been tense and fraught, not at all in keeping with the beachy vibe. I couldn’t shake the memory of that strange howl at night and the certainty that someone had been in the beach cottage. The glimpse of long black hair I’d gotten had looked exactly like either Briar’s or Bramble’s, but Severn assured me that the twins hadn’t been on the island. My eyes must have been playing tricks on me.
Crawling into my own bed in my own apartment with my own snuggly pillows felt like heaven, and I had to admit that as twisted a place as Wilde Tower was, I didn’t want to leave it. I loved the apartment; I loved Henry and May even more. And my feelings for Severn were becoming dangerously affectionate, too—or at least, contained a lust like I’d never felt. But as the days passed, Severn proved determined to avoid me. Even when our paths crossed in the elevator, and May would nudge us closer together by pressing hard against either my or his leg, he would barely look at me.
After a week, my phone beeped with a text from Zara.
Asked around among my associates in town.
The ww Hemlock caught is from a Canadian pack. Rumor is he was only used by W. K. under threat of his pups’ lives.
This goes far beyond a few rogue packs. Be careful.
WW clearly meant werewolf, and I guessed that WK meant the Werewolf King. I was deeply troubled by the idea of the man—well, werewolf—I’d seen being tortured on the thirteenth floor as having been manipulated by the Werewolf King even if hehadinitiated a dangerous attack on the tower.
Conflicted, I decided to wait until the children were asleep and then go next door. Wondering if I was making a huge mistake, I knocked on Apartment “B.” It took a few minutes for Locke to throw open the door. He had a bottle of wine in one hand and a TV remote in the other and looked totally sloshed. He frowned when he saw it was me. “My brother’s little pet? Come for another party? I’m afraid it’s just me at the moment, but we can have a party of two.”
“I need you to look at something, Locke. It’s from a friend of mine who is a witch in LA.” I showed him Zara’s text.
He scowled as he read the text, then shrugged. “So? That werewolf stormed the tower, Willow. He and that demonic horde he controlled were attempting to bring the walls crashing down and everyone in it.”
“Buthewasn’t behind it. He was only being used. They were threatening to hurt his children if he didn’t comply.” Locke’s attention was already drifting back to his apartment, where I heard the television playing. I sighed. “Will you please just discuss it with Severn? And consider showing that werewolf you still have locked up some mercy?”
Locke scoffed as he looked me up and down. “God, you’d make a terrible fae.” But he nodded reluctantly before he slammed the door in my face.
In public, magazines and the internet were slowly starting to forget about my sham marriage with Severn as the news cycles continued with no new juicy information about me. A few even reluctantly published a retraction, and after some time, I felt it was safe to venture back out into the city.
Just to be careful, I wore my hat and sunglasses as Henry, May, and I continued checking items off the checklist. We joined a swarm of tourists visiting the Statue of Liberty. Saw a double feature at a movie theater. Went to the Bronx Zoo and waved at the elephants. A woman stopped me by a sign pointing to the tiger enclosure, gaping, and asked for my autograph, but I blabbed something in a made-up language, pretending I didn’t speak English, and hurried away.
So maybe the press hadn’tentirelyforgotten about me.
It felt like forever until Zara came back to town. We planned to meet up for lunch on her first day back, and I invited Mia and Azalea as well, delighted when they agreed enthusiastically. We descended upon a bistro in Midtown, and it felt marvelous to be out in the open with friends, talking about anything other than the hidden realm.
