Her half human bodyguard

The Sauté Pan

The sauté pan was restaurant grade. Heavy. Lyra Kaine held it like she’d been born with it, knuckles white, red dress and all.

“Put that down,” Justin said. His voice came out wrong. Lower. Gravel and frost. The glamour was gone. His eyes were silver, his skin throwing faint sparks where the suit sleeve had ridden up.

The thing in the doorway tilted its head. Black eyes, no whites, no soul. “Half-breed,” it said. Voice sounded like ice cracking. “Your father was a traitor. You’re an abomination. The Cold Prince wants you returned. In pieces, if needed.”

“Over my dead body,” Lyra said.

“Can be arranged, little heiress,” the thing said, and stepped inside. The air dropped 20 degrees. Breath fogged. The line cooks by the stove started screaming and running.

Justin moved. No thinking. Fae blood + Army training + 23 years of rage = bad for anyone in front of him. He hit the thing mid-chest. It felt like tackling a glacier. Cold burned his palms, but he didn’t let go. He drove it back through the doorway, into the alley.

Dumpsters. Fire escape. No witnesses except rats and Lyra, who hadn’t listened and followed him out with the damn pan.

“Go back inside!” Justin shouted. Silver was bright in his eyes now. He could see it reflected in the thing’s black stare.

“No,” Lyra said. “You’re bleeding.”

He wasn’t. Not yet. But the thing’s claws — because it had claws now, long and clear like icicles — had opened his suit jacket. Iron thread in the lining hissed against his skin. Fae and iron. Always a bad mix.

The thing laughed. “She cares for the mongrel. How sweet. The Prince will enjoy breaking her first.”

Justin saw red. Then silver. Then nothing but move. He caught the thing’s wrist when it swiped at him. Cold burned. His skin blistered. He ignored it. He’d healed from worse. He twisted, used the thing’s weight, and slammed it into the brick wall. Bricks cracked. The thing didn’t.

It backhanded him. Justin flew. Hit the dumpster. Pain lit up his ribs. He tasted blood. Human blood. The fae part of him wanted to howl. The human part remembered Hale’s rule: _Don’t die. Paperwork’s a bitch._

Lyra screamed. Not fear. Fury. She ran _at_ the thing and swung the sauté pan like a baseball bat.

It connected. Right across the thing’s temple. Metal on whatever passed for bone. The sound was awful. Like a bell in a freezer.

The thing staggered. One step. Black eyes blinked. “Iron,” it hissed. “The heiress carries iron.”

Justin looked. The pan. Restaurant grade. Stainless steel. Iron alloy.

Lyra didn’t drop it. She re-gripped, chest heaving, dress torn at the hem. “My father owns buildings, asshole. I know what sauté pans are made of.” Rude. Then she looked at Justin, bleeding by the dumpster, and her face did something else. “Justin, get up. Please.” Kind. Romantic, in the ‘die-with-you’ way.

He got up. Because she said please. Because she said his name.

The thing recovered fast. Too fast. It came at Lyra. Justin didn’t think. He moved between them, grabbed the pan from her hands — iron seared his palms, smoke literally came off his skin — and brought it down on the thing’s skull.

Once. Twice. Three times.

On the third hit, the thing screamed. Not a human sound. High, shattering, like glaciers calving. Then it dissolved. Not dust. Not ash. _Snow_. Dirty, gray snow that melted into the alley puddles and was gone.

Silence. Just their breathing and a distant siren.

Justin dropped the pan. His palms were blistered, black at the edges. Iron burns didn’t heal fast, even for fae. He collapsed back against the dumpster, trying to pull the silver out of his eyes. Glamour was shredded. He couldn’t re-cast it yet. Too drained.

Lyra stared at him. At the silver. At the burns. At the melting snow.

“You’re not human,” she said. Not a question.

“No.” His voice was still gravel.

“You’re… what was that thing?”

“Fae. Cold Court. Assassin.”

“You’re fae too.”

“Half.”

She was quiet for three beats. Then: “Does iron always do that to you?” She nodded at his hands.

“Yes.”

“Then why did you touch it?”

Justin looked up at her. Knife-green eyes. Rude mouth. Tears she wouldn’t let fall. Kind hands that were shaking. Romantic i***t who ran into a fight with a pan.

“Because it was going to touch you,” he said.

She made a noise. Small. Broken. Then she did something that broke rule one, rule two, and every rule Hale ever wrote.

She dropped to her knees in the dirty alley, in the red dress, and took Justin’s burned hands in hers. Gentle. Like they weren’t ruined. Like he wasn’t a monster.

“You’re an i***t,” she whispered. Rude. “Thank you,” she whispered. Kind. Then she leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his. Not a kiss. Not yet. A promise. Romantic.

“You’re fired if my dad sees this,” she said.

“Worth it,” Justin said.

Sirens got closer. The gallery was in chaos.

“Can you walk?” she asked.

“Can you stop being five feet of trouble?” he shot back.

“No.” She stood, hauled him up like he didn’t outweigh her by 80 pounds. “Come on, Intern. We’re leaving before the cops see your eyes.”

She said ‘we’.

Justin was so, so screwed.

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