She fidgeted with one of her bracelets, twisting it around her wrist, staring at the glittering green stones. “Had you needed something, Mr. Morrison?”
“Creed,” he stressed.
“Creed,” she repeated quietly.
He smiled and said, “I wanted to wish you happy birthday before I sing.”
Again, she nodded. This time, though, she looked up—and wished she hadn’t.
Creed was watching her with an utterly inappropriate intensity. If her father saw, he’d toss Creed out the door, despite the obscene sum he’d probably paid for his presence. Lily felt like her skin was electrified everywhere his gaze fell. She’d felt a tingle of recognition a few times when she’d seen other fae-bloods, but not like this. Nothing had ever felt like this.
“I didn’t know you did these sort of things,” she finally managed to say.
“Talk to beautiful girls at parties?”
“No. Sing for hire at parties,” she corrected him.
“I don’t.” He smiled, and she wondered how anyone ever thought he was anything other than fae-blood. He radiated energy. Maybe it was harder for people without fae ancestry to see it, but she’d glimpsed it even in photographs.
Lily resisted the urge to match his smile with one of her own and added, “Incidentally, flattering me is pointless. The sons of Daidí’s associates all try it to curry favor with him. I’m immune to praise.” She met his eyes, reminding herself who she was, reminding them both that she was not the shy creature she felt like in that moment when she’d first seen him. “The no-one-else-matters gaze is a nice touch, but Daidí hired you to perform. Tonight will be the beginning and the end of your contact with the notorious Mr. Abernathy, no matter what you do or say.”
“What if I want your favor?” Creed asked as he took a drink from a tray that a waiter held out to both of them.
Lily gave him a derisive smile, but said nothing.
Once the waiter was gone, and they were again alone in the crowd, Creed continued in a low voice, “You’re a hard girl to get to meet, Lilywhite. I took this job specifically to meet you. No publicity. No one outside of the guests here right now even knows I’m doing this.”
“Fantasies of the crime lord’s daughter on your arm to add to your image?”
Creed laughed. “Not quite.”
“I might not believe everything I read, but I’ve seen enough photos of you with different girls to know that you have two types: ones who add to your reputation and ones who are simply . . . unusual. I’m guessing your interest in Nick Abernathy’s daughter is about a fifty-fifty split between intrigue and business.”
Creed shook his head. “What if it isn’t Nicolas Abernathy’s daughter I wanted to meet, but Iana’s?”
Lily stilled. No one talked about her mother. It simply wasn’t done. Daidí’s considerable reputation for cold vengeance prevented it. “Those are dangerous words.”
“For people of our heritage, there are a lot of dangerous words,” Creed murmured as he leaned close and brushed a kiss on her cheek.
The feel of his skin on hers resonated through her body like she was a vessel for nature itself. If Creed Morrison’s words hadn’t confirmed that he was a fae-blood, his touch would have.
When he leaned back, he paused as if the contact had jolted him like it had her, but then a heartbeat later he was kissing her other cheek and saying, “If you want to talk privately later, I’d like that.”
Lily realized that he was pressing a small card into her hand. She curled her fingers around it so it wasn’t visible to anyone when he stepped back.
Whatever angle Creed Morrison had, Lily couldn’t risk honesty with him. The world was divided: humans made up most of the population, fae-bloods—those with any degree of fae ancestry—existed in secret in the human world, and true fae lived in the Hidden Lands. Possessing a drop of fae blood was enough to result in imprisonment within the human world, but the alternative was to to seek entrance to the Hidden Lands, to turn away from humanity. For many fae-bloods, it was safest to simply pass as human. The war carried out by the Queen of Blood and Rage meant that any of her subjects were considered war criminals by the human courts, even those who had not sworn fealty to the faery queen—or even met her.
“My only heritage is as Nick Abernathy’s heir,” Lily said levelly, suppressing the wince from the physical pain of the lie.
She was, in fact, more fae than human. She’d known that for years. Being so fae meant that the words hurt to utter, but admitting her ancestry to the wrong person could mean the kind of imprisonment that would try even the considerable limits of Daidí’s power. Lily wasn’t foolish enough to risk that with someone she’d just met.
“Liar,” Creed whispered.
“Fae-blood can’t be liars,” she said, twisting the truth just enough to ease the pain of a complete falsehood.
Creed’s expression went carefully blank and he said, “I’m not fae-blood either. Not a drop.” He paused, watching her study him, and then added, “You can learn to hide the physical pain of lying, Lilywhite; surely you know that as well as I do. I know what you are, what we are.”
There was nothing she could say to that, no retort that would disprove his blatant truth.
Creed glanced briefly at her hand, which was curled around his card so tightly that the edges of it were pressed into her skin. Casually, he reached out and trailed his fingers over the knuckles of her closed fist.
She concentrated on not reacting.
“Tonight,” he said. “Later. Anytime. I want to talk to you.”
“I don’t . . .” She looked down at her hand. “I don’t know why you think I’m . . . what you say I am.”
