42. Finnian

Acknowledgments

Other Books by Gina L. Maxwell

About the Author

To the healthy relationships, the emotionally intelligent partners, the advanced communicators. May you continue to avoid the third-act breakups and live happily ever after.

Also, to Taryn Delanie Smith. Not only did she inspire Finn’s heroine, but she inspires others every day simply by being her hilarious, authentic, compassionate self. Thank you, Taryn, for what you bring to the world.

It is no small thing.

ONEFINNIAN

Of the three living members of the Dark Fae royal line, I am the inconsequential one. The double spare heir of the Midnight Crown. The one still treated like the baby of the family, despite having lived for over a century and physically dwarfing my older brothers. For those reasons and more, people have been underestimating me my whole life.

But this time it’s by design.

The burly fae warrior standing across from me in the octagon has no idea what I’m truly capable of. And it’s going to be his downfall.

Garvey, commanding general of the Light Warriors, the elite guards of the Faerie Day Court, and undefeated champion in the Underground Fight Club for Others is one bad mofo, I'll give him that. We've already gone nine rounds and he barely looks winded. But Garvey's arrogant and unskilled, and I’ve trained in a dozen different fighting styles, mastering in several.

So far I've kept things simple using a combination of his preferred styles—boxing and basic jiu jitsu—and he's held his own. I've taken some damage, but I've given plenty back. Would’ve been better if I could’ve taken him out in the beginning, but I needed us to make it to this round—the tenth, which makes it eligible for a Debt Fight.

The crowd surrounding the cage is electric, with hundreds of supernaturals cheering for us to continue our bloody fight. Normally, others would never dare to congregate en mass like this, but the arena we’re in is underground—in the sense that it’s beneath the totally legal boxing gym, Blood Sport, and in the not-so-legal sense because humans can’t know about it for obvious reasons.

Out of habit, I grab for the pendant on the necklace that’s been a permanent fixture around my neck for the past few months, but it’s not there. I can’t wear it when I fight, so when I do, it stays in my locker. Those are the only times I’ve taken it off since finding it, because it puts me on fucking edge when I do.

It’s not even mine. It belongs to someone I’ve never met and know next to nothing about. But the first time I held it, it felt like it came alive in my palm. Now the longer I go without it, the more anxious I become. I can feel it calling me back to it, like a drug I can't shake. A drug I don't want to shake.

I know how this sounds; it’s why I haven’t said it out loud, not even to myself. And if I told anyone else, they'd probably have me committed. So I don't breathe a word. Because all that matters to me now is finding her, the owner of the necklace, and I won’t stop until I do.

The referee—a vampire named Niko—steps to the center of the cage and holds his hands up to gain the attention of the crowd. “Fighters, to your marks!”

Garvey and I walk toward each other, stopping on either side of Niko as we stare each other down. Our upper bodies are bare and drenched in sweat, but neither of us have any visible injuries. Others heal quickly, and the two minutes between rounds is usually enough time to bounce back from anything superficial like cuts and bruises.

We don’t bother wearing protective gloves or mouth guards. If you break your hand on someone’s face, oh well. If you get sliced open by a fang, suck it up. We still wear cups under our shorts, though. We’re supernatural, not super stupid.

“This is now a Debt Fight and the final round,” Niko shouts to be heard over the crowd’s building excitement. “You fight until one of you wins. You ready?” He looks at Garvey who answers with a nod, then sneers in my direction.

Niko points at me. “Are you ready?” I nod and shake my arms out one last time just before he claps his hands together and shouts, “Fight!” then gets the hell out of our way.

I don’t bother doing the usual circle-around. I’m done sandbagging this match and letting Garvey think I’m merely some new guy who only moved up the ranks because he wasn’t here to put me in my place. He stopped competing out of boredom long before I entered the scene, which is why Dmitri Romanov—Lord of the Romanov vampire clan, owner of Blood Sport, and founder of the UFCO—organized this special championship event to draw him out.

Because Garvey has something we need. And fighting him for it is the only way to get it.

Jumping into the air, I rear my fist back and rocket it forward for a powerful jab straight to his face. His head snaps back, the crunch of his bones vibrating through my knuckles. Blood pours from his nose, droplets of sweat fly from his hair, and spit sprays in a mist as he sways on his feet. Just as I land, Garvey’s eyes roll back into his head. Then he crumples to the mat in an unconscious heap.

Niko rushes in and raises my hand in the air. “Winner!”

The arena erupts in a roar of cheers. Dmitri, who’s standing outside the cage, catches my eye and nods before striding up the aisle. Now that I’m not focused on the fight, my hands begin to shake from need and my skin is suddenly too tight. I can feel the necklace’s pull like there’s a giant hook imbedded in my chest attached to a winch.

I don’t stay for the post-fight interview with the announcer as I pull out of Niko’s grip and let myself out of the cage. Spectators reach out as I pass them in the aisle to give me a high-five or the middle finger, depending on where they placed their bets, but I bypass all of them on the way to the locker room with a single-minded focus.

