Change of Heart (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 3) Read online

  Flamethrowers were the tip of the iceberg as far as his official arsenal went, and they had been a wish list item. Most of what he owned was just neat crap he had amassed over the years without real purpose. Given an actual goal, I couldn’t begin to imagine the ideas whirling through his head.

  “Keep telling yourself that.” The edges of his amusement frayed. “Do you regret any of it?”

  “You mean the bargain that brought me here?” The Faraday loomed, and I cut between buildings to avoid the front entrance. “Ford is a good man. He deserved a second chance more than I did.” I suspected he meant the Midas situation too, but I played dumb. It wasn’t hard. “The coven has to be taken out, so I’m good with that too. Hunting them down would have landed on my plate eventually.” I shrugged. “I don’t see how I could have done anything differently and been able to live with myself.”

  The matter of the hearts, however, worried me. There had to be a workaround that didn’t involve giving Natisha access to so much power, but I could afford to let that be Future Hadley’s problem. Right now, I had one heart to my name. Until I had the other six, I had time to figure out how I was going to pay the debt without dooming the city to a worse fate down the line.

  “Night, kid.”

  I waved him off and climbed the fire escape up to my old apartment. I didn’t feel like going in, so I sat on the metal grate, propped my elbows on the railing, placed my chin in my hands, and swung my legs.

  The Faraday had hired an all-witch construction crew to make the place habitable again, but it took time to gut even a small box. Plus, the hall was wrecked, and my closest neighbors’ apartments had been emptied for the foreseeable future. I didn’t mind giving their spaces preferential treatment over mine since I was the bomb’s target, not them, but that also extended to dibs on the vacant apartments.

  I had nowhere to go but up—to the penthouse—but it reflected Linus’s tastes, not mine. That was easily rectified, I knew, but I wasn’t in the mood. Besides, I was more comfortable down here. Moving on felt too much like giving up, and I had to hold on to something real, something Hadley, even if it was a charred shoebox of an apartment.

  The clang of footsteps on the ladder below me was an unwelcome announcement company was coming for a visit. I could guess who it was and what she wanted from me, and the necessity of it made me tired down to my bones. It was getting harder and harder to frame answers in a way that didn’t come out sounding like I was blowing her off every night. I didn’t care about building a new empire when I was sitting in the smoking ashes of the old one.

  That whole range of emotion had been erased from my hard drive, and I wasn’t sure how to reboot or if I even wanted to, honestly.

  “Can we do this another time?” I was awful for treating her like a virulent plague to avoid at all costs, but I was fresh out of motivation. For pretty much everything. “I can pretend I listened to your spiel, and you can leave with a sense of accomplishment as you go about your night.”

  “You don’t want to hear what I have to say?”

  Every muscle in my body locked down tighter than Fort Knox. Had I moved, or even breathed, I might have broken bones. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “Remy,” Midas guessed. “I’ve noticed you holding meetings out here.”

  “The bathtub is too small for two people, and I’m guessing bathing with your employee is frowned upon in any case.” I kept watch on the horizon. That’s how I knew I hadn’t curled into a ball and started sobbing or crumpled into a boneless heap that sobbed or flung myself over the edge while sobbing. I was definitely picking up on a theme here, a wet one. “Are you here to tell me to stay off the fire escape?”

  The first conversation we had alone happened up the alley, and it involved him warning me off using the fire escape as my own private entrance. How very circle of life that he was here again to issue the same warning in what might be our last.

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  The horizon didn’t budge, and I felt good about that. I was holding steady, and that was a relief.

  “I have a problem.”

  The response popped out of my mouth without consulting my brain. “I’ll help however I can.”

  Damn it.

  That was not what I meant to say. I was acting like a puppy who enjoyed being kicked so much I painted a bull’s-eye over my heart then gifted him with a pair of steel-toed boots.

  “You’re not going to ask what the problem is first?”

