In particular, Connolly, a woman who used to be more commonly known as the Dark Miasma, and Pennington, a man known for his shrewd legal tactics, were both major hard-asses.
Sam probably wouldn’t get everything he wanted without a fight, except that he was new to all this, which meant he didn’t even fully understand how to play the game. Lexi did her best to prepare him beforehand, giving him tips on how to deal with certain questions or concerns that might come up, but there really was only so much she could do.
Technically, she hadn’t been entirely sure who all was showing up until she saw the list only five minutes ago. Otherwise, she would have warned him about those two people in advance.
But all of them were top brass.
People with the highest levels of authority in the country.
She’d never heard of a CDS negotiation involving all these people.
Never.
Not even for Blaze.
But she knew Sam’s case was different than others, and clearly these people wanted to exert as much control as possible in how the situation turned out. If anything, it was probably because he was immortal – a powerful immortal – and they wanted to set the tone for how their future contractual relationship would work.
They wanted to intimidate him and exert their authority.
Assholes.
All of them were assholes.
Taking a deep breath, Lexi flinched when someone knocked on the door to her second office. Her normal desk was out in the open, next to everyone else’s, but she also had a separate workstation so that she could get away in the event she was stressed – just like now.
It wasn’t favoritism though.
It was out of necessity, since Lexi might unintentionally fry someone’s computer or phone if she was anxious enough. In fact, while she was expected to work at her normal desk whenever her emotions were stable, she was likewise expected to leave immediately to her ‘safe space’ if she was in danger of losing control.
Safe, because she could literally explode in here and do little to no damage to the rest of the building, whether that explosion involved an EMP blast or eruption of electricity. Not that she had ever actually exploded like that, but they didn’t want to take any chances.
She groaned when the person at the door opened it up anyway, only to groan louder in annoyance when she glanced up and saw who it was. A tall handsome man with black hair and green eyes.
“What do you want Radley?” she snapped, keeping her forehead in her hands to hide her eyes.
“Hey now,” he replied softly, leaning against the doorframe. “No need to be like that. I just stopped by to wish you happy birthday and give you your gift.”
“I don’t want a gift from you,” she retorted.
“Come on,” he pressed in a smooth voice. “It’s been almost a year since you and Blaze split, so why don’t you give us a chance again?”
“Not. In. The. Mood,” she hissed, emphasizing each word.
“Oh, come on, baby–”
“Shut up!” she snapped, sparks flying out of her body. “Or else I’ll fry your workstation,” she added, trying to calm herself down.
He scoffed, attempting to call her bluff. “They’ll just replace it, and it’ll come out of your salary.”
She finally pulled away from her hands to glare at him, her tone ice cold. “Yeah, but I know you’re working on something big – some personal project. Have a backup? Because I could fry it from here.” She then leaned over toward the outlet for emphasis, reaching out her hand while still glaring up at him.
His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”
“I am not in the mood,” she repeated, her expression darkening, sparks unexpectedly crackling around her hand.
“Bitch,” he muttered, whipping around to leave. He then stopped and took a step back to grab the door aggressively, slamming it shut behind him.
Good. Saved her the trouble of having to do it.
Lexi sighed heavily, and then folded her arms on the table to rest her head, tears springing to her eyes. Not because she was sad or hurt, but simply because she wished she could do more to give the man she loved everything he wanted.
Instead, all she could do was watch from the sidelines…
In every possible way.
❖ ❖ ❖
Sam Archer
April 10, 2735 – Current Day – Morning
As we crossed the extremely large lobby, which had plenty of furniture but no people present, both of my escorts finally began acting serious for real. Winter especially did a one-eighty, her chipper smile fading completely to what I’d seen when I arrived, a sort of neutral goth-punk expression on her face.
Honestly, I kind of wondered if she was the sort of chick who would have worn black lipstick anyway, if her lips weren’t naturally that color, though I had to realize it was possible she was lying about that. Then again, if the lingerie-like pattern on her body was truly fur that resembled a white tiger, then maybe she was being honest – after all, even though tigers had lighter colored skin, they always had black lips. A lot of animals were like that, including dogs, wolves, and even a lot of horses.
Either way, she didn’t react to my thoughts at all. Neither confirming nor denying my assumptions as she’d done so freely only seconds ago. Part of me briefly wondered if she might be offended by my thoughts, but I had to remember that she’d likely heard it all and then some. And it wasn’t like I had a negative opinion of her appearance.
Far from it.
When we got into the elevator, just picking the closest out of a whopping eight of them, I decided I wanted to try asking Mrs. Knight one more thing while I had the chance.
“Forgive me if this is offensive,” I whispered to Liz, who was standing with a hard expression on her youthful face. “But are you really over seven-hundred years old?”
She nodded once sharply, not looking up at me. “You know the virus that killed off most of the world back in the
