Garvey comes into view as he walks around the corner. Without taking his eyes off me, Dmitri’s arm shoots out and yanks Garvey over and shoves him down until his ass hits the long bench between us. “What the fuck⁠—”

He goes to stand but stops dead when Dmitri takes his gun out of his shoulder holster beneath his jacket and presses the barrel against Garvey’s skull. Fae can heal from just about anything. But no one comes back from getting their brains splatter-painted onto a wall.

“Easy, General,” Dmitri says. “Forgive the theatrics, but your reputation for being, shall we say, unreasonable, when cornered precedes you.”

Garvey glares in response. “Then why is it you’re trying to fucking corner me, Lord Romanov?” He said the word “Lord” like he takes Dmitri’s title about as seriously as he takes Burger King’s, but the unflappable vampire doesn’t rise to the bait.

Dmitri drops his arm but doesn’t holster his gun. “We are calling in the debt from tonight’s fight, effective immediately.”

The fae’s guard visibly falls as he looks from Dmitri to me and back again with confusion written on his face. “Okay. What do you want? Allowed access into Phoenix for a vacation or something?”

Now I’m the one confused. I didn’t expect such a blasé response. Dmitri catches my gaze and smirks. “You are not currently you.”

I glance at the mirror on the wall and see a shaggy redhaired male with an oval face, prominent nose, and thin lips. The only features I share with this glamour are the pointed ears, fangs, and the bright golden-colored eyes of the Dark Fae.

“My bad.” I drop the magical disguise and my true appearance—which has been featured in multiple media outlets’ sexiest celebrity bachelor pieces—comes through. Black hair that’s shaved close on the sides and longer on top, straight nose, sharp cheekbones, and square jaw with my usual three-days growth beard.

If the Verran brothers were magazines, the oldest, Caiden, would be Maxim, Tiernan would be Playgirl, and I’d be Men’s Fitness. At 6’7” and 330 pounds of muscle, most people are intimidated by me. I’m not an intimidating person by nature—ask my sisters-in-law and they’ll tell you I’m more teddy bear than grizzly—but I’m not afraid to use my size and station to my advantage when necessary. Like now.

Turning back to face Garvey, I watch as he realizes who he really fought—and lost to—in that cage.

“Prince Finnian.” His shock quickly morphs into disdain. “The lone Verran who will never be king.”

Because fae are so long-lived, the eldest child in any royal line is the only one who ever ascends the throne. But Caiden was forced to abdicate after only seventeen years as king to prevent further attempts on his mate’s life, which meant Tiernan, as the next in line, had to step up.

The Rebel Prince hadn’t wanted to be king, but eventually he rose to the occasion, inspired by our father’s legacy and the love of his mate, Fiona Jewel, who was a human raised to believe she was Dark Fae until recently.

That leaves me, the baby brother and unplanned third son born fifty years after Tiernan, as the lone Verran prince who has not been king.

“You need to work on your trash talk, Garvey,” I say calmly. “For example, I could say that you’re supposed to be the general of an elite group of warriors and yet you just got your ass handed to you by a guy who fights as a hobby.”

Garvey scowls. “Get to the fucking point. What do you want?”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I step directly in front of him and speak the words that will magically bind him to honor the contract we signed before the tenth round.

“Garvey Alsandair, I hereby call on you to fulfill your debt to me…” His electric green eyes narrow in suspicion as beads of sweat pop out on his forehead. “You, General, are going to help us rescue Taryn Emory.”

And there it is. The horrified expression of a male who knows he’s completely fucked.

TWOTARYN

Today is my birthday, June 21st. I think. Thereabouts, anyway.

When I was young, it was my favorite day. My birthday was also Summer Solstice, our court’s biggest and most sacred holiday. The spectacular parties my parents threw for me at the palace were every Fireling’s dream. Until the day it turned into a nightmare. The day everything went up in flames…and I was the one who set it all on fire.

That was, by far, the worst birthday I’ve ever had. But last year takes a close second. That was the night I was abducted. And as I’m still here—wherever here is—this one isn’t shaping up to be any better.

The first time I woke up in this white room I went ballistic. I screamed, shouted threats, pounded on the windowless steel door. But I learned quickly I have precious little strength to do much of anything in this prison of a bedroom. The inside of the walls are lined with iron, and there must be a fuck ton of it, because even with the drywall as a barrier, it’s enough to keep me weak. The most magic I can conjure is a flame the size of a birthday candle. And no amount of praying to Brigid, the Fire Fae’s deity, has helped my situation.

I stop sketching in the pad I’ve propped on my knees and hold my fist up. Taking a deep breath, I uncurl my fingers and focus, drawing all the magic in my blood to the center of my palm. My hand trembles with the effort, but finally a tiny purple flame flickers to life, hovering in the air.

