A/N: I decided to add the different POV chapters since they provide some important information.

I unbuttoned my suit jacket as I leaned back. The girl scuttled out the door, leaving a faint scent of fear lingering in the air. It was soft and delicate, but still the familiar sour scent of fear that left a bad taste in your mouth.

I rubbed my lip as I picked up one of the documents and looked at her scratched signature. It was rough and abrupt, just like her. One moment she'd be afraid, the next she would let her anger control her and act in the moment. Like an idiot.

She was a peculiar girl.

I hadn't had much of a chance to pay attention to her while she had been here, but the glimpse that I caught just fed my suspicions.

She had been taking everything in stride from the moment we had first met.

Too well.

She hadn't put up a fight aside from jumping out of the car like a simpleton. A normal woman would have done more. At the very least I was expecting another escape attempt.

I sighed as I placed the signed documents into my desk drawer. I could have gone about getting her to sign them in a kinder manner, but I was too irritated that I now needed her signatures to complete basic paperwork for the property and businesses that I had been managing since the first day.

It didn't matter. I wasn't trying to be her friend. It would actually work in my favour if she feared me. Less effort would be necessary to gain her cooperation if she followed along out of fear.

Turning on my computer, I opened the digital data that I had requested from the archives on dimensional travel. It had cost me a large sum to gain the information and keep any notes of its acquirement off the records.

The girl seemed fine and even though Ezra had taken a liking to her, something about her story didn't add up. Aside from her odd calmness surrounding the misfortunes she's had to face, if the portal that was activated was located where the scrying mirror had shown us, that raised the question of why she was there.

It had shown an abandoned building left to become ruins. The ceiling had caved in multiple places and leaves and debris had overtaken the floor, covering the ruins that marked the circle.

The girl had secrets.

Just because she wasn't a threat to us, didn't mean that she wasn't one; that she couldn't become one to us.

I opened one of the drawers and pulled out one of the specialty cigars Zev had gifted me last winter and cut off the end. Conjuring a flame, I put it to my lips and lit it.

The girl was already a threat if I was being honest. She was more dangerous than I had realized she would be; more dangerous than I think any of us could have predicted.

I had seen her kind before; been lured in and trapped by her kind before.

It was always the ones with those eyes.

It always started with the eyes.

The ones that begged you. The ones that pleaded. They were desperate...but, yet they were also fierce. They dared you. They begged you for help, but they dared you to actually do it- challenged you to see what the consequences would be.

And the results would always be consequences. Nothing good ever came from the begging eyes who dared. Who challenged and rebelled and put on brave faces while filling rooms with their scent of fear.

I took a long drag as my fingers ran along the frame of the picture in my top desk drawer.

Nothing good ever came from those eyes.

A sharp beep drew my attention. Seeing what the notification was for, I closed my eyes and took a steadying breath. I already had a headache building from not having fed in too long. It had worsened more than two folds since Ms. Riar had been in the room. Getting a call from Stephan was the last thing I wanted at the moment.

Holding the cigar with my lips, I tapped the button on my keypad to answer the incoming video call from my younger brother. It would be better to get it out of the way now rather than have him disturbed my work when he tried again.

"Brother! I didn't think you were going to answer so soon. I thought it would have taken me at least another three tries."

Stephan's smiling face opened on my screen. His features were slightly more feminine. He more closely resembled mother, while I took after father.

He didn't like that.

Hated how others took his delicate features to mean that he was weaker.

"Hello, Stephan, how are you?" I replied as I took another drag. I didn't enjoy smoking as much as Zev, but I was happy to have the herbs while dealing with my eccentric brother.

"I'm fine, brother. Could be better though."

Of course. He wanted something.

"What do you need?" I asked bluntly. If I didn't, he would just circle around the topic and waste time.

"Besides an answer to the question of what my dear older brother is doing living in the middle of a backwater nation? I thought you'd come back home after saving your latest rescue project."

I narrowed my eyes. "If you don't want anything, then I'm going to have to go. I have work that I need to complete."

"Mom's been wanting you to visit her," he blurted out as I reached to end the call.

I sighed and rubbed my brows. She was always wanting me to visit.

"And..."

"What, Stephan?" I asked, growing impatient.

"I'm going to be passing through your city and staying with you for a bit."