  “I owe you.” I sensed a slight tilt and corrected my posture. “What do you need?”

  “You can look at me,” he said, a growl deepening his naturally raspy voice.

  “I don’t have to see you to hear you.” I swallowed hard. “Say what you came to say.”

  “You’re my mate, and I abandoned you.”

  Mate?

  Forget my best intentions, no force on earth could have stopped me from gawking at him in shock.

  Mate?

  “What I did was unforgiveable.” He sat on a step out of my reach. “I have no excuse.”

  Except he didn’t need one. I got it. Without prompting. “You didn’t know who you mated.”

  “I mated you.” Resolve firmed his mouth. “I love…you.”

  The horizon was no longer in danger of tilting, but it blurred as I returned my chin to my hand. “No.”

  “No? I don’t love you, or I don’t know who I mated?”

  “Both.” I kicked my legs. “Most days I don’t know who I am. It’s hard keeping my past and my present straight. It was stupid to think a relationship could work with those kinds of barriers.”

  “I went to Savannah.”

  The twist in my gut made me nauseous. “Back to the scene of the crime.”

  There was nothing about Amelie Pritchard he couldn’t unearth if he dug deep enough in Savannah soil. Except where she went after her debt to the Society was considered paid. But he already knew the end of my sad tale.

  “I went to visit Lethe for a few days.”

  That was almost worse. No. That was definitely worse. Lethe knew all there was to know about Amelie’s dark side, and what she didn’t remember, she could ask Grier. The trip would shine a light on all corners of my former life.

  “Oh” seemed easiest, so I prepared to repeat it again and again until he left.

  “I talked to Linus and Grier while I was there.”

  “Ah.”

  How’s that for variety?

  “Do you know what I learned?”

  “No.”

  Tremble before the might of my vocabulary.

  “I haven’t been honest with you about who I am either.”

  “Okay?”

  “I can’t hold your past against you without giving you the chance to do the same to me.”

  Screwing up my courage, I put thought into words and hoped he would accept it and go.

  “You don’t owe me anything. We didn’t make those promises to each other. We agreed to try, and we agreed to do it with blinders on. The secret idea was good, but we didn’t take it seriously. We weren’t ready to commit or able to commit or whatever it means when two people love each other but it’s not enough.”

  “You love me.”

  Frak. Frak. Frak.

  I hadn’t meant to say that part out loud. Ever. It was the kind of thing that couldn’t be unheard.

  “I can’t do this.” I squinted against the rising sun. “We’re just going to keep hurting each other.”

  “Not if we agree to tell each other the truth.”

  “You went to Savannah.” I laughed bitterly. “You know everything about me.”

  “Grier loves you, and Linus admires you. Lethe envies you. Mom respects you. That’s what I know.”

  The tears flowed over my cheeks and dripped off my chin. “What if they’re wrong?”

  “Then it doesn’t matter.” He moved a step closer. “I love you.”

  The strain in my throat made denials impossi
ble, but I shook my head anyway.

  “You’re my mate.” He claimed another step higher. “There’s no going back. Not for me.”

  “The courtship is null and void.” Goddess, it hurt to admit it. “There’s no going back, period.”

  “The bond snapped into place before the period ended.” He inched closer. “I should have told you, but I wanted you to make the choice for yourself.” He hesitated. “I hoped you had felt it too.”

  Ambrose, who didn’t care one whit about my personal life, took the opportunity to rub it in my face that he had tried to tell me that night at the den when he pointed at my chest and then the door. Except now I understood he’d meant the man on the other side of it.

  “It doesn’t matter.” I blew my nose on my sleeve. “We’re done, Midas.”

  I understood why he walked away, and I would have done the same in his shoes. Maybe. I don’t know. I hadn’t loved anyone before. I wasn’t sure how far the emotion stretched before it broke. But he had proven he could walk away, and that terrified me. I couldn’t afford to invest in this, in us, again. It hurt too much.

