Wanted: Wild Thing (Midnight Liaisons) Read Free Page B

the surface, and I jerked away from him, wide-eyed with shock. “How . . . how did you know?” I’d never told anyone I was a changeling. Marie knew that I transformed into something yucky (she’d caught me mid-act once), but she never asked questions and I never volunteered answers.
    Yet this man knew instantly what I was.
    He gave me a gorgeous smile. “Why, how do you think you got here? Into the earth realm?”
    Earth . . . realm? Huh?
    Just then, the door banged open and Savannah rushed in. “I am so sorry, Ryder,” she began, her cheeks flushed. “I’m late, but I’m here now.”
    “No problem,” I said, gesturing to my two “clients” to wait for me as I stepped over to Savannah’s desk. I was a master of fakery, so I pulled her chair out for her, acting as if nothing was wrong. “You take a seat. I’m with a couple of clients, but once I’m done, we’ll review tonight’s dating logs, okay?”
    She gave me a grateful look and dropped into her seat. “Okay.” It was only eight at night, and she already looked exhausted. Rough pregnancy and a new job to boot, but she never complained.
    “Sara left the mail for you; why don’t you handle that for now?” I said as I picked up the rubber-banded bundle on the corner of her desk and held it out to her. “And drink some water.”
    “I will,” she said meekly, taking the mail from me.
    “Now,” I said brightly as I turned to the fae prince and his scary friend. “Why don’t we go to a conference room and continue our conversation?”
    “But of course,” the prince said in that silky-smooth manner.
    I ushered them into a conference room and shut the door, then turned on a CD of classical music. The big lug stared straight ahead, but the prince raised an eyebrow at me. “Mood music?”
    “It ensures privacy for our clients,” I told him. “Several of our species have very keen hearing.”
    “Of course.”
    “Who are you?” I asked as he sat at the round table. The guard—I’d come to think of him that way—thumped into the chair next to him. I sat across from both, not trusting them. This man knew who and what I was. Surely he’d have more answers for me.
    “Yes, I suppose you would ask that, wouldn’t you?” He leaned back lazily in his chair, looking for all the world as if he’d been invited to the most boring party on earth and was only deigning to be here because he had to. “My name is Finian.” He studied his long fingers and perfect nails. “No last name. That’s a human affectation, and I most certainly am not human.” He smiled at me, and his eyes gleamed iridescent for a brief moment, shining all colors of the rainbow, like a soap bubble.
    I was fascinated despite myself, unable to look away. “Who’s your friend?”
    Finian’s gaze flicked to the hulking man at his side. “He is unimportant.”
    Unimportant said nothing, which was no surprise.
    “How did you know what I was?” I asked. “How could you tell?” I’d been around shifters for a year and had seen fae on several occasions, and no one had ever figured out my secret. My guess was that I smelled just as human as everyone else.
    “Why, I could tell because you are mine.”
    I stilled. “Yours?”
    “Yes. I was there at your birth. I saw you bred, saw you born, and brought you here so you could grow up.”
    Saw me . . . bred. My jaw dropped a little. “Bred?”
    “Yes. Your father was put out to stud, and we brought in your mother—a sweet little filly if ever there was one—and voila, magic happened. You were created.”
    A sweet little filly, huh? That was creepy. Maybe it was a fae thing. “So where are my parents now?”
    “They’re not parents, my darling changeling. Parents imply child rearing. They were simply the vessels in which you were created.” He looked at me fondly. “They bred an excellent specimen, if I’m any judge. And I am.”
    Suddenly feeling cold, I pulled my baby pink cardigan closer. “You’re talking