He stared so intently that she could swear she felt his gaze like a physical thing, but she refused to look at him as he said, “Impure water burns your throat. The wrong soap makes your skin blister . . . and alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, they all affect you so much more than they do other people, non-fae people.”
Lily kept her lips firmly closed. She still wasn’t admitting a thing, but she obviously didn’t need to. Creed wasn’t guessing. He knew. He’d known before he’d met her—as she had about him.
“You don’t need much sleep at all unless you have their toxic food,” he continued. “When you do, you feel weak and need to sleep for hours.”
She looked up finally.
“And I’d bet that you have a bit of yard that is meticulously upkept, no pesticides, no gardener allowed in it. You feel it there without needing to hide. Soil or air, water trickling under the earth, or stone humming secrets. You know what you are when you are connected to nature. You know what we are.” His voice grew soft, lulling her into a peace that she only ever felt outside. Suddenly, all Lily wanted was to sit and listen to him forever. There was magic in the way words slid from his lips, magic in the truth of them and in the boy speaking them.
She took a step closer to him.
“You like to stand on the bare ground, burrow your toes into the soil when you’re tired, feel the earth and its pulse beating to match your own. Nature calls to us, Lilywhite.”
Lily reached out and touched his wrist. She wanted to deny everything, but she couldn’t lie again. Not to him, not right now. Creed reached out and covered her hand with his.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood like that—or how long they would’ve stayed that way, but Daidí walked over and held out his hand to her. “Lilywhite.”
She moved to him obediently, grateful for the familiarity of being at his side at a party, grateful to have a routine to fall into instead of whatever was happening with Creed.
Daidí extended a hand to the boy, who accepted it easily.
“Mr. Abernathy,” he greeted, shaking Daidí’s hand briefly. “I’m glad I made an exception to my manager’s rules to be here to sing for Lilywhite.”
Daidí’s stiff expression flickered briefly to amusement at the reminder that Creed was there as a favor and a very expensive one no do
ubt. “My daughter likes your music, and there is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for her happiness—or for her safety.”
Creed nodded, acknowledging the warning implicit in Daidí’s voice, and glanced at her again. “Any particular songs you want to hear, Miss Abernathy?”
The titles of Creed’s songs, some of which she’d listened to until she could pick them out after only a few notes, all fled her mind. “Surprise me.”
“Haven’t I already?”
Her eyes widened just enough that Lily was glad Daidí was frowning at Creed instead of scrutinizing her.
Creed smiled, a genuine soul-searing smile that she’d rarely glimpsed in the hundreds of photos she’d seen in magazines, and then with a nod to them both he walked toward the stage that had been set up for him.
At her side, Daidí was silent as they walked to the table at the front of the ballroom where she was to sit like a regent holding court. For all of her father’s suggestions that she mingle with those her own age, he still set her apart. Soon, his colleagues would come and give her gifts. Shayla would arrive and catalogue them, and Daidí would nod approvingly. Everyone would pretend that the people her own age who did approach her did so by their own choice. All the while, she would watch Creed sing for her as if private concerts from global celebrities were her due.
“He’s like you,” Daidí whispered as he seated her at the birthday table. It was a question as much as a statement.
Lily nodded.
On stage, Creed inserted a little earpiece into his ear and nodded at the man who was stationed to the side at a complex-looking control board. Creed seemed less intimidating now, like the unapproachable rock star in her fantasies. He was safer now that he was at a distance.
“I thought as much from the way you studied him in those journals,” Daidí said with a satisfied tone that made her glance his way.
She caught her father’s hand as he started to turn away. When she tugged him down beside her, he didn’t resist. She kissed his cheek as an excited daughter should and assured him, “I admitted nothing. I never have to anyone.”
“You can with him,” he said.
Daidí straightened again, saying no more, but she knew that her father had had his people thoroughly investigate Creed. No one was admitted to Abernathy Estates without thorough background searches.
As Creed started the opening chords to “Deadly Girl,” his eyes were fixed steadfastly on her and her father. She could feel his words like a lure.
Air. Creed Morrison’s affinity was air.
The articles she’d read all explained that fae-blood were typically associated with one element. Those of purer fae lines had a second. True fae had two or sometimes three. Nothing explained why she had four, and she’d never met another fae-blood she could ask.
Here, though, was one in her home.
The music covered Daidí’s words as he told her, “I want you to talk to him. If he doesn’t give you his contact information, I’ll have Shayla get it for you. You need to know more of your people. That’s why I brought him here.”
Lily glanced from her father to Creed and back again.
“Happy birthday, Lilywhite,” Daidí said.
The real present wasn’t the party, or the jewelry, or even the concert. Her father had delivered Creed Morrison to her like a gift. All he needed was a bow.
three
LILY
After Creed’s second song, Shayla arrived at the table, and Daidí stepped away, signaling to the guests that they could begin their procession of offerings. Nothing in the gifts they carried could be quite as shocking as the gift her father gave her. She watched Creed as he continued to sing to her, wishing that she could be so bold as to end the party for everyone but the two of them. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Instead, she smiled politely at the head of the Gaviria family and his sons as they all bowed their heads to her.
