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The whole place is lavish. Huge oil paintings hang on the walls. Seems like mostly castles and faeries flying through the air. One of them is of red mushrooms in cages, another is of a woman with butterfly's wings sitting atop a tulip. Marble statues line the hallways. Some are Fae men, most of them armed with swords or spears. At the end of the hall is a life sized sculpture of a lion man with long wings and his arm wrapped around a beautiful female sea creature. She has gills and fins, and scales, and she’s stunning. Any man would love to be with her, human or not. In fact, both of them look supernaturally attractive.
And when the door to the drawing room opens, I see the lion guy from the statue standing there waiting. Except he’s bigger than the statue.
Thankfully, he’s wearing pants.
He's got to be almost seven feet tall, and built like a linebacker. He's obviously old, but still incredibly dangerous looking. Every move he makes seems deliberate in a terrifying way, like he's trying to move like a human and not quite pulling it off. His face is lined, though the wrinkles are thin, and his shoulder length mane is a beautiful silver.
That's nothim.Not the guy I'm supposed to marry. I've seen pictures of the main players in the Nightshade clan, of course. But seeing the head of the family up close is like being at a jail where the bars have suddenly vanished. My heart hasn't stopped trying to pound its way out of my chest since we pulled up, but now it goes into overdrive.
I nearly stumble forward and extend my hand.
"My name is Lysander Nightshade," he says. "Welcome to my home. Please, take a seat."
He smiles a bit tightly, and takes my hand briefly to show me to the settee. Olivia takes a padded chair by the window, where she looks out over the grounds. Zedona sits on a chair across from Lysander, like the two are on the same level.
Another guy sits near the brandy decanter, reading a book. He looks Fae, with pointed ears and everything, except for the two small horns on his forehead.
He’s handsome in a pinched sort of way. Like a guy your girlfriend tells you is super hot, but when you meet him… something’s just not right. And then a few months later, it turns out he was cheating and he’s a real asshole.
I’ve seen his type before. He smiles unconvincingly at me.
“Octavian,” he says, slowly. His gaze takes in every inch of me in a vaguely possessive way, which bugs the hell out of me. He extends his hand but doesn’t get up.
So to be polite, I’d have to walk tohim.
But I remember I’m not Lily Townsend anymore. So I frown and ignore him.
His teeth, when he grins, are sharp as a crocodile’s.
Zedona and Lysander are more interesting anyways. To see them across from each other, I would’ve thought they’d be the same. Not in appearance, of course, but in their attitude. They’re both leaders of crime families, after all.
Cut from the same cloth.
I can tell they're different, though. Both are brutal, both are strong. But Zedona has the marks of a street thug, even after all the years of living a rich life. You can never smooth those edges out of a man.
Lysander is something else entirely. He sits comfortably, relaxed but ready to strike at any moment. And there’s an air of untouchability about him. I’m wildly tempted to throw something at him just to see what would happen.
His gaze snaps to me like he could hear my thoughts.
I find something on the carpet to stare at.
"My son, Fabien, should be with us shortly."
“You’ve told him, I assume?” Zedona asks, a sly smile on his face.
“I have…” Lysander’s voice is grave when he speaks. “He was very happy to learn we’d arranged his marriage. I told him just last night.”
Octavian, still leaning over his book, snorts derisively.
My heart pounds even harder. He'll be here soon. The guy I'm supposed to marry.
And in my dreams these last weeks, the dark figure who’s been…touching me…has gradually morphed into Fabien Nightshade.
It’s like it was always him, and I’m only now realizing it.
