“Please,” Devon said, a faint, almost desperate note creeping into his voice. “You know how awkward it will be if you’re not there. Besides, she likes you. Everyone likes you.”
“So true.” Felix grinned at his own popularity. “Fine. I’ll go with you. But you totally owe me for this.”
“Done.”
Devon sounded so much like Mo that it made my heart squeeze. But he wasn’t Mo. Devon Sinclair was the reason my mom was dead, and I needed to remember that. Not think about how his hurt and heartache felt so similar to mine.
Grant went to get one of the SUVs out of the garage and bring it around to the front of the mansion. Felix claimed that he needed something from the greenlab, whatever and wherever that was, and both of them hurried off, leaving me alone with Devon. Well, us and the pixies who were picking up the empty food platters and hauling them away.
“So, here we are,” Devon said.
“Yeah. Here we are.”
He looked at me like he expected me to say something else, but I didn’t.
“So,” Devon continued. “What was your other school like? You went to a regular mortal high school, right?”
“It was fine. Just school. You know. Anyway, that’s all over with now.”
Because I’m here. Because your mother forced me into this. Because I’m going to die for you just like Ashley and my mom did.
I didn’t say the words, but Devon winced at my flat tone. But he was just as stubborn as I was because he wasn’t ready to give up trying to make conversation yet.
“That’s a pretty ring,” he said. “Where did you get it?”
My left hand crept over to my right, my fingers closing around the ring. The pointed edges of the star-shaped sapphire made me think of my mom. I wondered how many times she’d been in this same situation, stuck with a new client and trying to make small talk, as though she weren’t expected to put her life on the line for the other person.
Especially this particular person.
Anger surged through me. I twisted the ring around on my finger so the star was facing in toward my palm, hiding it from sight.
“Look,” I said, my voice sharp. “We both know what the deal is. You’re the prince of this particular mob, and I’m a girl who’s spent the last four years living on the streets. We don’t exactly have a lot in common, so let’s not pretend we do. In fact, we don’t have to do the whole fake friends thing at all. It looks like you have plenty of those with Felix and Grant already.”
Devon blinked, as if he was surprised by my surly tone. He probably was. I doubted anyone else talked to him like that. No one would dare to, since he was Claudia’s son.
“I know you don’t really want to be here,” he said.
“And I don’t blame you. I don’t need a bodyguard, no matter what my mom thinks, and I know that she basically blackmailed you into this. But I’d like us to be friends, if we could.”
I snorted. “You are the son of the head of one of the most powerful Families in town. You don’t have friends, sweet prince. Not really. You have allies, enemies, and people who want you dead. Nothing more, nothing less. Especially not with me.”
Devon’s green eyes locked with mine. My soulsight kicked in with another punch to the gut—the hurt my harsh words had caused him.
“We should go.” He shot to his feet. “We don’t want to be late.”
He pushed away from the table, turned, and headed toward the doorway. Over at the buffet tables, the pixies hovered in a row in mid-air, glaring at me, their arms crossed over their tiny chests. They’d noticed how I’d upset Devon, and they didn’t like it.
“What are you looking at?” I snapped.
The pixies huffed at me before going back to their chores. I sighed and started twisting my ring around and around on my finger before finally putting the star right side up again.
Devon was right. I didn’t want to be here, but I was stuck just the same—at least for the next year—so I might as well do what Claudia had hired me to.
I sighed again, got up, and went after him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Devon was waiting outside the dining hall, instead of storming off and leaving me to find my own way around the mansion. Or maybe he thought I’d wander off somewhere else instead of going with him if he wasn’t around to guide me.
He might have been right about that.
Either way, he didn’t speak to me as he led me outside.
The sun was already beating down on the mountain, and the May heat and humidity were cranking up to be particularly stifling today. But the grounds around the mansion were a lush green before they gave way to the dappled shadows of the woods. Once again, I noted the guards patrolling through the trees. Many of them were the same folks I’d seen in the dining hall. Every once in a while, one of them would move through a patch of sunlight, causing the silver cuff on his or her wrist to gleam. The thin bands reminded me of shackles.
I rubbed my own wrist, my fingers digging into the bare skin there. No one had said anything about giving me a Family cuff, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask for one. That would make my indentured servitude all too real. Perhaps Claudia was waiting to see whether or not I ran off—or how long I might live.
But the guards weren’t the only things in the woods.
Bright green slits of light flashed, and branches whipped back and forth as the tree trolls moved from one limb to another, even more nimble than the squirrels they startled. Deeper in the forest, back where the green faded to black, more neon colors—reds and blues and yellows—winked on and off, as the other monsters woke and then went on the prowl for their own breakfast.
I pulled my gaze away from the woods and focused on Grant, who was leaning against a black SUV with the Sinclair crest emblazoned on the front doors. His hair gleamed like spun gold in the sun, his arms were crossed over his chest, showing off his muscles, and he sported a pair of aviator sunglasses that made him look that much cooler.