Page 10 of Beneath the Watching

I shook my head. This was a party, not a wake, and my friend needed me.

“I have to go,” I told Stefan, reluctantly pulling away from his clasp.

Madison hurried toward Kiara and the two of them vanished into the crowd as I followed, winding my way back to the cushioned seat where we’d settled earlier.

Immediately, Madison sent me to get more champagne, and I hurried back with a couple glasses as quickly as I could. “What’s going on?” I asked, passing the drinks to her outstretched hands.

Kiara had mascara streaming down her cheeks in black lines and her eyes were red and swollen. Madison and I listened to her wail about her necklace being stolen by her dead ex-boyfriend, watching helplessly as she dissolved into hysterics.

She demanded I fetch her another drink, and I rushed off, returning as quickly as I could. What else could I do? She’d finally cracked, lost her mind, and denying her drug of choice wouldn’t make any difference at this point. We’d known it was coming.

After a few minutes, she began rocking back and forth and an annoyed James ordered Madison to take her home. As soon as he’d walked away, Kiara rolled her eyes and announced she needed to get some fresh air. I watched as she shoved her way through the crowds, wondering if I should go after her.

We never saw her again.

4

STEFAN

Mabel flew away,rushing over to her friends, following them to where I’d retrieved her from earlier. She frustrated me, her ambivalence and lack of transparency. She got under my skin, and I swore she could read me better than I could read her, her blue eyes staring straight into my soul whenever I was near her.

Whatever piece of my heart she could steal, she had. From the moment my eyes lit on her, sitting at a table in the casino with her friends, I was spellbound. She was a beautiful woman, certain to turn any man’s head, but that wasn’t what ensnared me. It was her knowing gaze and soft demeanor, the way she saw everything and didn’t balk at what she observed. She was the peaceful oasis in my desert of solitude and duty.

Before recently, I’d never spoken to her or shown any obvious interest, but it’d gotten to the point where I couldn’t help myself. There were too many changes with all the activity around Mabel’s friend Kiara, and I’d felt the urgency to stake my claim on the woman.

I could feel the oncoming storm even if I didn’t know what it was. If nothing else, I’d keep Mabel out of the way of the path of destruction and find a way to shelter her. While I wanted topublicly claim her, I knew I couldn’t, but what I could do was try and keep her safe.

I’d been watching her for months, getting to know her from afar, unbeknownst to her until recently. Lately, I’d felt her returning my observation, gleaning whatever information she could. She’d sneak glances or give herself away with a slight lean of her head as she pretended to be engrossed in other conversations, but I knew she was scouting me.

I certainly hadn’t expected my men to find her nearly comatose in the woods.

“Ilya,” I stopped the man who’d been my closest friend for as long as I could remember. “Done?” I asked.

He nodded, running a hand through his hair, and pacing in a circle. It wasn’t often I saw him flustered. He collected himself, took a fortifying breath and pulled on the end of his suit coat. “Done,” he said, repeating my words.

Ilya had arranged for jewelry containing a tracking spell to be removed from the woman he loved; a woman who knew him as both Levon and as Ilya. She had been promised him since birth in a traditional arranged marriage both their fathers had set up eons ago, before she was stolen away as an infant.

Kiara had been stalked for years by another man, Ramone. He was a prince that’d given her the necklace and coincidently was the same man who’d removed her from her parents. This was all in addition to being followed and pursued by Ilya. While technically Ilya was also a prince, it wasn’t a station he’d ever fulfilled and it was merely a title that no one used other than his father, Victor.

It was a tense love triangle my friend was trapped in, and I wasn’t certain the woman would be able to resist Ramone’s charms. I’d never heard of anyone being able to—female or male, when he set his sights on them.

The three of them had made disastrous decisions, upended the balance of things, and set Kiara on a course of destruction. All I could do was sit back, observe the mess, and wait to interfere if I had to.

To make matters even worse, Ilya and Ramone worked together as partners at a very lucrative major corporation they co-owned and somehow managed to keep afloat but when it came to affairs of the heart, they were at terminal odds. There was no way all this would end well, although I’d support Ilya in whatever decision he made, my loyalty being unfailing.

“Are you sticking around?” Ilya asked me as we exited the ballroom. Mabel seized my gaze, holding a flute of champagne gripped in each hand as she darted through the crowd. He caught my perusal, raising a brow.

Annoyance buzzed through me; my obsession made me much too transparent. I didn’t want unnecessary attention placed on her.

“No,” I snapped at him. “I have things to attend to, as you know.”

While Ilya preferred to stay here in what we referred to as the Third Realm whenever possible. I much preferred the Fourth, where my wily young woman had gate-crashed, walking in socks through the snow before my men had found her and brought her to my quarters, likely saving her precious life.

Mabel seemed as if she didn’t know she had stumbled into a different existence, one full of magic and mystery. The place closely resembled here, in many, many ways. The hyper-reality of the Fourth meant that everything was enhanced—colors, smells, and tastes.

Access was limited to humans who had a gift, a gift for altering their consciousness or for being able to leave their body. Some would stumble in, believing they were dreaming andbehaving in corresponding ways, or less often—because they had died.

Many of the Third Realm’s citizens had never stepped foot in the Fourth Realm but once they discovered it, they often never left. It was a preferable life and largely ungoverned, with a freedom one never found, here.

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