Chapter 1

The world went crazy on Wednesday.

Or at least it felt like it.

Peter Hayes was less than impressed as he watched his employees buzz around like bees, practically jumping in excitement, as if they were in a madhouse instead of the most prestigious, successful law firm in the city. For a moment, he wondered if it had something to do with Christmas, but no, his employees were unlikely to let the holiday season affect them to that degree.

“What’s going on here?” he said.

Everyone froze, then there was a mad scramble to return to their desks, paralegals, associates and partners alike studiously avoiding his gaze.

Peter walked forward, toward the associates’ cubicles, and his lips thinned when he saw the empty cubicle of his personal associate. “Where’s Justin?”

“He’s—I think he’s in the file room, Mr. Hayes,” a dark-haired associate to his left (Dan, Dean?—they all looked and sounded the same to him) stammered out.

“Find him. Tell him I need the Sabatini briefs on my desk in five minutes.” Peter turned around and headed for his office. He became more bemused as he walked, noticing the same frantic, excited behavior everyone around him demonstrated before they saw him and scrambled to act like the sane, mature adults they were supposed to be.

He entered his office and sat down in his chair, glowering at the leather couch his associate usually occupied. Where the hell was Justin?

Fifteen minutes later, the door opened and Justin ran into the room before slamming the door shut.

Peter glared at him. “You’re late.”

Justin dumped the folders he was carrying on Peter’s desk, a scowl firmly set in the creases of his mouth, green eyes flashing mutinously. “Late? I never left! I didn’t sleep at all last night to get these proofed for you. This is slave labor!”

“Is that why you look like you slept in your suit? Change your clothes. You look like a mess. My associate’s appearance reflects on me.”

“I don’t have another suit here,” Justin said in the same sulky tone, raking a hand through his messy, reddish brown hair. “Not all of us have walk-in closets full of designer suits at work.”

Peter wondered why he still hadn’t fired that mouthy little shit. No one else at Hayes and Turner dared to backtalk to him, even senior partners. Peter was the managing partner. Justin was just a lowly second-year associate.

“Fine,” Peter said. “Take one of my shirts. My suits will look too big on your scrawny frame.”

“I’m not scrawny,” Justin grumbled before disappearing into Peter’s walk-in closet. “I just don’t have the time or money for a personal trainer to get me looking like I stepped off a GQ cover.”

“Your poor-little-me act would be more convincing if I didn’t know your salary. $250,000 a year is more than enough to afford a gym membership.”

“I still have student loans,” Justin said from his closet, his voice a little muffled. “And I need to help my brother. Rent in Manhattan isn’t cheap, either. Not to mention that I literally have no time to go to the gym, because I basically live at work, thanks to you.”

“Maybe you should really live in the office. You’ll save on the rent.”

“An ingenious solution,” Justin snarked, finally emerging out of the closet in a white shirt. Peter’s shirt. Truth be told, Justin really wasn’t scrawny. He was lean but fit, his shoulders pretty broad—but not as broad as Peter’s. The shirt was a little big across his shoulders and chest, but it wouldn’t be noticeable under his suit.

Peter nodded. “Passable. Put on a tie. No, the gray-green one—it suits your eyes. Now tell me what’s wrong with everyone. What’s gotten everyone acting so strange?”

Justin blinked, his green eyes filling with confusion—and then pure delight , as the little shit realized that he knew something Peter didn’t. “You don’t know? The great Peter Hayes, the best corporate lawyer in the city, doesn’t know something?”

“You’re fired.”

Justin scoffed. “You fire me every week, but you wouldn’t know what to do without me if I actually took it seriously and walked out.”

“I asked you a question. Enough chitchat. Tell me what you know.”

Justin let out a chuckle. “It’s been all over the news since last night. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it yet. Basically, the witches of the Eastern European coven cast a spell last night, to destroy the thrall the Hungarian vampires have over the people they enslaved. The spell was supposed to make the enthralled people feel an irresistible urge to go home, breaking the vampires’ control over them, but they messed up.”

