2. Adam

My father wielded silence like a blade. I hadn't known how to shield myself as a child, and even now, at the age of twenty-nine, it still cut.

"It could be worse," I said weakly.

More silence. I let my gaze sweep over the partial assembly of my family in the spacious drawing room. With floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining one of the walls and portraits of ancestors adorning another, the room was designed as a testament to our family's wealth and taste. The crisp, cool brightness of a sunny day in March flooded through large windows and reflected off gilded cornices.

"It really could be," I tried again. "In fact, this might not even mean very much. With the experience we bring to the table, we're essentially leading the project—everyone knows that. The Morgans are just along for the ride."

"Adam." My father's tone was a deliberate show of patience—and he was not a patient man. The flames in the fireplace crackled with a burst of energy. "A joint venture with the Morgans is nothing short of an insult."

Thanks, I was aware.

"They did bring something unique to the table." It was another doomed attempt to put the government's decision into perspective when clearly, perspective was not in high demand right now. "We're talking about a project that will be very visible to the public. Blending technology with magic makes it far easier to cite scientific progress."

"Or maybe their pitch was just better." A sly smile played on Christian's lips. Feet crossed at the ankle, he was lounging against the mantle and didn't even try to hide his delight at my failure. "And here I thought the golden boy could do no wrong."

Oh, fuck you very much.

I reminded myself that he was eight years younger and had grown up in my shadow. While the undercurrent of rivalry simmering between us had been largely one-sided, it was easy for me to be magnanimous when I was the Nova of my generation, the one born with a power that eclipsed the rest. Yes, that had to smart—but by God, Christian made me want to punch him sometimes.

"You act like our pitch wasn't a joint effort," Gale said quietly. Unless it was just the two of us, my brother did most things quietly, adept at fading into the background.

"And you act like?—"

"Boys," my aunt Eleanor cut in, speaking over her son. "That's quite enough." Perched on an antique chair, she leaned forward, her eyes sharp and calculating. "Frankly, this entire matter is an affront. To imply that the Morgans are on equal footing with us?"

She reserved the same distaste for the name that one might express for a maggot found squirming in the salad. For some reason, it made me stifle a snort—hysteria, most likely. How would she react to knowing that now and then, heat still zinged up my spine at the memory of Liam's hands on me?

Yes, he set my teeth on edge. My pickings were slim, though, so my dick didn't care.

"There's a rumour"—my uncle now, his voice a whisper of silk—"that it was their waste recycling units that swayed the decision."

"Be that as it may." My father's gaze weighed and likely found me wanting, even as I stood up a little straighter. "This is an inconvenience, Adam. Reputation is everything, as you well know, and we cannot allow anyone to overshadow us. I expect you to handle Liam Morgan so the rest of us can get the work done."

Meaning I'd serve largely decorative purposes while they'd take care of the actual decisions and heavy lifting. Oh, they'd call me in if my services were needed, but that was it. I inhaled through my frustration.

"Don't think Liam is the type to play second fiddle," Christian put in, helpful as always.

"I can handle him," I told both Christian and the room at large.

Contemplative silence was my answer, the taste of their doubt thick on my tongue. ‘You need to toughen up, honey,' was how my mum had put it when I was younger—a Harrington didn't cry over a dog that had died overnight. Gale had cried too, of course, but he'd been six so they'd let it slide. At eleven, brimming with magic potential, I was held to a higher standard.

God, I still missed my mum. She and my father hadn't loved each other, no, but there'd been respect and mutual appreciation. He'd been a better person while she was alive.

But some things you couldn't change or fix. Cancer was one of them.

The meeting drew to a close soon after, my dad, aunt, and uncle staying behind while the rest of us were excused. Christian slipped away with barely a word, Gale falling into step with me as we headed towards our section of the manor. We were quiet for a short while, and in passing, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror—lips pressed together, tension obvious in the line of my shoulders.

"Don't take it to heart." Gale's low voice cut into my thoughts. "They're all in on this, think it's our family legacy or something. A joint venture wasn't part of their plan, but they'll come around."

"I know." I did, and I wasn't going to cry about how daddy loved me a little less now—not to the person who'd always felt like a disappointment.

We took the winding staircase to the upper floor, its marble steps polished to a reflective sheen. The east wing that we shared was slightly more modern in design, lacking the heavy oil paintings and ornate tapestries of the main house.

"You know it's not your fault, right?" Gale asked just as we passed the heavy oak doors that led to our rooms. "It was a good pitch, and you did a great job with it."

How would you know? You weren't there.

I didn't say that. Of course he hadn't been there—he rarely attended magical gatherings, sought his friends outside the community. They didn't make him feel like he fell chronically short of expectations, was how he'd once explained it to me. When I'd asked if I ever made him feel that way, his answer had been, ‘Not intentionally.' Which really meant yes.