  “I’m not letting you go,” he said calmly. “I don’t care if it takes every day of the rest of my life to prove to you that I’m all-in, I will put in the time.” He took the last step, putting us close enough to touch, but he respected my space. “I’m not going anywhere. I said it before, and I meant it.” He brushed his fingers across the metal. “I broke that promise when you needed me the most, and I will never forgive myself for hurting you like that. Let me prove to you I can be trusted, that I’m done running. From my past and yours.”

  “This has bad idea written all over it.”

  “I fed into your insecurities, and I’m sorry.” He hung his head. “I didn’t know.”

  “That’s the whole point.” I exploded, rage and hurt and relief swirling through me. “You don’t know me.” I climbed to my feet. “I barely know me. I’ve got no business rushing into a relationship.”

  Bonus points to him for not mentioning the ignored text, which might have told me some of this, or the fact I had blocked his number. He accepted full responsibility for his actions, and I respected that he didn’t try to shift even a speck of blame onto me. Even if a good fifty percent lay with me.

  “Take all the time you need.” He made himself comfortable. “I’ll wait.” He gazed up at me. “You’re worth it.”

  Madder than a wet hen, I kicked his boots. “Are you going to stay out here all day?”

  “Yes.” He tipped his head back against the bricks and shut his eyes. “See you at dusk.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I am the biggest idiot in the world.” I fisted the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet, and then I got in his face. “You’re not sleeping outside.”

  With the coven on the street, it was too dangerous. He made too tempting a target.

  Snarling under my breath the whole time, I hauled him through the window, out my old apartment door, through the staircase, and up to the penthouse. I hadn’t been there in days, but someone had put the mattress to good use. The paw print on the cover told me where Midas had slept last night.

  “I was ready to have this talk yesterday,” he explained, “but you didn’t come home.”

  “This isn’t home.” I shoved him down onto the mattress. “I’m tired, I have a busy night ahead of me, and I need to think.”

  “All right.” He stretched out and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Rest well.”

  Striding past him, I let myself into the suite and slammed the door behind me.

  Then I walked into the bathroom, cranked on the sink and the tub, and cried with relief.

  Twenty-Three

  Midas sat on the mattress with his back against the wall and pretended not to hear Hadley cry. And she was Hadley. Amelie Pritchard, legally Amelie Madison, had been too broken from her ordeals to recover. But Hadley was unbreakable. Fierce, proud, determined. She was the strongest person he had ever met.

  And he’d made her cry.

  The incoming call from Linus wasn’t unexpected, but he wished he didn’t have to answer. “Yes?”

  Cold, flat, merciless, the voice of the potentate, not his friend, asked, “How is she?”

  “She’s in the penthouse.”

  The other details were none of his business.

  “I didn’t ask where she was,” he said stiffly. “I asked how she was.”

  “I broke her heart, and I broke her trust.” He stared at the door, each of her sobs a lash, a punishment he deserved. “I’m not sure I can fix it.”

  Linus exhaled slowly, and he came back with less frosty advice. Midas could tell that it cost him. He hadn’t been close to Amelie, even before her ordeal, but he had a soft spot for Hadley. That made two of them.

  “I lied to Grier. Many times.” He let a silence linger. “To protect her, to protect others, to protect myself. Out of fear, out of necessity, out of kindness.” He exhaled. “We couldn’t have gone on that way. It never would have worked. There was a breaking point.”

  “We’re there now.” Hadley had made that much clear. “How did you fix things with Grier?”

  “I told her the truth, and I promised to always tell her the truth.” He hesitated. “I’m not unlike you in that my job as potentate carried certain restrictions. The whole truth isn’t something I’m capable of, and neither are you. Grier accepts it, because she knows I would tell her if I could, and she knows why I can’t.”

  “Honesty.”

  “Transparency,” he countered. “There’s a difference.”

  “She left me in the hall,” he confessed. “I want to go to her, but should I?”

