“She seems to come from good breeding—if you can say that of humans. I’ll give her that much. I might be able to make something special of you yet.”

A smile curls on the man's lips. Revulsion sinks immediately into my stomach. The itch to slug him starts in my toes and crawls its way up my legs.

If this bastard doesn’t get his hands off me…

Suddenly, a hand reaches out. It snatches the Fae by the wrist, tearing his fingers away.

I follow the vice on his arm, up to the man attached.

Prince Kallen.

“You’ll have to lower your expectations and choose another,” the prince says. “This one is mine.”

***

Natalia

Twenty-one…twenty-two…twenty-three…

“God, Nat. You’re taking forever.”

The numbers I’d been counting drain from my mind, gone like a dream at the sound of Ashlyn’s voice. I release a frustrated sound, slapping down the stack of one-dollar bills onto the counter.

“Dude! I was almost done, now I’ve totally lost count.”

“Well, sorry,” Ashlyn replies. She’s slumped against the bar, splayed across the top, looking so bored she might turn to dust. She had been picking the split ends from her brown hair and sputtering out restless little sighs for the past ten minutes. It seems she’s run out of split ends, and I’m still not finished counting the register.

“Just give me a few minutes,” I say, straightening the pile of ones to restart. “I’ll get in trouble if the till is off for the openers tomorrow.”

“It’s a bar,” Ashlyn groans, “not a jewelry store. Come on, Nat. Live a little. It’s been, like, forever…and people are kinda waiting for you. You know, at your own party.”

Twenty-four…twenty-five…

I think of the party. The bonfire bash I never asked for. All the laughter and drinking and boys…and suddenly, the numbers are gone again.

“Shit, where was I? Twenty-something?”

“Just make an educated guess and let’s go!” Ashlyn cries. She sits up and frowns at me, her fingers wiggling lazily in my direction. “Look at you, Nat. You’re all made up for a party. Why are we still sitting here counting pennies?”

“Because you won’t let me finish counting them!” I say. But as I turn to place a bottle of bourbon back on the shelf behind me, I catch my reflection on the mirrored wall.

For the first time in my life, I’m not staring back at the face of a little girl. I’m beginning to look womanly—my once-plump cheeks sharpening, turning angled and fine. My neck slender and long, my hair freshly dyed, and with a sheen of wild teal, reminiscent of a vibrant desert turquoise. Ashlyn’s right. I’m ready to live a little.

I slap down the one-dollar bills and shut the register with a snap. “You know what, you’re right. Let’s get out of here.”

Ashlyn’s face brightens as I slide around the bar. We’re nearly matching in our casual outfits—mine is a pair of black jeans that I’d torn at the knee on a sharp wire fence last summer. My T-shirt is a simple ninety-nine-cent thrift-store snag that I’d lopped off at the belly with a pair of kitchen scissors.

Ashlyn has a habit of mimicking my looks, though anyone with a single thread of fashion sense could tell her jeans were designer, found miraculously at a Goodwill. That the holes in her thighs were put there by lasers. That her crop-top T-shirt had been hemmed and sewn and purchased at the mall for five times what it’s worth.

I do find it a bit odd to be copied by Ashlyn, but it’s never bothered me all that much. It makes me feel like we’re almost…sisters, in a way. Like she looks up to me.

And like a real sister would, Ashlyn’s committed to driving me crazy over this party nonsense. I’d have been perfectly happy sitting at home with a pizza and beer for my eighteenth birthday, but Ash would never have that. She’s determined to make my night one to remember—and she’s chosen to do it with a massive kegger in the woods.

She squeals as I snatch my things from the break room and shut off the lights. “Bonfire bash, here we come!” she says, hooking an arm through mine. “This is going to be the wildest eighteenth anyone’s ever had!”

“Shh!” I hiss, tugging her tightly to my side. “Remember, Don thinks I’m twenty-one already. Or, at least he pretends to. I’ll get fired if anyone finds out I’m serving alcohol underage.”

“Right,” says Ashlyn, her tone hushed now. “I need to borrow your persuasion skills sometime. I don’t know how you manage to sway everyone so easily. I guess that’s just the mystery of Natalia Greenwood.”

I laugh and sling an arm around her shoulder. But in all honesty, I don’t know why I’m able to persuade people so easily. I suppose it’s always been a talent of mine. I assure them with a confident smile, and something just…shifts. There’s a change in the air, and bam—they believe every word I say.

Ashlyn and I step outside and I lock up the bar behind me. I can’t help but pause and take in the breeze. For some reason, it unsettles me, makes my skin bristle.

I’ve felt it all day. This otherworldly sense that something different is in the air tonight. Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m turning eighteen, but…I’ve got the strangest feeling that something life-changing is about to happen. It should be exciting, shouldn’t it?

So why, when I look out into the darkness all around us, does it feel like something—no, someone—is staring back at me?