The fae huffed, shaking his head. “And you decided the best way to introduce yourself to the supe world was to throw yourself into the deep end? Brave man.”
He winced, and the fae definitely noticed, narrowing his eyes again.
“You know you don’t have to take the job if you’re uncomfortable, right? Morana will find you something else.”
He shook his head rapidly. “No, I’m good. I just need to get used to it. Morana asked when she hired me if I wanted to work around supes. I said it was fine. I just wasn’t expecting…”
“Being sent to the largest supe company in the realm?” the fae chuckled. “Yeah, she really took you at your word with that one. It’s my fault, honestly. I asked for more temps because a few who’d been doing rotations here got hired on permanently at Spellbound, and I like having a certain number of temps on staff.”
The conversation actually helped him relax, since it was just like any conversation with a human. Jonah felt his shoulders go down as he asked, “They left Charmed Away for Spellbound? Isn’t that kind of rude?”
The fae snorted, shaking his head. “Nah. Happens more than you think. Most temps aren’t looking to stick with the temp thing forever. Are you?”
The door slid open to a quiet floor, which was a relief, and Jonah answered honestly when he said, “No, not forever, I guess. I took the first thing I could find.”
The fae nodded as he led the way out of the elevator and down a hallway on the left, opening the door to a corner office absolutely stuffed with plants. It was almost like stepping into a forest. There was even a balcony that led to more green space outside the door, which was cool.
“This is amazing. Is every office like this?”
“No. Just mine. I like plants, and my mate likes to spoil me. Sit. Let’s figure out where you’ll be most comfortable. Unlike Morana, I’m not willing to shove you into the deep end without some assurance you can handle it.”
He sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, still admiring the plants as the fae sat behind his desk and flipped open the folder on top. “So, Jonah Mills. You’re a recent university grad, congrats on that. What was your major?”
“Computer science.”
The fae looked up, raising an eyebrow at him. “You like tech?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I was going to use my degree to help my family business, but they weren’t interested. They thought college was a waste of time in the first place.”
The fae huffed, rolling his eyes. “They sound like a joy.”
Jonah couldn’t argue the sarcasm. His parents were incredibly close-minded and rigid about the way they thought life should be lived. They didn’t want a website because he couldn’t assure them only humans would buy from their store. He was just glad they didn’t care about him working in the city. If he added any more to their shit list, they’d toss him out of the house with nothing but the clothes on his back and call it a life lesson. He was not in a place where he could move out right now. And he was still hoping to earn their acceptance eventually. Maybe if he eventually got a good job in tech and started making money, he’d be able to contribute to the family business, and they’d hate him a little less.
“I don’t have any requests for a temp in IT right now–” The phone ringing on the desk cut him off, and the fae picked it up right away, tucking it under his ear. “This is Kian.”
Well, now he finally knew the guy’s name. He just realized he’d never asked. He really wasn’t giving his best first impression today.
“Hold on. Slow down. What?” Kian frowned, his brows drawn together tightly. “I mean, I can, but I’m not sure–” He paused, his eyes snapping up to look at Jonah. “Hold on.” Putting his hand over the receiver, he asked, “Do you have any experience with hardware?”
“I mean, I’ve read plenty and passed all my tests…” Jonah hedged.
Kian waved that away. “Good enough.” Putting the phone back to his ear, he spoke again. “Looks like I’ve got someone who might be useful. We’ll be there in–” He sighed, rolling his eyes. “Alright, I’ll open a portal. Keep your pants on.” He paused again, and the way his eyes narrowed made Jonah a little nervous. Someone was irritating the fae, and he didn’t want to be around for the fallout. “Keep it up, Wendell, and I’ll stop being so nice. Yes. We’ll be there in a minute.”
Hanging up, he shook his head. “Everyone has an emergency they somehow think a temp will fix.” He stood, waving Jonah closer. “Come on, newbie. It’s your lucky day. Looks like we’ve got an IT emergency in the Entertainment Division.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Thank you, everyone, for joining us. If no one has any other questions, we’ll end things here for now.”
Emmett pushed to his feet when everyone else did, looking toward Tasha for more instructions. She was the second in command of this job and decided where everyone would go. Miguel was none too pleased; following his sister's orders wasn’t what he considered a good time, but Emmett didn’t mind so much. Yeah, Tasha was younger than him by a couple of years, but she was more dominant and outranked him. He was just happy to be along for the ride. Contracting at Spellbound was always fun.
“Alright, I want one of us in each division,” she informed them, looking at the clipboard in her hand. “Miguel, you can have the tech division. Layla, there’s an office below the research floor I want you in. Axel, take Medical Innovations. Emmett, Entertainment Division. I’ll take Dimensional Innovations. Ronan will be here on the ground floor with Alistair and the head of security for Spellbound, working out the kinks. It’s our job to show the security guys how we do things, not the other way around, so if anyone gives you flak, send them my way.”
When they were originally called in for this job, Emmett had been surprised. They’d done a few jobs here and there for Spellbound, usually during the testing phases of experiments and never in the building proper. Being called into the main Spellbound building because they were reworking their entire security system after an employee was caught sneaking around trying to steal information was a shock to them all. Ronan was working with the lead of this revamp, a former military mage named Alistair, and he left Tasha in charge of keeping the team in line while he focused on the finer details of how things needed to change.
They’d spent the first week observing, and each of them wrote up a report of the security issues they saw. The meeting they’d just concluded was going over everything and how they planned to fix it. Assigning one pack member to each division to demonstrate to the security teams how things would proceed from now on ensured they were spread throughout the company and could step in if they noticed a security issue.
They headed out of the main security office, and Tasha stopped him before they could split up. “Hey, Em?”
