The Rogue's Prophecy

ZACH

“I think you should call me Giancarlo tonight.”

Zach looked up from his work phone at his brother Austin, who sat beside him in the back of a limo. “Excuse me?” he asked archly.

They were both wearing tuxes, and their appearances had been magically altered for the evening. His brother, instead of being an auburn-haired werewolf with an easygoing nature, now looked like a very serious dark-haired man who might’ve stepped out of a perfume advertisement.

“This,” Austin said, gesturing at the face he wore, before glancing at it in a tinted window. “I feel mysterious. And broody. And also like I possibly own an Italian villa.”

“Oh my God,” Zach muttered, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t know how you manage to wear this much magic all the time though...” Austin’s hand rose to his neck and scratched at the edges of the spell.

Zach was used to the way the magic felt, having been the public face of Blackwood Industries for most of the past ten years, pretending to be CEO Damian Blackwood the Elder—aka “the Beast.” He’d learned to ignore the stinging sensation of the magic that rode him like he stoically ignored almost everything else—up to and occasionally including his brother— for the good of the team. “I’m trying to work here, Austin.”

“By staring at that phone like it owes you money?” His brother lunged for the phone, but Zach was faster, bringing his hand into his chest with a growl of warning.

Blackwood Industries had been in court and splashed on the local news for months. As his Beast persona, Zach had vehemently spoken out against the unprecedented danger of workers cooperating to ensure pay was fair and breaks were adequate because that was what his shareholders expected.

But from the inside, he’d been crippling his case, secretly making sure the provocateurs were protected, and he’d dead-dropped a USB stick with confidential conversations he’d had with his board to a reporter earlier in the day.

If he’d played his cards right, by this time tomorrow the Beast’s name would be in the papers again, but now tarred with mud, and facing fines for both him and the company.

The Beast would be growlingly contrite, just enough for plausible deniability, while everyone listening would know he hadn’t changed.

And no one would believe that he—while pretending to be Damian Blackwood the Elder—had sold his shareholders out.

If it happened.

When it happened.

A text flashed across his screen as his phone buzzed. He looked down and saw messages from the reporter, who had no doubt taken his time confirming the recorded conversation’s authenticity.

Got it!!!!

We’ve got the Beast!!!!

Zach stared down at his phone with a snort, tempted to text back Yes. You have.

“Is that… a smile?” Austin asked him, peering forward with keen interest. “Careful. You might break Mills’s magic spell.”

Zach tilted his screen so his brother could see the texts from the reporter, and watched Austin’s face—looking like “Giancarlo”—light up. “Well, fucking done, brother!” He reached over and clapped his upper arm, hard.

“I know,” Zach agreed, finally relaxing. He turned off his phone and caught a glimpse of his reflection on its screen.

When he played the Beast, he was early fifties but still muscular, with short-cropped black hair just beginning to go grey. The Beast had a lantern jaw, green-gold eyes, a nose strong enough to hold its own with his chin, and lips that curled naturally into a sneer of disdain. He looked like someone with a private chef and a personal masseuse, and as the Beast, he was personally responsible for thousands of jobs and eleven-point-three billion dollars of his and his shareholders’ money. When he wore this face, he was a man who casually bent other people’s wills around him like a gravitational field.

Whereas the man he truly was—Zach—was always hidden underneath. He was early thirties, had longer hair—still black, though—with a more angular jaw but stronger cheekbones and ice-blue eyes that’d seen too much.

Would he ever get used to spending half of his life looking in a mirror and finding another man’s reflection? He assumed he would when he’d taken this role on for his best friend Damian, the dragon-shifter, years ago. It’d seemed challenging at the time, like being a Cold War spy, going so deeply undercover. And when he’d started, he’d worn the Beast like a costume, puppeting the other man, like a roleplaying game that required a magical outfit change.

But over the years, the stakes had become higher, and the responsibilities of running a billion-dollar company began weighing on him like a mantel carved out of stone. The longer he stayed “under,” pretending, the more it wore on him. Making him wonder where the Beast ended and where he began.

Especially because he was a werewolf to boot, and he could truly be beastly—when it was called for.

“You know what this means?” Austin asked him.

“I hesitate to wonder,” Zach said dryly, putting away his phone.

“It means my new name tonight is Giancarlo-the-wingman,” Austin told him, appearing sincere.

“Austin,” Zach said, in a tone of exasperation.

“Zach,” Austin said the same way back and then grinned. “Come on, brother. You’ve got to get back out there—and tonight’s the night. You need to celebrate!”

“Did you not notice that we were wearing tuxes? This is a charity ball. There’s not going to be a woman there under the age of sixty, which may be age-appropriate for the Beast, but—”

“Newsflash: I don’t care,” Austin announced, cutting him off. “I would be happy if you got laid by the Queen of England at this point.”

“The Queen’s dead—”

“Isn’t the new guy married?” Austin said, then rolled his eyes. “My point is, you need to do something to break your dry spell—”

Zach began a growling sound again. “If and when I do, it will be no business of yours.” Ever since his brother had gotten happily mated, Zach’d had to hear about how magical it was to find a life partner—it was verging on obnoxious. He knew his brother only wanted him to be happy, but Austin refused to accept that Zach was going to do it on his own time.

Which was, if he was honest with himself, quite possibly never. Because he already knew he and the only woman he’d ever wanted were not meant to be. He frowned and considered pulling out his phone again, as he so often had in the intervening months, to stare at the unanswered text he’d sent her.

When will I see you again, Little Star?