Page 27

Myles

I ’m loading grocery bags into my car when one of the gargoyles drops from the sky beside me. Instantly, he has my full attention, dread creeping in.

“Shit, what’s wrong with the barrier now?”

What if I fucked it up when I was tweaking it to allow Adam back in without being incinerated?

Leo waves me off. “Everything’s been quiet on that front since you strengthened it.

Still, we’ve been doing extra rounds to be safe and keep checking in with the neighboring towns to see which one was hit when whoever was testing our security couldn’t get in, but they haven’t reported any attacks.

My guess is they weren’t after mysts in general, but a specific resident here and when they failed, left to lick their wounds and regroup.

I’m sure we’ll get another shot at them in the coming months once they make another move. ”

Huh. Unexpected, but ultimately, that’s good news. General traffickers are more of a problem than a single stalker. Eventually, Sera’s gift will show them who’s at risk and they can create a plan to protect them; far easier to manage than a war on the entire city.

“Here.” Leo fishes something out of his jeans pocket. “Sera asked me to have you pass this on to your mate. Said it would come in handy.”

As he drops a decorative hairpin into my palm, my brow furrows in confusion. “For what?”

He shrugs, stretching out his leathery wings, already over this errand and ready to get back to his mate. “Your guess is as good as mine. But I’ve been mated long enough to know better than to question one of Sera’s visions. If she’s tight-lipped, she has a damn good reason.”

Studying the teardrop surrounded in flames and trying to figure out in what reality Sera thinks it could be useful, I come up blank, shrugging and pocketing the gift. I go to thank him, but the gargoyle’s already soaring over the nearest building.

Grabbing the last bag from beside my feet, I load it in the car with the others, frowning at the back seat. It really isn’t going to take too much work to transform Ever’s basement into the workshop she’s been dreaming of, mostly stocking it with supplies. It doesn’t feel nearly personal enough.

What do girls like? Ice cream and glitter?

No, not Ever. She likes high speed internet, tacos, and orgasms. But it’s hard to wrap those.

Her closet is practically empty.

I mull over the first night I met her and she almost ran, how she could fit all of her clothes into a ratty old backpack. And I hate the idea that she’s had to go without comforts for so long, because she never had a real home.

It’s why Ledger’s keeping her busy at the bookstore today while we set everything up for her surprise.

Not that it was a hard sell; he’s been glued to her hip since he came home from his existential crisis run a few days ago, and none of us have been stupid enough to try and fight him for her while he’s still so amped up.

Arson is getting close though.

Ten minutes later, I park in front of some department store that had mannequins in the window with women’s clothes, because if I’m doing this, I’m not half-assing it.

The door closes behind me, and my nose twitches from the perfume in the air.

I swear, there’s seven thousand bottles and boxes behind the glass case, so I suppose I should thank my lucky stars I’m not a shifter; I’d be sneezing up a storm.

As I grab a cart and face the hundreds of racks, I realize quickly how stupid my idea was.

I don’t have a damn clue what size she wears.

“Welcome to Fates’ Threads, can I help you find anything in particular?” a saleswoman asks, heels clacking on the tile as she approaches with a customer service smile plastered on her face. I don’t even care that it’s fake, I’m so relieved.

“I want to surprise my mate with a new wardrobe, and just realized I’m stupid and should have planned this better.”

Her lip twitches into a genuine smile. “Well, I’m happy to help. What size does she wear?”

Of course she’d ask that.

“Umm…” I pull out my phone, bringing up a picture of Ever standing between Bellamy and Arson, and show it to her with a grimace. “Small? Maybe?”

The sales lady bites her lip, fighting back amused laughter.

But if she can help me out, I don’t care if she calls me a clueless idiot to all of her friends.

“Okay, I have an idea.” She passes my phone back and leads me to a mannequin.

“We’ll use this as a baseline. Can you show me how tall she is?

” I hold up my hand slightly above the plastic one, but it’s surprisingly close.

“Hips? Chest?” she continues. Face on fire, I suffer through the embarrassment and cup the fake tit.

“Um, a little smaller than this, but not much.”

A broad, genuine smile splits her face, eyes twinkling with mirth.