I arched a brow. "In this backwater town that you think is so beneath you?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Don't act like that sexist shit hole deserves to exist. How's the new collectible?" He smugly asked, proving his point.

I rolled my eyes. He called anyone we tried to help out of a bad situation a collectible.

"We lost track of him."

We were after a young boy who was going to be actioned at a brothel on his birthday. We were going to purchase him and had kept a close watch on him, but a few days beforehand we lost sight of him and he had vanished.

"You didn't answer my question," I said, redirecting the conversation back to him. "Why are you going to be coming here?"

He shrugged his shoulder on the screen. "I just need a change of scenery, see if I can find what I'm looking for."

"And what are you looking for?"

His face spread into a maniacal grin.

"Why love of course."

He held his smile for an awkward moment before bursting out in laughter.

"I'm just kidding," he said as he leaned back and twisted from side to side in his chair. "But mom had been pressuring me to find someone and settle down. Ever since you fucked up her 10-year plan for grandkids she's been on my ass."

My finger tightened on the cigar. I took one last draft before snuffing it in the ashtray on my desk.

"Well, good luck finding someone that mom will approve of. Tell her I'll visit her as soon as I can, but I am a bit busy with work these days."

He scoffed. "I don't get that. You're supposed to rule, why throw all that away and work beneath your station because of a woman?"

I linked my fingers together. They whitened from my tight grip.

"This isn't about her."

"It's always about her."

I slammed my fist down onto the desk. A metal cup holder clatter to its side scatters pens across the desk.

"It's not about her."

It wasn't.

We were stuck here until the Queen relinquished Axel's freedom. Because he was a male orphan of a rare species abandoned into the care of the state, he was considered property of the queen. It didn't matter that he had long since become an adult. He was the Queen's property. She had to relinquish any claims she had on him for him to be able to leave the Queendom legally. Normally, no one would pay attention if a random orphan ran away from their city. But, Axel wasn't a random orphan, he was a rare incubus.

The only reason he wasn't chained to the Queens bed at the moment was that, despite not knowing who exactly I was, the Queen was smart enough not to challenge or reject me when I offered to pay a more than generous fee to purchase Axel. It would have been stupid of her to refuse the source of funds considering the dire need she had to sustain resources for her Queendom. Especially with whispers of wars coming from the Fae lands.

"Whatever you say, Cass, you always were right," he bitterly remarked.

"It's not my fault my opponent was so intellectually illiterate," I shot back, hiding a smile.

"Ha-ha."

I shook my head. "When do you plan on coming?" I asked.

He thought about it for a moment. "I'm not sure. I'm going to be travelling to a few surrounding locations before going through your city. I won't be staying in one spot very long, but some will probably take longer than others."

I considered informing him that legally I now had a wife, but stopped when I felt my headache worsen just at the thought. I'd tell him when or if the time came. It didn't sound like he would be arriving until after the party.

I nodded. "I'll have a room ready for you."

"Thanks, brother," he grinned.

We talked a bit more back and forth before I ended the call.

It felt draining talking to Stephan. Though we were brothers, we weren't very close. He never took anything serious enough for my liking and cruised through life thinking he was untouchable. He didn't understand that he had to build his own name and not just coat tail on fathers.

I got my papers and files in order before logging out of my computer. I could handle the rest of the work after I checked in with Jaxon and Zev on whether they found the boy we lost. Plus I had to check in with Ezra to see if he was done with the tonics. He had been slacking off ever since his fascination with Ms. Riar started taking off.

Axel needed to learn some pointers from him. He was slowly getting worse by the day and it was evident from his twitchy behaviour and pale, pasty skin. Seeing as how close Ezra was with Ms. Riar, he should have no problem helping Axel with her.

I cringed mentally at the thought.

Ezra wouldn't help Axel seduce her. Even if he was the type who normally would, which he wasn't, he seemed to genuinely care for the girl.

Which worried me.

Ezra was the only one in the group who had not gone through anything at the same levels that the others have had, but I had a feeling this girl could change that for him if he was unlucky enough.

I got up from my chair and rounded the desk to head for the door. When I reached the corner of the desk, my eye caught something. I paused.

On the cream carpet that covered the floor was a spot.

Where Ms. Riar had been standing was a smudge of dirt smeared on the otherwise spotless carpet. It was an eyesore and grated against the perfection of the rest of the room.

My lip twitched involuntarily. Just like a pet.