Chapter Two

“How could you?”

The shipboard tech department manager, Mitch Singleton, jumped in his seat. Surrounded by dozens of monitors, the blond man scowled over his readers at Dane’s intrusion. “What are you talking about?”

“You let Marcus Rodriguez book a cruise!”

Mitch raised his eyebrows. “Well, his friends are getting married. You know? My brother’s friend and your king’s Magus? The grooms obviously reserved a block of cabins. I could hardly deny Marcus.”

“Yes, you could have!” Dane accused. “I told you not to let him back on the ship.”

“Online booking doesn’t work that way. It’s not magic, its technology. Which has parameters and rules.”

“Then why do we have online booking?”

Stupid internet nonsense. Dane still didn’t understand it.

“Because we aren’t cavemen and Raoul wants to make money,” Mitch said coolly.

Dane clenched his fists as Mitch typed on his computer.

“The past several years we ran an average eighteen percent vacancy because of only using travel agents. While that might be considered a full house by some, now we’re booked at one hundred percent capacity for the next six months. With a cancelation list.” Mitch shot him a smirk. “All because of online booking.”

Dane crackled with fury, his magic snapping. “You don’t know what you’ve done. And you should never call His Majesty by his given name,” he added as he threw open the office door.

The hubris!

“Hey, you got a problem?” Mitch growled. “Take it up with your king!”

Dane pulled his power back into himself. Though angry, he couldn’t hurt this human. The king had explained how Mitch protected the sanctuary with technology, and his valuable updates for the passengers meant they could charge more per passage, and more money meant more paras would be cared for and safe.

But how could Dane be safe if Marcus would be on board?

“You ruined everything, human!” Dane cried as he stormed out.

“My name is Mitch not human,” the guy called. “Try using it next time!”

Dane didn’t respond, but he had to admire Mitch’s confidence in not backing down from a powerful magical entity. Dane would have to apologize... eventually.

But fury made his blood boil.

Why, at four-hundred-and-thirty-two years old, did the Goddess finally decide to unite Dane with the other half of his soul?

Seriously?She’d been holding on to the missing piece of Dane’s soul and the rest of his magic this whole time, only to put it inside a human?

Muttering to himself, he almost ran into someone.

“In a hurry?” a dark-haired fairy asked.

“No.” Dane didn’t like Lord Kevin Cerulean, but he was their king’s right-hand man, and like Dane, from one of the families in the Fae Royal Court.

Like that meant shit anymore, not that Kevin had gotten the message.

There were only a handful of royals left in this realm, and one recently discovered Magus. Long ago, there had been hundreds, before the world and everything went to shit. Dane remembered well the pageantry, the pomp and circumstance, and the power he’d been born into. He’d been barely a hundred when the Great War happened, decimating the vast majority of magickind—or paras as they were now called.

Most of the Fae Court were killed by the dark races during the War, including Dane’s half-sister, Renae, who’d perished at the hands of banshees. Dane’s uncle, King Vandor, along with his mate Queen Lorelai and their son, Prince Loren, had been among the casualties too. After their deaths, the Royal Fae Court spiraled into chaos. The then unmated King Raoul had inherited the magical mantle of Fae leadership, an ancient power marking him as leader of all Fae. The court had always been rife with deceit and backstabbing, but they’d fractured into almost nothing under King Raoul’s inexperience. However, in 1792 he’d gathered all the different leaders of magickind—light, dark, and the neutral Fae—and formed a peace treaty still in effect today.

Dane’s life hadn’t been too bad after the Great War, and the Treaty didn’t change his life too much either. He’d lost family, but so had everyone else. He never mourned the loss of wealth and prestige because he’d never cared for the political intrigue or the ass-kissing Kevin seemed to crave. Dane had existed among the humans, doing odd jobs and enjoying his freedom. There were always pockets of paras in different cities, and he’d lived happily with them at different times in his long life.

Until being taken prisoner by those damn warlocks.

Kevin quirked his perfectly sculpted brows. “I take it you heard about Marcus.”

Dane collapsed against the wall, too defeated to be annoyed at his fellow lord. “He booked two weeks! I was just starting to feel comfortable on board,” he confided. “Now I’ll have to go into hiding again.”

