Those pale eyes look down at me, and I can see it again, that vast, barely contained intensity from the plane, from the moment before Captain Fishburne’s voice broke us apart, except now there’s no intercom to save me.
“You heard me, Miss Morgan.”
“I...umm...what?”
The words are tumbling out, tripping over each other, and I sound nothing like the woman who just confidently presented scent neutralization technology to a room full of supernatural delegates. I sound like what I am: a twenty-two-year-old human who is standing in a hallway at a trade fair being told by the Prince of Atlantis that he intends to marry her, and whose brain has officially left the building.
And the worst part, the truly worst part, is that somewhere underneath the shock and the panic and thethis makes no sensethat’s screaming through my head, there is a small, traitorous, still-mending part of my heart that heard the wordmarryand...
Wanted it.
For one single, unguarded second, before I could shut it down, before the memory of Billy’s four-sentence text could rise up and do its job, that broken piece of me wanted it.
And I hate myself for that.
The hallway isn’t empty. Preters pass through, shifters, Caros, Fae, Souris, all possessing hearing that can pick up a whispered conversation from across a football field. He said “I’m about to marry you” at a volume that was perfectly conversational for humans.
For preters, he might as well have taken out a billboard.
I can already feel it happening. Heads turning. Eyes finding us. The electric quality of a crowd that has just learned something extraordinary.
And then my phone starts buzzing.
Once. Twice. Then continuously, like a small, furious animal in my pocket.
I pull it out with numb fingers. The screen is a waterfall of notifications I can’t read fast enough because new ones keep pushing older ones down.
Social media alerts from an account I haven’t touched since college. My single post, a link to my thesis, drowning in comments from strangers.
Congratulations!!!
OMG THE Prince Alexei??? How did this happen???
Girl you are LIVING
Messages from numbers I don’t recognize. A former classmate I spoke to exactly once wants to be my bridesmaid.
And one text from my mother.
Joni: Sweetheart is it true??? I just saw the announcement in L’Alliance Today! Congratulations! I knew it! I KNEW all along that Billy wasn’t right for you but I couldn’t tell you the truth. I’m so happy for you! Call me when you can! See you tonight!!
Followed by approximately forty-seven emojis, half hearts, half confetti.
Tonight? See you tonight?
I scroll until I find a link. I tap it.
L’Alliance Today. Digital front page. A photograph of me I have no memory of anyone taking, a candid from earlier today,walking beside Alexei, beneath a headline in elegant silver lettering.
PRINCE ALEXEI LYKAIOS ANNOUNCES ENGAGEMENT TO HUMAN PARTNER ZIA MORGAN
Posted seven minutes ago.
“H-Have you seen this?” I show him my phone. “They’re—”
“Telling the truth.”
Lyingwas what I was about to say, but I guess that’s pointless, and all I can do is gape. “What do you mean you’ve—”