  “If I were you,” he said at last, “I would respect the boundaries she set.”

  “And if she were Grier?”

  A soft laugh escaped him, the ice breaking in a way it hadn’t since Midas called him demanding answers about Hadley.

  “I wouldn’t give her too much time to think about what I’d done,” he said. “I would be too busy showing her I would never do it again.”

  Permission granted, Midas ended the call and shot to his feet. Pulse thundering in his ears, he knocked on the door until the crying stopped and the water cut off. Her hesitant footsteps might as well have been punching him in the heart. The door opened a crack, but she used it as a shield. He deserved that.

  “I was fearless when I was young,” he told her. “Part of that was knowing my mother was the alpha, and part of that was knowing my big sister would never let anyone hurt me. I knew my whole life that Lethe would be alpha one day, and it made me feel invincible.”

  “You don’t have to tell me this,” she said, but she didn’t slam the door in his face.

  “We grew up hearing stories about Faerie, about how our family was descended from fae. Lethe wanted to see a real gwyllgi, and she wanted to do it in Faerie.” He leaned against the doorframe. “Whatever she wanted, I wanted, but Mom told us no. She forbade us to go, but Lethe was a young alpha personality. Mom never commanded her not to do anything when she was little. She didn’t want to break her wild spirit.”

  Hadley remained quiet, but the gap didn’t shrink, so he kept going.

  “The pack didn’t take in old ones back then, but our healer was a full-blooded gwyllgi, and he had the fae sense of mischief about him.”

  “He helped you cross,” she said softly.

  “He took us there, and he left us. I was ten and Lethe was thirteen. He thought it was a grand joke.” He shifted his weight. “For a while, Lethe did too. We found a pack, eventually, but they smelled the human in us. They chased us out of their territory.”

  The next part was harder to tell, but he wanted no secrets between them.

  “One of them stalked us over the next several days. He had his eye on Lethe.” Midas balled his fists at the memory. “He ambushed us before we reached the Halls of Summer, the least vicious of the fae courts. We planned to barter for the Summer Prince’s
help to get home, but Lethe was attacked before we arrived. I had no choice but to kill the gwyllgi responsible or let him kill me. Afterward, we fled to the Summer court.”

  The door opened another inch.

  “The Summer Prince agreed on a price, and he began preparations for one of his underlings to cross a tether to Earth with us and deliver us to our mother to collect the payment due.”

  Midas recalled standing next to his bloodied sister, a world away from his alpha and mother, as the exact moment he understood his own insignificance. As big and bad as he had felt all his life, there were bigger and badder than either of them. And Mom was too far away to help.

  “The gwyllgi alpha arrived the morning of our departure, and he demanded an audience with the Summer Prince. He told him we had killed one of his people, and a debt was owed to him. The Summer Prince was not amused to learn we had killed on his lands and caused conflict among his people. So, he offered us a choice.”

  “A life for a life.”

  “Yes,” he answered her, not surprised she had guessed. “A life for a life.” He scratched his thumbnail against the paint on the doorframe. “The alpha wasn’t satisfied with the ruling and claimed that his pack would suffer the loss for decades. The male I killed had a mate and offspring, and they were left unprotected.”

  Hadley made a noncommittal noise that spurred him on.

  “The point that he had been stalking Lethe with an eye to mate with her was glossed over entirely. We had human blood in our lineage. We were less than nothing. Worthless. Only the favor the Summer Prince wished to ask of our mother gave us any value in his eyes.”

  A neat row appeared above her brows. “What favor?”

  “The gwyllgi pack, he explained, had been a thorn in his side for quite some time. They had a tendency to cut their elders loose to roam Summer lands. They were often feral, wild beyond their alpha’s control. Other denizens of Summer put them down in self-defense, which gave the alpha means to demand recompense from the prince. To solve the problem, the Summer Prince decided he would rather deport the old ones to Earth to live out their lives, or not, under the control of a powerful alpha.”