The Gaviria cartel was Daidí’s strongest ally, and as such, they were always first in line to offer felicitations. Their cartel was not a new organization like so many today. They had a history stretching back before the early 2000s, before the war, before the guerrilla attacks by the Queen of Blood and Rage’s terrorists, back when this continent was called North America.
“Feliz cumpleaños, Lilywhite,” Señor Gaviria greeted as he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the air just above the skin.
“Gracias.” She smiled and repaid it in kind by saying, “It’s no wonder your sons attract so many beautiful women with you as an influence.”
“Gracias.” He sighed, keeping her hand in his. “Pero”—he shrugged and looked at Erik, his eldest son and her closest friend—“Erik necesita una buena esposa.”
Erik met her eyes during his father’s oft-repeated comment, but he said nothing. Like Lily, Erik was being raised with the necessary skills to take over the family business. Unlike her, there was no doubt that he would do so.
Studiously not glancing at Erik, Lily said, “I’m sure all of your sons will find good wives.”
“Espero que sí.” Señor Gaviria half sighed the words.
Dutifully, Erik held out a beautifully wrapped jeweler’s box. It was too big to hold something dangerous like a ring, but whether it was a necklace or bracelet, it was clearly meant to be a reminder that he was wealthy and had impeccable taste. She didn’t need those reminders. She’d known for years that their fathers had hopes of a marriage. Erik was four years older than her, and while they’d kissed a few times, they both knew that Erik would require a wife meeker than Lily could ever be.
“Exquisite as always,” Erik said with a bit too much familiarity for a casual friend. He lifted her hand to his lips, echoing his father’s words and actions.
“Too kind as always,” she replied lightly.
“We will dance,” Erik said, not asking as most boys would. His assertiveness was part of his appeal, but it was the sort of appeal that only worked because he had no actual authority over her.
“I always enjoy dancing with mi amigo de confianza.” She switched to Señor Gaviria’s preferred language and hoped that his father heard the word friend clearly enough.
Erik didn’t have her heart—any more than she held his—but tonight, she needed a safe, human touch. She needed her friend to be nearer to her because of what he wasn’t. Being in his arms for a dance would help remind her of who she was—and what she was pretending not to be.
She laid her hand on Erik’s arm. “Soon. We will dance soon.”
Señor Gaviria beamed approvingly; his youngest two sons said nothing. They were not expected to do more tonight than be seen showing their respects. The Gavirias moved on so Lily could talk to the rest of her well-wishers and approval-seekers. She liked most of them well enough, but after the seventh polite exchange, Lily was already feeling the strain of politic answers that bordered a bit too closely on lies.
When Creed switched to a calmer song, “Belladonna Dreams,” she felt her skin tighten and knew he was watching her. There was something about Creed Morrison; he was temptation incarnate. She glanced his way, and in that moment, she couldn’t see anyone but him. The world vanished.
Then Shayla’s voice interrupted her longing: “Lorenz Calvacante. His son, Vincenzo, and his daughters, Maria and Angela.”
And Lily returned to her dutiful acceptance of gifts and birthday greetings.
Vincenzo bowed his head. “When the presentation is done, I would be honored to lead you in a dance.”
She nodded. All of their generation had been forced by their families to learn the very formal dances of the past. The waltz (Viennese and English), the tango, the foxtrot . . . Someone had unearthed a series of old television shows from just after the turn of the century, and a weird craze for formal dancing had begun. Most of them were horrible at it; only Erik took to dance gracefully.
The Calvacantes left, and Lily’s gaze drifted back to Creed yet again as she tried to decide whether or not it was better that they couldn’t speak pr
ivately.
“In the desert, I bartered my soul,” he sang as she glanced his way. “In the darkness . . . please keep me from surrendering to these belladonna dreams.”
It was a song he’d written far before tonight, one that rode charts on every continent, but as he sang, he stared only at her, and Lily couldn’t help the foolish feeling that his words were just for her. It was impossible, but in that instant, she believed he was begging her to save him.
This was part of why the fae-blood were imprisoned. History taught that the fae were manipulative and cruel. Reality proved that they could manipulate people with their affinities and their innate beauty.
Although Creed Morrison wasn’t using his gifts to hurt people, he obviously could twist emotions with his voice—or maybe Lily was more susceptible to him. Either way, she felt the magic of a fae affinity in his voice, and it made her struggle not to respond. The question was whether that response was to go to him or to lash out at him with her own affinities. Neither would be wise.
By the time Lily had finished the gifts, Erik was waiting. Gently, he pulled her out of her chair. No one was on the dance floor yet. Her feet made next to no sound as she followed him.
“Tango?” he asked.
The music Creed was playing was all wrong, but they could make it work.
“Don’t expose my thigh,” she warned.
“I thought this was a weapon-free event.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Am I to believe that neither you nor your father are armed?”
“I only have what I was permitted by my host,” Erik said, reminding her in his usual way that he was in a separate class from the rest of the guests. Daidí trusted no one as much as he trusted the Gaviria family, and the idea of any of them being unarmed was as likely as Lily leaving her room without a blade of some sort.