Sovereign for a Season

I didn't want the job.

The building smelled like old paper and something metallic, like coins left too long in a pocket. I stood in the marble lobby, my leather satchel heavy against my hip, and watched the receptionist tap her nails against a keyboard. Click-click-click. A nervous rhythm. I knew that rhythm. It meant she was waiting for someone to tell her what to do with me.

I was early. Twenty-three minutes early. I'd walked past the building three times before going in, counting the floors, watching the windows. His office was on the seventh floor. The sign outside said MAYEUL CARDIN, PROPRIETOR. No mention of what he owned. Just his name, like that was supposed to mean something.

The receptionist looked up. "He'll see you now."

I followed her down a hallway lined with doors, all closed. No names. No numbers. Just dark wood and brass handles that caught the light. She stopped at the last door and knocked twice. A voice on the other side said something I couldn't hear, and she pushed it open.

The office was smaller than I expected. A desk cluttered with papers. A window that looked out at the brick wall of the building next door. And him.

Mayeul Cardin was not what I'd pictured.

He sat behind the desk with the stillness of someone who'd learned to wait. Long dark hair pulled back, a few strands loose around his face. Pale grey eyes that looked at me like he was reading a story he already knew the ending to. He wore a simple black shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows. No suit. No tie. Nothing that said boss.

He said, "You're early."

"I didn't want to be late."

A small smile. "Sit."

I sat in the chair across from him. The leather creaked. I set my satchel on my lap and wrapped my hands around the strap. The room smelled like him. Woodsmoke and something green, like crushed leaves. Not what I expected from a man who owned a company.

He looked at my resume. I knew what it said. No experience. No references. A list of jobs I'd left before they could fire me. I'd typed it myself on a borrowed computer at the library, and even then I'd known it was a waste of paper.

"You don't have any qualifications," he said.

"No."

"You don't have any references."

"No."

"You don't even have a phone number on this thing."

I didn't say anything to that.

He set the paper down and leaned back. His eyes stayed on me. Not in the way men usually looked at me. Not hungry. Not dismissive. Just watching. Like he was waiting for something I hadn't said yet.

"Why are you here, Alicia?"

The sound of my name in his mouth caught me off guard. I hadn't told him my name. It was on the resume. Of course it was on the resume. But the way he said it, like he was testing the weight of it.

"I need a job."

"Everyone needs a job. Why this one?"

I could have lied. I should have lied. But something about the way he sat there, the way his eyes didn't leave mine, made the truth slip out before I could stop it.

"Because it was the only place that didn't ask for a background check."

He didn't flinch. Didn't look surprised. Just nodded, like I'd confirmed something he already knew.

"Good," he said. "I don't care about your past."

I blinked. "What?"

"I don't care where you've been or what you've done. I care about what you can do now. Can you follow instructions?"

"Yes."

"Can you keep your mouth shut?"

I hesitated. "Yes."

"Can you do what you're told without asking questions?"

The room felt smaller suddenly. The air thicker. I looked at his face, looking for the joke, the trap, the catch. There was nothing. Just those pale grey eyes, patient and steady.

"I can," I said.

He stood up. Walked around the desk. Leaned against the front of it, arms crossed, looking down at me. Close enough that I could see the calluses on his fingers. A musician's hands. A worker's hands.

"Here's how this works," he said. "You work for me. You do what I say, when I say it. You don't ask why. You don't tell anyone what happens in this office. In return, I pay you more than you'll ever make anywhere else. I give you a place to stay. I keep you safe."

Safe. The word hit me like a slap. I didn't know what I'd expected. A normal job. A desk. A paycheck. But safe. That was something I hadn't felt in years.

"What kind of work?" I asked.

"Whatever I need."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're going to get."

I should have left. I should have stood up, walked out, gone back to the street and the rain and the cardboard box I'd been sleeping under for the past three weeks. But I didn't. Because he'd said safe. And I was so tired of not being safe.

"What if I say no?"

He tilted his head. "You won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're still sitting in that chair."

He was right. I was still sitting. My hands were still wrapped around my satchel strap. My heart was beating too fast, but my legs weren't moving. I was staying.

"Why me?" I asked. "You don't know me. You don't know anything about me."

"I know enough."

"Like what?"

He smiled. Not a kind smile. Not a cruel one either. Something in between. Something that made my skin prickle.

"I know you're running from something. I know you haven't slept in a real bed in weeks. I know you're carrying something in that bag that you think is worth more than your life."

My hands tightened on the strap. The herbs inside. The trinkets. The things I'd taken from my grandmother's house before I'd burned it to the ground.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I can see it."

He pointed at his own eyes. Those pale grey eyes that I'd thought were just unusual. That I'd thought were just a trick of the light. But now I saw. Now I understood.

He could see.

Not just me. Not just the room. He could see the things I'd hidden. The things I'd buried. The magic I'd tried to leave behind.

"You're one of us," I whispered.

"I'm the one who finds us."

He pushed off from the desk and walked to the window. Stood with his back to me, looking at that brick wall like it held answers.

"There are people like us, Alicia. People who can do things. People who carry the old blood. And there are people who want to use us. Control us. Break us open to see what's inside."

He turned. His face was hard now. The softness gone.

"I protect them. I hide them. I give them a place where they don't have to be afraid. But I need help. I need someone who can do what I can't. Someone who can walk into rooms I can't enter. Someone who can be my hands when I can't be there."

He walked back to me. Stopped in front of my chair. Looked down at me with those eyes that saw everything.

"I need a submissive, Alicia. Not an employee. Not a secretary. Someone who will give me control. Someone who will trust me. Someone who will let me keep them safe."

The word hung in the air between us. Submissive. I'd heard it before. Read it in books I'd stolen from libraries. Imagined it in the dark hours when I couldn't sleep. The idea of letting go. Of handing over the weight I'd been carrying for so long.

"I don't know how," I said.

"I'll teach you."

"I don't know if I can trust you."

"You will."

He held out his hand. Palm up. Waiting.

I looked at it. The calluses. The scars. The lines that told a story I didn't know yet.

I thought about the rain. The cold. The hunger. The fear that had been my constant companion for three years.

I thought about safe.

I took his hand.