“Of course they did,” Peter said, his lips twisting derisively. He didn’t have a high opinion of magic. He was a fan of law and order; magic was something that was hard to define and order. He utterly despised the way things became unpredictable in court if anything supernatural was involved. “How does it explain everyone acting like an idiot this morning?”

Justin plopped down in the chair across Peter’s desk and yawned. “Basically, as I understand it, it was a bastardized version of the Christmas Wish spell, tweaked to suit their purposes. But the witches didn’t take into account that last night was some kind of rare planetary alignment, which made their spell much larger in magnitude. Instead of being aimed at Hungary, the spell affected all of Europe and part of North America. Moreover, they apparently used an ambiguous combination of runes for ‘home,’ and the spell interpreted it as the person’s home. Their soulmate.”

Peter sneered. “Do people actually believe that bullshit?”

“You know they do,” Justin said with another yawn, rubbing his face like a sleepy kitten.

Peter narrowed his eyes, wondering if he really should go a little easier on the kid. It wouldn’t look good if his personal associate fell asleep during a meeting with a client—or in court.

“It’s actually pretty fascinating,” Justin said. “The spell apparently makes the person feel extremely antsy, urging them to reunite with their other half, and they can sense the general distance and direction their soulmate is. That’s why people are so excited. They want to go look for their soulmates before the spell wears off. It’s not every day you basically get a free soulmate spell cast on you. Granted, this spell doesn’t seem as precise as the tailor-made soulmate spells, but it still directs you to the general vicinity of your soulmate. And it’s free. Do you know how expensive those spells normally are?”

“Only idiots pay for them,” Peter said. The notion of soulmates had always seemed like juvenile nonsense to him. Witches insisted that they were real, that every person had their other half, someone who supposedly completed them. And never mind that millions of people lived perfectly happy lives without ever meeting their soulmates. But of course witches had an answer for that too: they claimed that the soulmate connection wasn’t necessarily romantic in nature, that it was possible to be happily married to someone else but the person would always be missing out on the connection that would make them “complete.” What utter nonsense. It was beyond belief that there were idiots who paid fortunes for those spells.

Justin shrugged with a wry smile. “Rich people have a lot of money to burn. Didn’t you spend half a million on a car last month?”

“Don’t compare my car to a parlor trick.” Peter hummed thoughtfully, drumming his fingers over the armrest. “The North American coven must be pissed that the Eastern European coven encroached into their territory and ruined a very profitable side of their business. Arrange a meeting with the coven. We might get some nice billables thanks to this mess if they want to sue.”

“Only you,” Justin said with a laugh. “Can you even practice international magical law?”

Of course he could. He wasn’t one of the best lawyers in the country for nothing. “As my associate, you should know the answer to that question.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “Anyway, people are excited. HR probably isn’t though.” He smiled. “Some people actually tried to butter me up to convince you to let them take a leave of absence. Isn’t it amusing that people think I can make you do something?”

Peter wasn’t amused in the slightest. Leave was something unheard of in a high-profile law firm like theirs. He couldn’t even remember the last time he was on vacation. Possibly five years ago. “Leave? Have they lost their minds?”

Justin smiled again, blinking at him sleepily. “I told them you’d say that. But I think some of them were hoping you’d feel the urge to look for your soulmate too and would be more understanding.” Justin yawned again. “They don’t know you like I do. As if you’d ever allow some silly nonsense like that to control your actions.”

“Exactly. Now get back to work. Contact the North American coven and offer them legal counsel. Tell them that we can offer them the services of any lawyer except for me. I’m obviously too busy for them.”

“And what if they don’t fall for it and request another lawyer?”

Peter raised his eyebrows. “They won’t. A complex, international case like that would require the best. I’m the best.”

“The most arrogant for sure.”

“It’s not arrogance if it’s true. Don’t forget that we have a meeting with Sabatini in fifteen minutes.”

“Unless he went searching for his soulmate too.”

“I doubt it. Billionaires don’t have souls.”

Justin chuckled, getting to his feet. “Neither do millionaire lawyers, apparently.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“I know.”