Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“That’s higher than any pairing you’ve run,” he noted.
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think past the ringing in my ears and the way my skin still tingled where he’d touched me.
He picked up his shirt from the chair, pulling it on with the same efficient movement he’d used to remove it. Like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just turned my entire world upside down with three words and a compatibility score that shouldn’t exist.
“We’ll need follow-up testing,” he said, checking something on his tablet. “The protocol requires a secondary trial within forty-eight hours for any match over ninety-five percent.”
“Nicolo—”
But he was already walking toward the door.
“See you tomorrow, Maryah.”
And then he was gone.
Leaving me behind.
Shirtless.
Shaking.
Furious.
And more confused than I’d ever been in my life.
I stood there for a long moment, staring at the door he’d disappeared through, trying to process what had just happened. The scanner had powered down, but the number was still burned into my retinas.
98.7%.
I’d designed the system. I knew what that score meant.
It meant we were perfect for each other.
It meant everything I’d spent seven years trying to ignore was scientifically, mathematically, undeniably real.
It meant I was in so much trouble I couldn’t even see the bottom of it.
I grabbed my shirt and pulled it on with shaking hands, my skin still warm from his touch. The testing room felt too small now, too full of his scent and the memory of his fingers in my hair.
Tomorrow, there would be another test.
Tomorrow, I’d have to face him again and pretend that 98.7% didn’t mean anything.
Tomorrow, I’d have to lie to myself all over again.
But for now, I just needed to get out of this room before I did something really stupid.
Like cry.
Or scream.
Or track him down and demand to know what the hell he thought he was doing to me.
I made it to my car before the tears started.
Flip my life.
Flip it all.
Chapter Four
Iwas fine, I told myself the next day.
Just fine.
Awesome even.
Really.
So what if I’d spent the last hour rotating between fuming, cringing, and silently begging the floor to open up and swallow me whole? That was normal. That was healthy. That was textbook damage control for someone whose stepbrother had just scientifically proven they were perfect for each other and then walked away like it meant nothing.
I sipped my second mug of Fae-brew coffee and tried to pretend the testing room didn’t still smell like him.
The room still held traces of Nicolo’s scent. Clean mountain air mixed with something darker, something that made my pulse skip in ways I absolutely refused to acknowledge. I’d cracked a window to help air it out, but the breeze only made it worse. Now it smelled like Nicolo and pine needles, a combination designed specifically to ruin my concentration.
I should’ve felt smug about the 98.7% compatibility score. That was elite-level matchmaking. A headline result. A client’s dream.
Instead, I just felt like a desperate little idiot with no shirt and too many feelings.
Knock, knock.
I quickly checked my face on my window’s reflections. No tears? No tears. Phew.
Ada poked her head in. “Ready to go?”
“Absolutely.”
Anything—even facing Death, I mean Prince Alexei himself—was better than moping around about my stepbrother.
Ada was still having trouble with her seatbelt by the time I slipped into the driver seat. “Everything okay?”
“Absolutely.”
Both of us were lying with the same word.
Perfect.
The drive to Prince Alexei’s fortress took us up into the Colorado Rockies, following roads that seemed to exist only when you were supposed to find them. One minute we were on a normal highway, the next we were winding through a forest that felt older than civilization itself.
“Are you sure this is right?” Ada asked, gripping the passenger door handle as we rounded another impossible curve. “Because I feel like we’ve been driving uphill for like an hour, and physics says that’s not possible.”
“Prince Alexei’s territory doesn’t follow human physics,” I said, trying to project more confidence than I felt. “It works similar to how the old Fae territories protected itself. The place exists in a pocket dimension anchored to the mountain. Space gets...flexible.”
“Flexible,” she repeated. “Right. That’s totally normal.”
The trees began to thin, and suddenly we were driving through what looked like the entrance to a fairy tale. Massive stone pillars carved with intricate runes rose on either side of the road, each one humming with barely contained magic. Between them, the air shimmered like heat waves, but it was the middle of winter.
“Whoa,” Ada breathed.
The headquarters itself came into view as we crested the final hill, and even though I’d seen pictures, nothing had prepared me for the reality.
It was a fortress made of glass and granite, carved directly into the mountainside like some ancient civilization had decided to build a palace for gods. Towers spiraled impossibly high, their surfaces reflecting the sky so perfectly they seemed to disappear into the clouds. Bridges of what looked like crystallized moonlight connected different sections, and the entire structure pulsed with a soft, otherworldly glow.