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DECLAN: Don’t you tell him.
I wasn’t planning to. But I’m going to enjoy watching this unfold.
“Ian!” The door to the office flew open with a little too much enthusiasm. Sebastian Monroe Jr. was the family oddball from what I’d gleaned about the Monroes over the years. He looked the part in his navy dress pants and white dress shirt, but it was the little things that set him apart from his money-having family. It was the work boots and pant cuffs covered in dust showing he wasn’t afraid to get in the middle of it with his employees. It was the cheap, scuffed-up watch on his wrist and broken fingernails. I knew the change in him was recent—I’d heard enough about him down south from truckers at the bar to know he was trying to do better as he took over his father’s company. “Or is it Killian now? You went by Ian in high school, I remember that much.”
“Either is fine.” I rose to greet him, shaking his hand. “But most people call me Killian.”
“Killian it is!” God, he was fucking loud. “Come on in. Can I get you a drink?”
“I’m good, but thank you,” I replied and followed him into his office. His office was modest, mostly just a big desk, filing cabinets, a couch, and a chair.
“Sit,” Sebastian ordered as he gestured to the couch. “Make yourself comfortable. This will be much less formal than you’re expecting.”
“And what am I expecting?” I fucking hated when people assumed they knew me.
“A job interview,” he said. I watched as he poured a short glass of whiskey. “But I’m not giving you the job.”
I bit my tongue to keep from saying something stupid. In and out. Short and polite. Or as polite as I could fucking be, considering he was wasting my time.
“Calm down,” Sebastian told me and sat across from me. “You think louder than you talk.”
“And what am I thinking?”
“In and out, short and polite.” A slow smile curved his lips as my jaw damn near dropped. Over the edge of his glass, he said, “You wolves aren’t the only magical creatures in this town, you know.”
Electric blue magic sparked in his chocolate eyes and off his fingertips. There one second and gone the next—so fucking fast I thought I was imagining it.
“No, not imagining it.” He took a slow sip. The idea that this fucker was inside my head bothered the hell out of me. My skin crawled uncomfortably and my wolf growled in agreeance, the sound vibrating through my chest.
“You’re a fucking witch,” I said. Dumbass, that much was obvious.
“My whole family is on my mother’s side,” he explained. “Goes back more generations than we know. You can relax. I’m harmless. Mostly.”
I fucking doubted that, considering how inside my head he was. Still, I settled back on the couch and openly glared at him, my body and my wolf coiled tight. I didn’t like having shit like this sprung on me—especially not after Charlotte’s murder.
“Define mostly,” I snapped.
“I can hear people’s thoughts when they think too loud, small spells here and there, can fuck with electricity,” he replied. “Truthfully, I could do a lot more if I cared. My family’s specialty is mind magic. Hence the thoughts thing, but we dabble in everything.”
“How long have you known—”
“Since the day I met your parents,” Sebastian interrupted. “You wolves all have a certain… smell.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not in an offensive way,” he continued. “All magical creatures have a smell about them. In a town of wolves, it becomes easy to figure out who is who.”
Well, that was fucking news to me.
“Well!” Sebastian raised his glass to me. “With that out of the way, let’s talk about why you’re here.”
“For the job you’re not fucking hiring me for,” I said. “Why the fuck did you tell me about your magic?”
“Because I need you and me on the same playing field when I make you an offer, Killian,” he replied. I frowned. “I hate Cedar Harbor. I hate everything about this God-forsaken place. I don’t even like Washington.”
“While that sucks, what does that have to do with me?” I asked.
“I want to train you to take over the Cedar Harbor and Iron Falls division of my company.”
