Oak, Sophie - Beast [A Faery Story 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic) (2 page)

Chapter One

The Vampire Plane

Dante Dellacourt watched his family and friends as they stared at the floor-to-ceiling projection from the comfortable seats of Dellacorp’s media room. The room was done up for a party, but Dante was worried no one would want to celebrate at the end of the show. His whole family and several key members of the corporation were rapt with attention, watching everything that happened on this final episode of the most popular DL in the states.

Dante tried not to laugh at the image of himself pondering the decision he was about to make. The producers made sure he thought about the intensely important life decision he was making via reality television in various states of undress. He had spent an awful lot of time with his shirt off, but Dante had to admit, he looked good in a tux, too. He stood at the edge of a lovely, romantic pond, surrounded by greenery and flowers, waiting for the helicopters that would bring the two final women to him.

Dante took a long drink of Scotch as he watched the drama play out. He hoped the alcohol would relax him fairly quickly. He hadn’t had much of an appetite. He desired neither a meal pill, nor an actual warm-blooded dinner. His gut was not in a good place. On an empty stomach, the Scotch should work fast. He had the feeling that he was going to need it once his parents saw the way the final stock ceremony ended.

On the high-definition screen, the luxury helicopter landed, and a gorgeous vampire stepped out showing off her long legs and perfect figure. She wore a designer gown and looked like a woman on a mission.
Veronica
. Even her name made him shiver just a little.

“I knew it.” Susan practically shouted at the screen. Dante had to grin slightly. His big sister was a high-octane, type A version of himself, right down to her red-and-gold hair and green eyes.

His sister hadn’t liked Veronica at all. It had been a mistake to put two alpha females in the same room together. They’d practically had a knock-down-drag-out when he’d brought Veronica home to meet the family. The producers had been thrilled. It made for excellent television.

“They always dump the first one,” Susan said with a vicious fist pump. “Take that, bitch! I knew my brother would pick the consort.”

Susan’s husband, Colin, gave his wife an affectionate pat. He nodded Dante’s way. “Thank you. She would be impossible to live with if you brought that one home again.”

Dante noticed his mother was crying slightly. It made him a little nauseous at the thought of disappointing her. Her manicured hands came out to pat Dante’s shoulders. “I knew you would make the right choice. The consort is lovely, Dante. I can’t wait to begin planning the wedding. I know you’re contractually obligated to stay apart from Shelia until after the final airing, but I wish she could have been here. I can’t wait to welcome her into our family.”

On the screen, Veronica was rolling her eyes and vowing corporate vengeance. Her long red nails reminded Dante of talons. She’d actually scared the crap out of him. He’d been afraid to dump her before the final ceremony. More than one corporate war had been started because of this particular series.

His father walked up behind him and gave him a hearty pat on the back. Dante could feel the satisfaction coming off his father in waves. “I didn’t think this was a good idea, son. Your mother had to convince me this wouldn’t ruin our corporate image. Playing around in hot tubs is no way to find a wife, I say. You should have done what your cousins did. You should have bought a consort at the marketplace. Still, I liked Shelia. You did good, son.”

There was a loud snort from the back of the room. Dante looked up and saw his twin cousins sitting in the small crowd with their market-bought wife between them. Six months of marriage had only brought the three of them closer together. Cian, the more sarcastic of the two, was watching the screen raptly. It didn’t stop him from making his opinion plain.

“I think you’re all crazy,” Cian said, his musical Fae accent filled with humor. “Do any of you know Dante? Seriously? I bet you all a thousand gold that he dumps them both.”

“Shut up, you bastard,” Beckett Finn said, slapping at his brother playfully. “You don’t have a thousand gold.”

“He won’t need it. Let him make the bet,” Meg Finn pronounced, her eyes narrowing on Dante. “He dumps them both.”

On the screen, a second helicopter was setting down on the top floor of one of the most luxurious high-rises in Manhattan. Dante had been happy the producers of the DL had chosen to film the end in New York rather than his own hometown of Dallas. Romantic music was playing. Shelia, a consort from the Faery plane with an amazing backstory to go along with her sweet good looks, got out of the helicopter. Her face beamed as she looked up at him.

“I’ll take that bet, Cian,” Dante’s father replied, his Texas accent thick with pride. “There’s no way my son lets a consort that beautiful get away. She saved twenty children from the civil war. She’s a healer and a philanthropist. She’s everything a vampire could want in a consort. Sheila reminds me of my wife. She’s quiet and elegant. She’s a true lady.”

“Now, you see editing can really change a person’s perception. They leave out all the bitchy parts,” Dante said, feeling a bit hot under the collar.

He thought Shelia had been reading far too much of her own press material. She was stuck-up. When the cameras weren’t rolling, she’d barely talked to him except to ask about his cousins. She was very interested in the true kings of the Seelie Fae. Not so much in him.

It didn’t matter. He knew what was coming. At the time, it seemed like a funny little adventure. He hadn’t expected everyone to get so caught up in it. He certainly hadn’t expected his parents to get invested in a made-for-DL relationship.

His sister was standing now. Her mouth thinned as she studied him. “You asshole! Ci’s right. You dumped both women. How could you?”