“Perfect, I think I’ve got a good idea on what should fit her.

Just in case, I’ll make sure to add some options with elastic waistbands and such so she’ll have something that will definitely fit until you can exchange them for the proper sizes.

Are you looking for anything in particular?

Casual jeans and sun dresses, or more business attire? ”

I think about her stressing over what to wear to the lawyer’s office, and while I know it’s a one-off and she’ll have a mostly behind-the-scenes role with this project, it never hurts to have some nice clothes on hand, just in case.

“Maybe two or three things suitable for business meetings, but mostly, she’s a shorts and t-shirts kind of girl. Home is her happy place, and I want her to be comfortable. Lots of pajama pants and leggings.”

She beams, and I feel like I passed some sort of test. “Good man, she’s lucky to have such a smart mate. Underwear?”

I tug at my collar. “Anything you think she needs.”

Her eyes sparkle with mischief. “Alright then, one final question and I’ll take care of everything. Budget?”

Oh, that one’s easy.

“None. The more clothes she has, the longer it’ll take her to pack up if she tries to leave us. That should buy us enough time to fix whatever we fucked up and convince her to stay.”

She barks out a laugh. “If only all men were that wise. Why don’t you have a seat while you wait, and I’ll come get you when everything is bagged up?

” She gestures to the chairs outside of the dressing room, promptly turning on her heel and grabbing a cart, loading it like she gets paid commission.

I opt for leaning against the checkout counter and scrolling on my phone while waiting for her return, because I’d just feel like a creep sitting over there without waiting for someone inside.

“Mr. Evergreen?” a deep rumble jerks me out of my doomsday scrolling to find Dane approaching, a dress draped over his arm.

“Mr. Nocturne? I didn’t realize you were still in town.”

Dane lifts his arm. “Picking up a gift for my mate before heading home for the day.” He looks toward the front window.

“I can see why she’s so fond of this place.

I’ve set up a temporary office in town while your mate is handling my…

special request. The commute here is shorter, and honestly, I’m thinking of making it permanent. ”

Can’t say I blame him. If his mate is as fragile as he’s let on, every time he’s away for business, he must be going crazy with being so far away if there were an emergency.

Running a multi-million dollar business alone must suck up nearly all of his free time; I can’t imagine he’d want to lose what little time he gets to spend with his mate on a long commute.

“Speaking of,” I hesitate before just going for it. “It would be incredibly helpful if Ever and I could speak with Sophia. Get a better sense of what’s going on so we can tailor the invention to her needs without so much guesswork.”

The words are barely out of my mouth before he’s shutting me down.

“No. I’m sorry, but she’s been disappointed too many times before.

Every time I brought a new doctor home, I had to watch her get her hopes up, just for her to wind up depressed in bed for weeks when they couldn’t do anything for her.

I won’t put her through that again. Once you have a prototype, we’ll talk. ”

It makes it harder for us, but ultimately, I get where he’s coming from. If there was a way I could save Ever from everyone that let her down in the past, I would do it in a heartbeat. We’ll just have to get creative, and fine-tune it after meeting her.

“While you’re here, though, I can give you an update.

” He fills me in about the timeline for production of Ever’s console, namely, the controllers, since we’ll need to get ahead of that and stockpile if we have to infuse them each with ‘nanotech’ before release day.

As I quickly do the math in my head and balk, I have to wonder if we massively fucked up and got in over our heads.

If Dane wants to launch in a little over a year, we’ll need to do hundreds, if not thousands of controllers a day once they’re ready just to handle the estimated preorder numbers.

Maybe now that my powers have increased, I can do them in waves instead of having to touch each individually?

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it done.”

Somehow. Even if it means I don’t sleep for a week. Because like hell am I going to let Ever run herself ragged doing it all herself, no matter how much she doesn’t want to accept help.

Dane dips his head before pinning me with a fierce look. “I want to make my stance clear on the matter, though. My mate is to be your number one priority. I’ll delay the console launch if necessary.”

I swallow, hearing the underlying threat, and nod. “Of course. We’ll do everything we can for Sophia.”

I’m just afraid of what he hid in the fine print of Ever’s contract he can leverage to retaliate if we fail.