The corners of my mouth lift. It’s a mere drop in the ocean of my power outside these walls, but even this small presence is soothing.

“Happy 601st birthday, Taryn,” I whisper into the silence. But before I can blow out my “candle,” it sputters and disappears, my powers too weak to keep it going. My face falls along with my spirits, and I feel the telltale prickling behind my eyes.

No! I will not give in to despair. He. Will. Not. Break. Me.

I know they keep watch with the cameras placed in the corners. I’ll be damned if I give them the satisfaction of seeing even a single tear. Blinking away the moisture, I gather my armor around me and don my implacable expression once again; my ever-present mask.

As the only daughter of Aine, the One True Queen of Faerie, and King Garyth of the Summer Court, I learned at a very young age to hide my true feelings, the true me. I thought of it as my mask, something I wore to protect myself and show the world what I wanted them to see.

After I left Faerie, keeping my mask on was necessary for survival, but originally I did it to appease my mother, who demanded I be the perfect princess and heir at all times. I wore the gowns, minded my manners, and spoke both diplomatically and demurely when sitting at court. But it was all an act to keep her off my back and allow me the small measure of freedom I was given to play in the Emerald Forest with Devlyn.

Dev was the only one who knew the real me. He loved and accepted me for who I was, not for who I was born to be.

In the end, it cost him his life.

It was a cruel lesson to learn, but that was the last time I ever fully removed my mask for anyone. Even Dmitri, my pseudo-brother whom I’ve been inseparable with for almost five centuries, gets a masked version of me. It doesn’t conceal much, but it’s enough to protect me from ever feeling like I did the day of my 122nd birthday.

Gods, I miss you, Dmitri.

My heart clenches as it always does when I think of him and what he must be going through since my disappearance. I can only imagine the blood he’s spilt in trying to get me back. Is Los Angeles still standing or has he razed it to the ground in his search?

To the human world, he’s known as Dmitri “D’yavol” Romanov, the dangerous mafiya pakhan who gets his nickname for preferring to deal in favors just like his namesake. And if you owe him a debt, you’d better fucking pay it. Because when you make a deal with The Devil, the only termination clause you get is your life.

To the world of others, he’s a former bogatyr—an ancient group of deadly Russian warriors—and Lord of the largest and most powerful vampire clan on the West Coast.

But to me, he’s just a tatted-up Ruski marshmallow. Whenever I teased him about being a softie at his core, he’d scowl and blame me for the soft spot ever appearing. It’s why he started calling me moy sever—my north—because I’m his moral compass.

Dmitri has only three weaknesses in this world: silver, prolonged exposure to extreme amounts of sunlight, and me. Mine are iron, my true identity, and, for the last 400-plus years, him.

Now it’s just this godsforsaken room. I have no idea where I am—I haven’t seen anything outside these four walls since I was taken—but if he hasn’t found me by now, I doubt he ever will. As sad as I am to think I’ll never see him again, I don’t want his life to be consumed with a futile mission to find me, either.

I sigh softly and return my focus to the drawing in my lap. As I watch my pencil create the familiar lines like it’s on autopilot, I think back to the last conversation I had with Dmitri. I’d just won my latest fight in the UFCO against the alpha of the Hernandez werewolf pack. He was beaming with pride as though it was my first win and not one of thousands.

“There she is, moy sestra, the champion.”

I answered with a wry smile. “It wasn’t a championship fight, or the wolf would owe us one hell of a debt already. Which we need if you want to run shipments through his territory starting next quarter.”

“All part of my plan,” he said, picking off a non-existent piece of lint from the sleeve of his designer suit. “You damaged his pride. After he is done licking his wounds, he will return to earn back his respect. Then we insist on a Debt Fight.”

“Or,” I countered, literally playing the Devil’s advocate, “the loss will embolden someone in his pack to challenge him for the position of alpha, and if he loses, we’re back to square one.”

My brother shrugged, perpetually unruffled, as always. “Then you will challenge the new alpha. He will be forced to accept or risk appearing weak to the pack. You will of course win, so either way we get what we want.”

I rolled my eyes. “One of these days, your over-inflated confidence in me is going to backfire when I lose to someone important.”

“Not possible. When you fight for a cause, sestra, it is with your whole being,” he said, the polar caps in his blue eyes melting and his voice softening. “You fight as though someone’s life depends on it—not your own, but his.” I swallowed thickly and turned my head to look out the limo’s window, but Dmitri guided my gaze back to his with a finger on my chin. “Spilling your blood for the sake of our empire. It is your way of atoning for the past. But it was never yours to atone for, moy sever, and it pains me to see you still so burdened after all these years. You must let it go.”