Shoving the door hard enough that it slams against the wall, I stalk straight to my locker, throw it open, and breathe a sigh of relief the second I see it on the hook. With blood-crusted fingers, I retrieve the necklace and pull the chain over my head.

As soon as the rectangular pendant settles in the center of my chest, my pulse starts to slow, and my breaths come a little easier. I place my palm over it, reveling in the warmth it emits when it touches my skin, and the overwhelming sense of rightness is something I can't explain.

It’s been almost a full year since Dmitri’s sister went missing the night of her birthday. When Taryn didn’t show up for her surprise party, he turned Los Angeles upside down searching for the smallest clue as to what happened to her. But vampires don’t have the ability to disguise themselves with a glamour like the fae, which makes covert investigations difficult. And if the others they “questioned” had any information, they weren’t giving it up to Taryn’s clan.

Normally, vampires would use their unique power of compulsion to get answers out of people. Except, for reasons I’m still not clear on, the Romanov vamps don’t have the ability to compel like the other clans.

After several months of hitting dead ends, Dmitri became desperate enough to seek out help from someone who can disguise himself: me.

For the last nine months I've fought in the UFCO as a random Dark Fae, hiding my true identity with a glamour. I’ve strategically won and lost fights in order to gain the trust of other fighters in various supernatural factions, trying to gather any information about her disappearance. From the few leads I did get, not one of them panned out. Dmitri and I started to worry we might never find her.

Until the very person who took her dangled a single clue in front of us like a godsdamned carrot on a stick. Talek Edevane—Day Court king and dickbag at the top of my Shit List—left it for us. His way of taunting us as he made his next move in this fatal chess game he’s forced us into.

The move? He did the impossible and escaped his Night Court prison cell and stole an artifact from our Temple. In its place, he left a silver-colored rectangular pendant hanging on a chain, and on the pendant was an engraved fae symbol. It’s called an Armas, and similar to a family crest, it delineates a fae’s family line, but more specifically, the member within that line.

And that particular Armas said it belonged to the only daughter of Aine Emory of the Summer Court and One True Queen of Faerie.

That's when I learned that Dmitri Romanov's sister isn't his sibling by birth, and she’s sure as fuck not a vampire. She's Taryn Emory. A Fire Fae princess who left her home and everything behind in Faerie to live incognito in the human realm up until she was taken last year.

Since his escape, Edevane hasn't set foot in Phoenix—the city the Day Court established after they and the Night Court were exiled from Faerie more than four hundred years ago. In the absence of their king, the Light Fae have been ruled by their high council who recently communicated with us that they don’t wish to break the Treaty of Two Courts that established peace between us for the last few centuries.

They’ve renounced Edevane’s actions and voted to take his crown, but he doesn’t give a shit about his crown or his people. He told me so himself. The only thing he cares about right now is getting revenge against Aine for our exile. And there’s no doubt in my mind he plans to somehow use her daughter to do it if we don’t get to her first.

The silence in the locker room is broken by a deep voice with thick Russian accent. “I am beginning to think you have an unhealthy relationship with my sister’s Armas, comrade.”

I grab onto the top of my locker and hang my head between my shoulders on a sigh. “You wouldn’t be the only one,” I grate out. “I don’t know how to explain it, D. But it’s like when I’m wearing it, I can sense her.”

Turning to face him, I rest my bare back on the cool metal of the locker doors and try to guess at his thoughts. Standing at six-five with a warrior’s frame, the vampire looks as dangerous as he is, thanks to his imposing size, the scar bisecting his left eyebrow, and the intricate tattoos snaking up his neck and across his hands. Dressed in his signature designer suits in all black, he exudes a menacing elegance. But a Romanov in Armani is just a well-dressed monster, and those who deal with him do well to remember it.

When his expression gives nothing away, I continue. “It sounds crazy, but I think I’d know it if she…” I can’t bring myself to say it, and I know he damn well doesn’t want to hear it. “If something happened.”

I wait for him to react like I’ve lost my mind and demand I give him the Armas, but he merely shrugs. “Maybe as fae you share a connection with her that I cannot. Perhaps it is fate that I saw you sparring in my gym that day and thought of asking for your help.”

I chuff as I grab the black T-shirt from my locker and pull it on. “I don’t believe in fate. At most, it’s called being in the right place at the right time.”

His scarred brow raises. “Was it not fate that brought Bryn into your oldest brother’s life, against all odds?”

“No. It was Talek-fucking-Edevane, setting them up after discovering she was the Darklight changeling who could put his plan for assassinating Caiden into motion. Fate had nothing to do with it.”

He crosses his arms and leans back against the lockers, staring me down. “Or perhaps it was fate who put Talek’s plan into motion so that Bryn and Caiden could at last find each other and prevail.”

I hear the door to the locker room open, signaling our guest’s arrival. Slamming my locker shut, I give the vampire a droll look. “You want to debate fatalism some more or do what we came here to do?”