Page 5 of Wanted: A Roommate Who Isn't Evil

“Oh, I already met him! I hope that’s okay!” Beth flung a strand of her orange-red hair over her shoulder. “I knocked earlier, but you didn’t answer so I thought you were out. I figured I’d just do the interview for you. In fact,” she reached around and pulled a folded paper from her back pocket, “I already got him to sign the contract! He’s locked in, Dranian!” She shot him a wide, conniving smile.

Dranian wondered if he should protest. He wasn’t sure how he felt about bringing someone into his space he hadn’t even met for a single second. But perhaps it was for the best since he would have picked the fellow apart and found a flaw with just about anyone that wasn’t a wide-smiling, white-haired, barefoot assassin.

“In fact, he’s ready to move in today. He’s going to be here in like five minutes,” Beth said, handing the contract over. Dranian unfolded the paper and scanned it. It looked like a binding law of the utmost stability. If he was the smiling type, he might have cast Beth one of gratefulness for her cunning. Now he had enough coin to pay his rent, and the fool who’d signed the contract couldn’t get out of it, even if he did learn of what Dranian was or grow intimidated by Dranian’s strength and magic.

“You still have to sign it to make it official. Do you want me to wait with you until he gets here?” Beth offered. “I should go over the apartment rules with him anyway.”

Dranian shrugged and grabbed a pen from the end table by the door. He signed the contract in his most elegant script and folded it, sealing the brilliance away and tucking it into hisown back pocket for safe keeping. He reached over to flick on the light so his new roommate wouldn’t trip while he carried in all his human belongings.

“You may wait with me if you’d like,” Dranian invited. He took a step back so Beth could enter. Beth smiled sweetly and walked in, taking a look around the apartment like she was seeing his place for the first time, even though she owned it and had likely seen it dozens of times over the years.

“What’s the fellow’s name?” Dranian asked.

“I forget. It’s on the contract though,” she said, opening the curtains. The apartment filled with light as Dranian pulled out the contract again. He hadn’t thought to check the name before. “Don’t worry, he’s not a weirdo or anything. He was super nice to me, and he’s actually kind of gorgeous. Now there’ll bethreegood-looking redheads living on our floor.” She winked to assure him she’d included him in that count. Then she laughed at herself as Dranian’s gaze fell on the scribbled name at the bottom of the contract. It was written so messily that it took him a few tries to make out the letters. He could have sworn the fellow’s first name was spelled: L-U-C.

There was a shuffle in the doorway, and Beth yelled, “You’re here!”

But Dranian was still staring at that unbreakable, ever-binding contract. Staring at the decoded letters that spelled something that must have been incorrect. His faeborn eyes were reading crooked. He was sure it couldn’t possibly be what he thought—

“Oh dear.” A dangerously familiar, mystically alluring voice filled the apartment, sending a trail of goosebumps over Dranian’s arms. The words were followed by a cold, spiteful chuckle. “I never agreed to live with a guard dog.”

Dranian dragged his gaze up from the contract slowly. He beheld the fellow standing in the doorway of his apartment looking back at him. The fool’s metallic-red hair, heart-shaped lips, and unsettlingly broad smile were poison in Dranian’s eyes. Though the bloke stood clearly before him, Dranian was sure he was imagining it.

Dranian lowered the contract to his side, clenching it so hard it transformed into a crumpled mess in his grip. His gaze darted to the pen he’d set on the end table. Was it too late? Did he really sign the contract? Was this a nightmare; was he still asleep on the couch?

Dranian tore the crumpled paper open again to see the line where his signature was supposed to go. He bit his mouth shut to keep in a wild, faeborn curse.

No.

This had to be a dream.

That being standing in the doorway was no human roommate. He was a Shadow. A nine tailed fox. Afairy. And not just any fairy…

He was the very creature who’d stolen Dranian’s arm.

The paper slipped from Dranian’s fingers anddid a slow dance as it descended to the floor, faceup, revealing his large, handwritten signature for every soul in the apartment to see.

What in the name of the sky deities had he done?

2

Luc Zelsor and the Moment His Life was Ruined Forever

It all started with that proclamation in the newspaper. Luc had met with a clingy-seeming human in response to a poorly constructed message he’d spotted in the “ADVERTISEMENTS” section. The female had seemed eager to allow him to live in her settlement of three hundred rooms for rent. In fact, Luc hardly had to use his powers of persuasion on her at all.

Thankfully, he only had a single bag of belongings he needed to bring—a satchel that contained a few small treasures he’d collected while hiding among the humans. Nothing too fancy. He already gave away most of the money he’d swindled from easily fooled beings in exchange for pebbles that looked like gold. Those bills now rested in the clingy human’s hands as a deposit. Apart from that, Luc only owned a spare sweater, apair of running shoes, a few other garments he’d slid into his large coat pockets from a variety of shops. And a thin, dainty thing called a “toothbrush” which he loved dearly for the way it made his beautiful teeth feel.

He headed back to the park where he’d stowed his belongings in a secret bush. He could have airslipped, but the weather was breezy and perfect, and Luc decided he’d rather walk. Once he tackled the bush, he strapped his satchel over his arm and headed back to the three-hundred-room settlement to see his new home. To lay eyes upon his new “roommate”.

He should not have been so excited to sleep in a real bed, to get running water at his bidding, to lounge upon furniture that wasn’t a park bench, to meet the dumb human who was now bound by this realm’s law to remain at his side, but he was.

“Oh dear,” he sighed to himself, a broad, destructive grin spreading over his face. Some poor human fool was about to become his slave for the next three months. Hopefully longer.

It would be pleasant to have a servant again, the way he’d had one when he was a childling hopping around the Shadow Palace. Life had been far easier in those days when others prepared him feasts, fitted him for clothes, did the cleaning.

When Luc rounded a corner to take a shortcut between two buildings, a wail brought him to glance over his shoulder.

On the sidewalk, a childling wiped a tear from his eye. A larger male—likely the boy’s father—stood over him. At first, Luc turned away and continued on his quest, uninterested. But whenthe father’s voice lifted, and a pained squeal escaped the boy, Luc found himself in the air, appearing at the father’s side just in time to grab the fool’s swinging arm before it might swat the blubbering childling. It wouldn’t have been a hard strike—more like a frustrated jostle—but a father’s strike was a strike, nonetheless.

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