Page 1

Chapter one

Jade

I s that my phone? I pause in the shower, hands mid-shampooing my hair, foam everywhere. I’ve frozen, as if falling motionless is going to help me decipher the sound I just heard.

I’m pretty sure it was my phone. The noise was accompanied by a buzz, just like the vibration of my phone against the countertop by the sink. But I don’t recognize that notification sound. I swear it’s not one I’ve heard before. So why is my phone making strange noises?

Suddenly, memories burst into life. Oh my god. Last night, after hours of lying in bed mindlessly doomscrolling, I downloaded a dating app. It had to have been a strange fit of loneliness. And stupidness. What the hell was I thinking? I need to delete it immediately!

I scramble out of the shower, snatch up my phone… and then watch helplessly as it slides out of my soapy fingers. It smacks against the edge of the counter before plummeting to the tiled floor and landing with a sickening crunch.

I drop down to my haunches beside it. Carefully, I pick it up. The screen is smashed to smithereens.

A heavy despondency settles in my gut. I stare forlornly at my broken phone while the empty shower runs behind me.

What am I going to do without my phone? My addiction to it is probably unhealthy, but even so, I’m not ready to go cold turkey like this. This is awful.

Wait a minute. I am forgetting several important things. I’m free. I’m no longer on the run. I have money.

I can simply go out and buy a new phone. This isn’t a disaster, it is merely an inconvenience.

My, oh my, how my life has changed. It’s quite shocking. As well as lovely.

I’m home. With my found family. Ritchie is dead. The harem is no more. The drama of the past year is over. My life can finally begin.

It seems too good to be true. But it is. This is my life now.

I take a deep breath and pull myself together.

A few hours later and I’m wandering around the mall. It’s busy. But my incognito look is holding up. People are barely noticing me. I’m just a figure amongst the crowd, which is perfect. I wish it could be like this all the time. I wish I hadn’t been born the way I was.

I hate the way I look. The angles of my face are too sharp. My hair is an unnatural looking blond, so pale that it is nearly white. And worst of all are my eyes. Too large. Too bright. Too vivid. More like polished emeralds than real eyes.

I suppose I could learn to live with it, with being different, if people were not so drawn to my appearance. I’ll never understand why they find it attractive, but they do. Ritchie didn’t buy me for his harem for no reason. I’ve accepted that.

But I still hate it. I despise the attention. Being leered at, lusted after, objectified. It all makes my skin crawl.

I shouldn’t complain. It only means I need to cover up whenever I go outside. Hats, sunglasses, baggy clothes and slouching, these things are all my friends. After everything I have endured, it is hardly a hardship.

I take a deep breath and focus on savoring my freedom and enjoying my surroundings .

So much life. So much normalcy. Normal people with normal lives doing normal things. It’s bittersweet to see. Everything I’ve ever wanted, all around me.

But I’m getting there. I’m getting closer to my dream.

I’m no longer on the run. I’m no longer a sex slave in a billionaire’s harem.

I live in a shared house with my friends.

I even had a job, before my life went crazy again.

But now everything has calmed down once more, hopefully I can get another job soon.

Step by step I’m getting there. One day, I’ll have a normal life.

“Jade?”

The booming voice makes me jump out of my skin. I whirl towards it. My heart beats like a wild thing.

Tall, beefy, blond. Wearing the most ridiculous shit-eating grin anyone has ever seen. Blue eyes sparkling with a happiness so profound that it is a little disconcerting.

It’s Flyn.

My old work colleague from my brief stint as a normal person. The precious period of my life that I desperately want to recreate.

I can’t believe Flyn is here. Standing before me.

He used to flirt with me incessantly, and I never could admit how much I liked it.

Somehow he always managed to make it feel like it wasn’t my body he wanted, it was me he was flirting with.

Maybe that was just wishful thinking, simply imagination on my part. But it was still nice.

I can’t believe he is here. I guess we aren’t too far from the call center. But it’s not as if I go out much, and it’s so busy in here, what are the chances?

And how did he recognize me? My hand flies up to my hood. It’s still up, covering my head. My large dark sunglasses are on. He must be super observant.

“Long time no see!” he beams, as if running into me has made all his Christmases come at once.

I lick my lips. Yeah, sorry about that. I had to disappear and go on the run from the Paranormal Council because I went crazy and nearly opened an interdimensional portal that would have allowed the fey to conquer Earth.

“Feels like forever,” I say weakly.

Because of course I cannot say any of that.

It sounds unhinged. Especially since Flyn is a mundane human.

He thinks I’m fully human. He has no idea that vampires, werewolves, demons, or kelpies exist. He doesn’t know that I live with some.

He is clueless about the paranormal world.

Nevermind flinging the history of fey plots at him.

The only things I can ever tell him are lies.

“Let’s grab a coffee and catch up!” Flyn exclaims.

I glance down at his hands full of shopping bags. I haven’t made it to the phone shop yet, but I guess there is no rush. It will be open later. After I have coffee with Flyn.

A strange tingling sensation dances through me. Sitting in a coffee shop with Flyn sounds wonderful. It is what normal people do. Have coffee with old work friends.

If he flirts with me, it will be fine. He has always kept it respectful before. I can handle it. I won’t let it go to my head.

I smile up at him. “Great idea!”

His eyes lit up like I’m a genie who has just granted him a wish. His smile grows even bigger, and with a tilt of his head, he leads the way.

There are several coffee shops in the mall. He takes to one that is a little tucked away, and doesn’t seem to be a chain store. At least, it is not a big enough one that I’ve ever heard of it before.

He makes a beeline for a table in the corner by the window that a family has just left. He dumps his bags, grabs a tray and starts clearing the table. Once the tray is full and the table is empty, he turns to me.

“I’ll grab a cloth. You still a latte man?”

I nod wordlessly and slide into one of the chairs. How does he remember what coffee I like? I haven’t seen him for a year .

I watch him weave through the crowd and up to the counter.

The frazzled looking girl serving takes the tray with a smile.

Pink colors her cheeks. My heart thuds. Flyn is ridiculously handsome, so of course people are going to react to it.

And he flirts with everyone. I swear most of the time it’s not even on purpose.

He simply looks at you and your toes curl.

It’s just one of those things. It’s completely ridiculous to feel envy over it.

I busy myself by tucking his bags neatly under the table. He’s left me in charge of his things and I’m going to take the responsibility seriously.

Flyn returns surprisingly quickly with a giant latte, and a huge concoction of whipped cream and drizzled chocolate. He also has a cloth draped over his elbow.

He quickly wipes down the table, places my drink in front of me, and puts his exuberant drink down. He returns the tray and cloth, and finally sits across from me with a contented sigh.

He sips his creamy chocolate creation through a stripy straw and I can’t stop smiling. The man looks like a jock. I’m sure he played some sort of violent sport at school and was captain of the team. He has the build for it. As well as the demeanor.

He is sitting there, legs spread wide, man-spreading to the extreme. While wearing a dark blue baseball cap backwards like it is the 90s. Yet he is also sipping a ridiculous drink. This is a man who very clearly has absolutely no insecurities whatsoever about his masculinity.

I take a careful sip of my latte. Goddess, that’s good. Trust him to know the very best coffee shop in town.

Flyn leans back in his chair. His muscles flex. The wood groans. He fixes me with the full wattage of his attention.

“So, man. What have you been up to?”

Oh fuck.

What the hell am I going to say?