Dante pointed to the screen where the quiet, demure consort was slapping him silly, completely forgetting that oath she had taken to do no harm. She pushed him back until he fell ass-first into the romantic koi pond that would have made an awesome place to propose had he actually fallen in love with someone. “Does that look quiet and elegant? They don’t show you the fact that she tried to throw one of the cameras in that pond with me. She tried to electrocute me. And they totally made her look like she wouldn’t put out in the fantasy suite, but she did.”

Susan gasped. “You slept with her?”

Dante shrugged. It should have been obvious. He’d spent six weeks shooting a reality DL. What the hell else had he had to do? “I slept with all of them, sis. Haven’t you read the tabloids? My point is she’s nothing like mother. Mother would never try to electrocute a man.”

Alana Delacourt stood. Her gray eyes were stormy as she took in her son. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think, son. You wouldn’t like what’s going through my head right now. I have to make sure my clothes are ready for tomorrow’s luncheon. I will have many questions to answer.” She brought herself up to her full regal height and sauntered out of the room with dignity.

The room was buzzing all around him as many of the corporate attendees followed his mother out. Some stopped to shake his father’s hand, their sympathy utterly apparent. Damn, he was truly fucked. He was going to have to charm the hell out of his parents.

Susan followed their mother, giving Dante a look that made him take a step back.

“Man-whore,” she accused as she stalked past him.

Colin hurried to catch up, but not before throwing his brother-in-law a slightly sympathetic look.

“We’re breaking up?” Cian asked, sounding disappointed. “But I wanted to watch the episode where all the women yell at each other. It’s my favorite part. I still can’t believe they found twenty women who would actually fight each other to date Dante.”

His lovely wife took his hand. She seemed to understand that the evening had taken a distinctly bad turn. “Come on, baby. We’ll watch it in our room.”

Beckett stood with them. Dante didn’t miss the way he slid his hand playfully across his wife’s curves. Beckett Finn was a happy man. Beckett Finn was a man who wasn’t about to get his ass chewed out by his father.

Dante sighed as the Finns left, and he was alone with his father. The room, which had been alive and full just moments before, was now as quiet as a tomb. Someone had been smart enough to turn off the sound, but the video still ran. Dante saw pictures of himself and the women he’d turned down one after another.

Dante felt his stomach sink as he looked at his dad. He loved the man, he really did. He just didn’t understand him most of the time. Alexander Dellacourt had taken Dellacorp from a small-time cattle farm to one of the largest conglomerates on the plane. A few years back, he had handed over the daily operations to Susan. Dante didn’t blame him. Susan was a better CEO. He just wished his father could see that he had something to provide, too.

Like tabloid scandals and a constant stream of mistresses
.

“This is the end, son.” His father didn’t yell. It was a bad sign. Alexander Dellacourt was a larger-than-life man. He yelled. He screamed. It almost never meant anything. When he was quiet, that was when Dante knew he was in trouble.

“The end of what?” He heard the irritation in his voice. It was a typical reaction. He had never been one to take punishment well. “I’m thirty years old, Dad. You can’t send me to my room.”

“I can kick you out of your room.”

Dante swallowed once, and then twice. He stared at his father, trying to gauge his mood. This was beyond bad. “You can’t be serious.”

His father poured a couple of fingers of Scotch and took a long swallow. “I am deadly serious, Dante. By your age, I had already founded a company, married your mother, and we had Susan. I have given you all the time you need to mature, and you just keep on acting like an idiot. Tomorrow morning, you’re going to be utterly reviled in the press.”

He was worried about that? Dante had weathered many a scandal. “They’ll find a new story the day after. It’s not a problem, Dad. I’ll go down to the surface and pose with poor children. I’ll donate some meal pills to the homeless shelters. It’ll blow over.”

Alex brought his fist down on the bar, making the crystal shake. “It will not blow over, Dante! All of your life you’ve had everything given to you. You went to the best schools. You’ve always had the best money could buy. You never have to go the surface for anything but a photo op. I lived on the surface, son. It’s harsh, but it makes a man out of you. If I don’t do something about it, you’ll stay a boy the rest of your life. I don’t want that for you.”

Dante didn’t like where this conversation was going. Dante had plans, big plans, that did not involve getting cut off from his inheritance.

Six months before, something amazing had fallen into his lap, and he was very close to a major breakthrough. “Dad, just give me six months. The sunscreen Meg brought back is going to sell like gangbusters. The bio-med guys almost have it reverse engineered. There are some compounds in it that don’t naturally occur on this plane, but we’ll make it work.”

His father sighed. He suddenly looked wearier than Dante could ever remember seeing him. “I have no doubt that the chemists can make it work. Don’t try to sell this as some big job, Dante. Meggie gave you the sunscreen, and you passed it off to the bio-med team. It doesn’t make you a business man. You spend far more time partying than you do in the office.”

Dante felt humiliation flush through his system. Everyone discounted him. Even his own family. “How about all the marketing research I’ve done? I can sell this. I can make this our biggest seller within a year. I’ve done the financials. Sunscreen tech can be the most profitable arm of Dellacorp within five years. Bio-med has been our weak point. I can make us a leader in the market.”

His father looked far past his sixty-five years as he shook his head. His anger seemed spent, replaced with something Dante could only term as disappointment. “No. You’re off the sunscreen project. You’ll bring too much bad publicity. It’s best if you take a break, Dante. I’ll make you a deal. Get married, and I’ll let you back in. A wedding would mollify the stock holders. They’ll think you’re finally settling down.”