Page 29 of Bombshell

“Odette, when did you even start drawing stuff like this?” I blurted out, cutting her off as she was explaining the drawing ofa woman’s spine cracking open and growing flowers and vines. This was the only image that had any color, each petal of each flower covered with thick acrylic paint as they burst free from the woman’s back.

Oddly enough… I was pretty sure that this was supposed to be a drawing of me.

“Oh, you know,” Odette said with a shrug, tugging on the end of her long golden braid. “Daddy finally took all of the parental controls off of the streaming services and I find that I really like horror movies—besides that I sometimes have dreams where these images sort ofappear.”

There was a lot to unpack with Odette’s words. For one, Arsenio keeping parental controls on his adult daughter’s devices was actually insane, but that wasn’t what piqued my interest.

“You have dreams about this kind of stuff?” I asked, continuing to flip through the pages as an idea began to form in my mind.

A man screaming at the edge of the Wharf as a massive wave crested the horizon, a tiny woman fitting in the palm of someone’s bloody hand, the face of someone that looked suspiciously like Cash twisted with grief.

Each image was more disconcerting than the last, especially seeing as there was very little chance that Odette had been to the Wharf let alone seen Cash’s face.

Odette pulled her bottom lip in with her teeth, nibbling on it nervously before she forced a bright expression on her face. “Yeah, but it’s nothing. Alexander just says I have an overactive imagination.”

I held in my snort.

Alexander Finch didn’t believe in overactive imaginations. No. The man had literally created a nymph halfling by sheer force of will and the kind of magic no one should ever use.

No, there was definitely more to Odette’s dreams, I could feel it on the edge of my instincts like my magic was trying to tell me something.

But I’d never heard of a faerie with prophetic dreams—their magic tended to stay within the natural realm of things and seership was definitely not a part of the natural order.

It was Odette’s turn to change the subject now as she held my hands in hers. “Are you going to go with us to the charity gala at the end of the month? Just like old times?”

The annual Port Haven charity gala was famous on the West coast. It was a night where all of the most affluent monsters gathered to raise money to help support the ‘more unfortunate of our ranks’ as they put it.

Really it was to gather money to continue lobbying for more power within the American government because, even nearly sixty years after the Accords, there were only a handful of supernatural creatures in high government positions and Arsenio wanted to change that… without actually doing any of the real work of course.

Arsenio Sidhe always preferred to be the puppet master pulling the strings, so human governance was nothis thing.

“No.” The response rolled off of my tongue automatically. There was nothing I’d hated more than being trotted out by Alexander at formal events. In private I was his disappointment, but in public? In public I was his greatest achievement and something for him to show off. Especially now that I could use my magic? The man would be positively insufferable.

A shudder rippled down my spine at having to go back now that I’d tasted what true freedom felt like.

Odette’s pout was almost automatic. “Oh, come on, please? I hate going to these things and now that you’re back at least I won’t have to be at them alone.”

That she disliked going to these parties was news to me. Odette used to count down the days to her father’s public appearances because it was the only time she was able to get away from the mansion and actually go down into Port Haven and mingle with us common folk.

“Didn’t you used to like these things? Getting all dressed up and getting to meet new people? Get out of the house for a bit?”

I watched as Odette’s normally cheerful visage melted away into a frown as the remaining sparkle in her eyes from talking about her art winked out completely. She crossed her arms defensively over her chest, her eyes shifting away from mine.

“Idid,” she muttered, reaching up to close her sketchbook and finally covering the grieving man’s face. “But these past couple of years Daddy has been…auditioningpeople.”

“Auditioning them for what?” I asked, frowning with confusion even as my brain started to connect the dots behind her words.

Odette shifted uncomfortably on her stool. “He’s been bringing faerie men to the galas to see if I like any of them.”

“And you don’t…?”

The last time we’d talked about boys, Odette was still in her Prince Charming era—which if we were being honest—fits most faerie men to a T. I was actually pretty sure that stereotype came from them in the first place.

“No!” Odette hissed, scrunching her little nose. “They’re all so boring and they just want to marry me so that they can inherit all of Daddy’s wealth. That’s what James and I were arguing ab—”

Odette stopped herself, her blue eyes widening as she realized she’d brought the wizard up again.

Faerie Prince Charmings aside, I had a sinking feeling that whatever she was going to say next was going to make me want to light James Reid on fire with my newfound abilities.

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