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If everyone knew what Daniel was like, the things he’d said and done while we were together, maybe it wouldn’t feel like just my shame anymore.

Still, it feels like too much to sort through now. Not sure what else I want to say to Blair, I tip my head back to enjoy the beautiful day for a little while longer.

I enjoy coming here to eat my lunch when it’s not raining, just to watch the world go by. When I first came to Seattle, it had been the place I’d come to pretend I wasn’t so alone. Those first few months—before I’d met Holly and Kenna and a few other friends—had been the hardest of my life.

Still, when I’d sat here drinking my chai latte or eating a sandwich I’d bought with my own money, it hadn’t felt so bad. I’d been able to sit in peace and enjoy the small life I’d made for myself.

It had been enough, then. Now, though, I’m not so sure.

“Do you think he’d want to speak to me again… Elias?” I ask.

Blair looks over at me, unable to keep the surprise from his face. “I’m certain he would.”

The words are soft, reassuring, and combined with everything else I’m feeling, they make a lump of emotion settle itself in my throat.

“I don’t know how to feel about thematething,” I admit. “Doesn’t that come with a certain amount of… obligation?”

The Director of the Paranormal Citizens Relations Bureau probably doesn’t have it in his job description to play therapist to nervous krakens’ mates, but Blair doesn’t balk at the question.

“Not in the slightest. If I know Elias, he’s ready to treasure you for the rest of eternity, but not if it wasn’t what you wanted.”

That lump in my throat grows even larger. I have to swallow painfully over it to answer him.

“And that’s what you think he would do, treasure me?”

Blair chuckles, though there’s something a bit sad about the sound of it. “Of course, Nora. And I would know, since krakens and dragons share a proclivity for guarding our treasures and keeping them close.”

6

Elias

It’s Friday afternoon, and I’ve got a wicked headache pulsing in my temples.

Part of it is from the tension I’ve been carrying there all week, the denied instinct that’s making me restless and tense. That instinct would still have me seek Nora out, hold her close and keep her safe, despite the mess I’ve made of things.

It’s getting harder to deny with each passing day. Like an itch directly in my prefrontal cortex, a damning temptation to throw my impulse control aside completely and act on what my nature commands. Find her. Claim her. Keep her.

I won’t. I’m almost certain I won’t. Still, the instinct persists.

The rest of my headache is coming from the visitors in my office.

The two men sitting on the other side of my desk are stony faced. They represent a company that has been doing business with the ocean freight division of Morgan-Blair Enterprises for decades.

And, as it turns out, they weren’t thrilled to learn what kind of company they were working with when the truth came out.

“We have ongoing concerns about the public perception of doing business with you.” The company’s CEO, Mr. Stanley Thoreson, is about seventy years old with the antiquated perceptions to match.

Although, at over three hundred years old myself, I suppose I’m not one to talk about being antiquated, but this fossil really puts himself into the stone age with the attitudes he has around paranormals.

“As such,” he continues, folding his hands in front of him. “We’re interested in renegotiating our contracts. As you’re well aware, we spend millions with Morgan-Blair each year.”

I’m aware. I’m also aware he wants to use his opinions as leverage to get a better deal for the thousands of shipments of particle board furniture his company ships across the Pacific each year. He’s been angling for it since the day the news broke about Morgan-Blair’s true affinity to the paranormal.

I look at his colleague. The other man is a few decades younger, maybe in his early forties, and if the corporate intel I have is correct, he’s being groomed to step in as CEO whenever Thoreson retires. Or just disintegrates into a pile of bone dust. Whichever comes first.

Mr. Jason Rutelege, the colleague, is holding his cards close to the vest. Face carefully blank, he listens to the end of his boss’s monologue before adding his own two cents.

“The contracts are well past due for a renegotiation,” Rutelege says carefully when Thoreson is done. “We’d like to have our lawyers look at the terms and draw up a new proposal.”