Filthy Rich Fae

At a nightclub later that night, Cate dances with Sirius and Shaw. Titania has come out with them, too, and she regards Cate with open hostility. In a private room, Sirius chats with Cate and she asks him if Titania hates her because she is human. Sirius shares that relationships between humans and fae became complicated following World War II, which was the last time that the fae stepped in to help a human war effort. He says that his parents were killed in that war, and Aurora had to take on the title of heir and the ensuing responsibility at a young age, just like Lachlan. He also says that the Astral Court in Prague focuses on alchemy or the study of magic.

A siren suddenly blares, signaling an overdose downstairs involving trinity. Cate rushes to help the victim and immediately begins performing CPR. Lachlan and Roark arrive, as well, and Lachlan takes over the chest compressions while Cate successfully administers Narcan just as EMTs appear. She warns Roark to get Ciara and the others out of the VIP room upstairs before the police start to investigate.

Noticing a police officer watching Lachlan with suspicion, Cate convinces him to flee the club. She then misleads the officer—who recognized Lachlan as the head of the Gage crime syndicate—to protect Lachlan. After leaving the nightclub, Cate walks down a city street and turns into what she discovers is a dead-end alley. There, two predatory figures confront her. She notices their sharp teeth and forked tongues and realizes they are not human. She wishes she had taken the gun, as Lachlan said she should. One of the figures grabs Cate by the throat.

Cate’s attacker nearly strangles her before a second attacker pins her down. As one of the assailants cuts into her collarbone with his nail, Cate manages to touch the pendant around her neck and mentally calls for help. Instantly, the world goes silent as Lachlan appears with a gun. Cate’s attackers claim that if they knew that Cate was with Lachlan, they would have left her alone. However, Lachlan quietly says that they certainly knew.

Lachlan takes stock of Cate’s injuries and shoots one of the attackers without hesitation. Then, one of his tattoos swirls, and Roark appears. As Roark gently lifts Cate, Lachlan begins to brutally torture the second attacker, stating that he will show them no mercy because they made Cate bleed. Lachlan identifies Cate’s attackers as murderous fae known as redcaps. Following Lachlan’s orders, Roark nips back with Cate to Lachlan’s private quarters at the Avalon.

Inside the rooms, Cate worries that Lachlan’s rage will cause him to lose control completely. She urges Roark to leave her and return to the alley to be with Lachlan.

Cate takes a shower and washes her wounds clean, wondering why she feels no pity for the redcaps despite knowing that Lachlan will torture and then kill them. Late that night, Lachlan returns to his rooms covered in blood. Cate realizes that the blood is not his, and she is surprised that this knowledge fills her with relief and desire. In the bathroom, Cate gently cleans his face, and Lachlan angrily declares that he dealt with the redcaps violently. She then helps him remove his bloody shirt and spots the scar on his torso from an old bullet wound. As she touches his skin, she notices that his tattoos have stilled.

Cate asks Lachlan to kiss her, initiating a passionate and confessional moment between them. He warns her that he will ruin her, and she accepts the risk. Their intimacy escalates until Roark knocks on the door, interrupting with urgent court business. Before departing for his meeting, Lachlan gives Cate a gun for protection and insists that a relationship between them is a bad idea.

Unable to sleep, Cate touches her pendant while masturbating and summons Lachlan away from his meeting. He watches her climax before taking her fingers to his mouth, and then he vanishes to return to his meeting.

The next morning at breakfast, Ciara informs Cate that Lachlan has destroyed all supplies of clover, which Cate calls trinity in its new, lethal form. This action prompted Bain to call off his engagement to Ciara, but she says she convinced him not to.

Lachlan joins Cate for a tense conversation filled with innuendo. He explains that Bain agreed to a handfasting—a fae ritual that is like a magical, year-long trial marriage—in place of the traditional wedding banns. Lachlan explains that if the Nether Court doesn’t smooth things over with the Infernal Court, it will disrupt their trade with the other courts as well. This is why even Ciara realizes the marriage is important.

Lachlan then takes back the necklace, explaining he cannot afford the distraction Cate might create while he is in sensitive negotiations, but he insists she keep the gun. After he leaves, Cate approaches Ciara and Sirius, telling them she might have a solution to the clover problem and that she needs their help to execute it.

Over the next week, Cate, Ciara, and Sirius secretly test samples of clover in the laboratory of Gage Memorial Hospital. Haley has procured them access to the lab. Sirius, with his alchemy expertise, has been testing tainted samples of trinity against older, purer samples of clover to try and discover what has corrupted the drug.

On the morning of the handfasting ceremony, as Cate and Ciara are heading back from the hospital in Ciara’s Porsche, Ciara confronts Cate about her relationship with Lachlan. Ciara reveals that Lachlan has been celibate ever since he made his bargain with Cate and explains that her own temper is like a firecracker while Lachlan’s is like a bomb.

Their conversation is interrupted by a furious phone call from Lachlan. He informs them that Channing has arrived at the Avalon and threatened Bain. Using her magic, Ciara instantly nips them from the moving car directly into Lachlan’s office.

In Lachlan’s office, Channing confronts Cate and Lachlan. He demands that Cate be released from her bargain and offers to take her place, but Lachlan refuses. When Channing becomes aggressive, Lachlan uses his magic to freeze him in place and cruelly implies that he and Cate are lovers. Channing becomes distressed on hearing this.

Cate demands that Lachlan release her brother. Lachlan warns Channing that his reckless actions could get him killed before teleporting him to a cell for his own protection. Cate and Lachlan then have a vicious argument, and Cate is furious that Lachlan implied that there was something between them. Hurt, Lachlan retorts that there is something between them. Cate reminds him that she is forced to stay with him because of the bargain she made, and Lachlan reminds her that instead of trying to break the bargain, she has been enjoying herself at the Avalon. When she says he has ruined her life, he quietly says that he already warned her that he would ruin her. Then, he vanishes. In his absence, Cate realizes that rather than ruin her, he has given her a sense of family and belonging.

Feeling guilty, Cate resolves to apologize to Lachlan. She prepares for the handfasting ceremony by dressing in the colors of the Nether Court. Roark escorts her to the ballroom, explaining that his primary duty is to help Lachlan maintain his internal balance. He also admits that he stopped interrupting her and Lachlan when they got close because their powerful connection is undeniable.

Cate watches the silent handfasting ceremony. The ritual, which binds the couple in a trial marriage for a year and a day, serves as a loophole allowing the betrothed time to find cause for dissolution. Roark explains to Cate that this was not how it always was. In the days of old fae magic, fae couples who participated in the handfasting ceremony would only be bound by magic if their love for one another was true and selfless. At this ceremony, however, the bond is marked by temporary, shifting tattoos on Ciara and Bain’s hands. Roark says the magic will declare the end of their bond if either of them chooses to challenge it. After congratulating Ciara after the ceremony, Cate goes to check on a moody Lachlan. She finds him at the bar, takes his hand, and suggests they leave the party together.