Anyway, he hadn't been there. But he'd helped me practice.

"Thank you," I told him. "Just not quite good enough, I guess."

"Or maybe the Morgans brought something new and unexpected to the table."

"Well, yeah. Maybe."

"Adam." Gale stopped and faced me, his eyes serious. "You worked really hard. If our proposal wasn't enough? Then that's not you, that's all of us."

My brother was the best person I knew. If there'd been any justice in the world, he'd be the Nova and I a Spark—but then it might have shaped him into someone else. I didn't think so, though.

"Thank you," I repeated. When Gale reached out for a one-armed hug, I stupidly felt a bit like crying. It took a moment to steady my expression. As we stepped back, I shot him a smile and hoped it turned out convincing.

Toughen up, honey.

* * *

I returnedfrom the shower to find a woman in my bed. Well—on my bed. It wasn't the first time, so I kept towelling off my hair, fully naked as I walked past Cassandra to my wardrobe.

She whistled softly. "Don't get lost in there, babe."

"Funny." I pulled on a T-shirt, then a pair of boxers, and turned to face her with a small grin that didn't feel entirely fake. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello, darling," she intoned with a haughty toss of her blonde hair. "You are the apple of my eye, the light of my life, and I truly couldn't be happier to see you."

"Yes to all of that," I said with a dismissive flutter of my fingers. "Now what are you doing here?"

As my designated fiancée, Cassandra was cleared to come and go as she pleased, but I didn't think we'd made any plans for the day. She sat up, tossing aside the magazine she'd been reading. Its cover promised the latest science on workouts for healthy muscle gain, and I fully expected her to share the highlights with me—whether I wanted them or not.

People often mistook her for cold, but they couldn't be more wrong. She simply didn't suffer fools, and since she tended to be the smartest person in the room at any given time, that included a lot of people. I was lucky she indulged me.

"Dad mentioned the joint venture," she said lightly.

"Ah." I swallowed. "That."

Her eyes softened. "Yeah. Thought you might want to vent to someone about the hardship"—a delicate pause trailed the word—"of spending the next few months within easy reach of tall, smart, and handsome."

"Tall, smart, and handsome?" I repeated, pulling up my jeans. "Last I checked, you called him—what was it?"

"A merchant of menace, conscience optional," she supplied. "I may have misjudged him."

Huh.

"Excuse me." My voice was the epitome of politeness, hands out and palms up. "Did you just say you made a mistake?"

She arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Honey, the ability to keep an open mind is the highest form of intelligence. I am reassessing my initial impression based on new information."

I bit down on a smile. "All right. And what does this new information tell you?"

"First off, his pitch showed someone who wants to get away from a reputation as an arsenal artisan. Also, I asked around, and it seems the Morgans aren't actually selling their worst inventions. They've been focusing on security and defence technology."

"I could have told you that." They'd snatched one deal from us, and I'd made sure it didn't happen again—until now. Ugh.

"You're biased," she said primly.

"Whoa, hang on a sec." I widened my eyes at her. "Just because I got off with him once?—"

"Best sex of your life," Cassandra interjected.

I scoffed, ignoring the warmth that rose to my cheeks, and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I never said that."

"Honey." Her tone dripped affectionate condescension. "Sweetie, babe, darling."

"Please don't patronise me."

"Fine." A faint smile quirked the corners of her mouth. "The thing is, I know you. And the way you looked when you told me about it? Yeah, best sex of your life."

She sounded sympathetic, not like she was trying to prove a point just for the sake of it. So I paused to consider her claim.

Well. Given the state of my life, my options were limited. Dating apps? Haha, no. I'd ventured into gay clubs a handful of times, sticking to the shadows and keeping my head down. The magical community didn't have much of an independent nightlife, so just like other Londoners in need of a good time, we went to Soho, Vauxhall, and Camden—which meant that someone might recognise me. Sure, they'd be there too, but as the heir to a dynasty, I had a lot more at stake than the average closeted mage. Twice, my night had ended with a quick fumble in the toilets, and once in a back alley. The other times, I didn't have the guts to do more than a bit of sloppy grinding on the dance floor.

So…yeah. A drunken hookup in the backseat of my car with someone I disliked? Liam's solid weight pressing me down, his teeth on my throat, a hard thigh between my legs and his dick in my mouth, almost more than I could handle. But oh, I'd wanted it.

Yeah, best I'd had. Christ, I was pathetic.

I sighed. "Hate to say it, but ‘best sex of my life' is not a high bar to clear."