“You could complete your soul bond.”

Had this idiot lost his mind? “Would you mate with a human?”

He shrugged. “If my magic was as fucked up as yours, yeah, probably.”

Shaking his head at the Fae who felt the need to say whatever the hell he wanted whenever the hell he wanted, Dane frowned. Why had he confided in the jerk? “That was a shitty thing to say.”

“Shitty but true,” Kevin replied with a careless flap of his hand. “At least the Goddess gave you a hot human.”

“Covered in tattoos,” Dane grumbled.

The oh-so-helpful water sprite/ship’s photographer, Penelope, had taken lots of photos of the fathers in attendance for the merfolk wedding Marcus had attended a few months ago. Penelope always got in trouble for taking excessive photos of the male AARP set. But Marcus had been in plenty of her photos too, including shirtless snapshots at the pool. He had an obscene number of tattoos, and while Dane had not wanted to learn anything about him, apparently his job was giving humans more tattoos. Dane hadn’t wanted to notice either, but some of Marcus’s ink looked Native American. While intriguing, he also had an ugly skull on one shoulder and an equally repulsive warlock creature on his inner forearm.

“I hate his tattoos,” Dane said.

“He’s still hot,” Kevin remarked. “I’d fuck him.”

A surge of rage swept through Dane without warning, and he felt his eyes blacken. “You will stay away from my mate!”

Kevin flinched, perfectly coiffed hair fluttering at the pulse of Dane’s power. “Whoa, for someone who doesn’t want to mate with a human, you sure are possessive.”

“Just because I don’t want him, doesn’t mean you can put your grubby paws on him.” Before he dug his teeth into Kevin’s jugular, Dane teleported to his assignment, leaving the other Fae in his dust.

Ugh! Kevin is such a creep!

It was Sunday, also known as turnaround day. The entire ship became a hive of activity, from those on the dock loading up an excessive amount of food for the passengers to gorge themselves on all week, to those cleaning and readying the vessel for the next batch of passengers. One group of vacationers left the ship before lunch, and another boarded by the afternoon. It only took the paranormal crew two hours to magically clean and prep everything.

Even with his broken magic, Dane had no problem using magic to sanitize the twenty cabins assigned to him in about fifteen minutes.

Great, now what?

In a few hours his mate would arrive and then he’d have two whole weeks locked in his cabin.

The threat of being locked up made his hands shake and sweat bead his brow.

I’m not a prisoner anymore, he reminded himself as he teleported to his cabin on the crew deck. He plopped onto his bed, trying to calm himself while repeating the mantra I’m safe, I’m safe over and over until his heartrate calmed.

After he’d awakened on a secluded beach in Madagascar, Dane had been lucky enough to end up aboard the Pride. When King Raoul had found him, Dane’s bones had been healed from his escape—leading him to wonder how long he’d laid there—but he’d also been emaciated and starving. He had no memory between the last instant in his cell and waking up on the beach. His Majesty had been more than generous and kind to him ever since. He’d turned out to be a far better ruler than his father, even if it had taken him a few centuries to figure out what kind of leader he wanted to be.

Dane now had a safe place to live, plenty of food, and no fear of being discovered by his previous jailers.

At least he wouldn’t be alone in his two-week prison. His fire wizard roommate, Adam, had as many insomniac issues as Dane. They also shared the problem of broken magic. Adam’s power had been bound for being wild and massive, whereas Dane’s was just fucked.

Maybe he’d amuse himself by reading one of Adam’s romance novels.But was it a good idea to fill his head with notions of romance while avoiding his soul mate?

Probably not.

Yet he had to do something to keep his mind off Marcus.

Perhaps the king would assign Dane a job with the gnomes in the kitchen. Kevin would mock him, say it was beneath a Fae Lord to associate with gnomes, but Dane didn’t feel like a lord, and after what he’d survived, he’d do anything for the king who’d rescued him.

After seven decades imprisoned by assholes using his blood to extend their own lives, slinging burgers with gnomes would be a definite upgrade.

With the beginnings of a plan, Dane took a steadying breath. Yes, he might have to go into hiding because the other half of his soul was a stupid human, but he would be fine.

Dane was always fine.

Always.