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Tempest’s dad is hot. I’d never mention it, because that would be rude and make her uncomfortable. Tempest hates it when her friends thirst for her dad. She’s cut people off for trying to sleep with him. She doesn’t want a stepmom who is her age. I have spent several years pretending her dad is gross. I’ve actually pretended so hard I’ve started to believe it on some level.

When we walk into the massive office, I don’t react to her hot dad. I can’t say the same about Mr. Ornix. That man is beyond any pretense of grossness. He is the hottest guy I have ever seen. Raven dark hair rising from a widow’s peak and flowing to his shoulders. Brown eyes so light they verge on amber, or even gold in certain lights. Dark lashes rimming those spectacular orbs and thick black brows slashing over them. His cheekbones are high, his cheeks are chiseled, his jawline is cut.

He is wearing a suit that looks as though the tailor worshipped it onto his body. There’s not a crumple or a wrinkle anywhere. A crisp white shirt looks sinfully good with a couple of buttons undone at the neck because the day is warm, and his pecs are visible if you look with intention. Smooth slabs of muscle.

Tempest waltzes up to him, touches this absolute god on the elbow, and trills a hello.

“I need you to meet my friend,” she says. “Melissa, this is Mr. Ornix.”

“Hello, Melissa,” he says.

I want to faint. I do my best to stay upright and vertical as I pretend his voice isn’t deep enough to make the foundations of the house shake. There are tremors running through me that I cannot stop, reverberating through my cells.

“This is my friend, Melissa Spiers,” Tempest says. “She was top of our business class. She’s so smart, and I thought she could have your internship, Mr. Ornix.”

Tempest speaks to forty-year-old men like they’re just some other guy. She has no fear, no respect, and no interest in them. She’s an ethereal being who is completely above it all.

Mr. Ornix looks me up and down with a stare I can only describe as searing.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Spiers,” he says, his tone formal. He has an accent of some kind. I’m not sure I recognize it. Faintly Russian, but also absolutely not Russian. It’s sharp and angular. It hits my ear like obsidian.

I look at Tempest to see if she has the same reaction, if she recognizes how strange he is. But she’s just smiling as if he’s just another older man who might be useful to us.

“Hello, Mr. Ornix,” I say. “It is nice to meet you.”

Ornix

Nice to meet me, she says. It is not nice to meet her. It is intoxicating.

She comes with a scent like the breeze that accompanies the setting sun. She looks at me with innocent eyes that mirror the sky. She stands before me, entirely delectable and completely unaware of the depth of my hunger, which is suddenly so intense I can barely stand it.

These humans are usually like insects to me. It is difficult to stop myself from grabbing them and devouring them almost at random, absentmindedly.

They take themselves so seriously. I have laughably heard them describe themselves as apex predators. Imagine a creature with blunt, round, short teeth, fingers that end in nails so soft theycan be broken by a ring pull tab, and no armoring whatsoever referring to itself as a predator. They are farmable prey.

I barely see them as individual distinctive entities, aside from the ones I must interact with in order to conduct my affairs. But this female, standing before me, is unique. I feel a resonance with her, instant and powerful and undeniable.

My mate is standing in front of me, innocent, nervous, entirely unaware, a young woman containing more magic than I have sensed in my own realm for a very long time.

She squirms nervously, and I become aware of the fact that I am staring at her. Cannot take my eyes from her.

“The internship, Mr. Ornix?” the child of my business partner prompts me.

“Yes,” I say. “When can you start?”

My mate’s eyes open wide. “Oh, you want… I have the job?”

“You have the opportunity of the internship, yes,” I say, cloaking myself in the words of these people.

“Thank you, Mr. Ornix!” The child of my friend trills gratitude.

“Thank you very much,” the young lady who seems to consume my entire field of vision says. “I can start when you would like.”

“She needs to be paid at least a thousand dollars a week,” the child of my friend says.

“Very well.”

Both young women look at one another as if they have just pulled off a heist of some kind. My riches are literally infinite. A thousand of their theoretical dollars in exchange for seven daysof her limited life is a bargain beyond compare. Humans always sell themselves horrifically short.