"I suppose not." Her words were tinged with a hint of sadness. Not because she was jealous—God no, we'd tried kissing once and had agreed to never speak of it. But sometimes, it felt like she minded my situation more than me. Did I love shelving an integral part of myself? Of course not. Could I handle it? Yes. Between Cassandra and Gale, I was honest with the two most important people in my life. The rest was…manageable.

Manageable, yeah. Just like the fact that Liam Morgan knew about me.

"Hey." I let my gaze drift to the fireplace, coaxing the embers to rise in a fleeting spiral pattern. "Do you think…"

"What?" she asked after a second of silence.

I shook my head and let the embers fade into ash. "Never mind."

Cassandra crossed her legs, propped her elbows on her thighs, and waited.

"Do you think…" I glanced away. "Like, with me the only one with real power in my generation, right? And how sometimes the magic in one family just fades while a new powerful family pops up elsewhere, like it's just nature keeping the gene pool fresh." I might not have thought this all the way through, but in for a penny, in for a pound. "Maybe I'm gay so I won't have a dozen kids all over the place?"

For a second—nothing. Then Cassandra shook her head. "Oh my God."

"What?" I asked, tipping up my chin.

Her laugh was quiet and warm. "Ever heard of IVF?"

"Yes." I narrowed my eyes. "But magic is old-fashioned. Maybe she hasn't."

"I adore you." Cassandra infused it with the kind of affection one might reserve for a particularly slow child.

"You say that like I'm your favourite idiot."

"You are." She reached out to pat my cheek. "Anyway, so. Liam Morgan."

A dog with a bone—she wasn't about to let this one go, so I succumbed to my inevitable fate. "He's infuriating."

He was. Now, to be honest, I hadn't given him much thought in the past. In school, we'd been in the same year, true, but he'd been the quiet type and we'd moved in different circles. When technomancy suddenly screeched onto the scene in the form of his dehydration device, I'd been repulsed. Sure, a capable water mage could throw daggers made of ice or shape a blade that sliced off limbs—but a device that sucked a person dry? It was so…impersonal. It also required far less raw power to operate, exponentially increasing the lethal potential of our entire community.

Still I hadn't given him all that much thought.

Then I'd washed up in some random pub that displayed a discreet rainbow flag in the window. It had come on the heels of an argument with my dad about the right time to try for children—now, according to him; definitely not now, according to me. My one-person pity party had been on its second beer when Liam walked in, greeting everyone like he owned the place.

I'd chosen to acknowledge him because maybe I didn't actually want to be alone with my thoughts, and the rainbow flag was subtle enough to afford plausible deniability. ‘Seems like you come here a lot,' I'd pointed out. It was hardly a deduction worthy of Sherlock Holmes given someone slid a pint in front of him without even asking.

‘I used to work here,'he'd told me. ‘During uni.'

‘Here?'I'd taken in the dated furniture and the retro jukebox in the corner. ‘But it's just…a bar.'

‘Pays the same, and bar brawls are a lot less likely to uproot anything that isn't anchored to the ground, or get you soaked from head to toe. Plus'—he'd nodded at the rainbow flag—‘there is that.'

I didn't entirely remember how that had led to me making some comment he considered homophobic, to which I replied that he didn't know the first thing about me. He'd then proceeded to inform me, in great detail, about all the ways my family was rotten because of how we treated the people who worked for us. Which was a load of crap, of course—we ran a business, but we treated people fairly. So I'd pushed back. Cue more booze, a heated argument, rising irritation and somehow, eventually, his challenge to prove that I wasn't who he thought I was.

Yeah, I'd proven that, all right.

Cassandra knew all of this, of course. It didn't stop her lips from curling up into a teasing smile. "He's easy on the eyes, though."

"Why don't you date him, then?" I asked. Which, weak. Since I realised it, Cassandra certainly did.

"One," she stated with the air of a cat with a particularly amusing toy, ready to pounce on the flimsiness of my comeback. "Unlike you, I already have a boyfriend." She did, not that her parents would approve if they knew—the guy came from a no-name family. But he adored her, and for me, that was good enough. "And two, wrong equipment."

Right. Because Liam, unlike me, made no secret of his sexuality. Oh, he didn't wear rainbow suits, nothing quite that obvious, but he simply didn't appear to care about how word travelled. I envied that, and maybe disliked him just a little more for it.

"Look," I told Cassandra, "I've got enough on my plate already. Adding Liam Morgan to the mix is not what I need."

"I'm afraid that's not up to you anymore." Her voice wasn't devoid of sympathy, and she was right—but then, she always was. It was one of her more irritating qualities.

"I'll handle it," I said with all the confidence I'd been raised to project, and really, I would. So what if I'd be seeing a lot more of Liam than I was truly comfortable with?

I was a Harrington. The Morgans were no match for us—not even Liam.