Page 76 of Filthy Fae

For just one moment, I hoped against hope that the queen would come to her senses. I hoped that she would realize how out of character this was for the summer prince. If he had rejected her advances for years, maybe the queen would ask herself, “Why is he coming on to me now? What’s changed?”

But she didn’t.

Titania turned in the incubus’ muscular arms and molded against the body of the man she believed was the prince of summer. The incubus leaned down, running his tongue over the queen’s lips.

I tried to will the scene to stop. Queen Titania was my worst enemy—someone who had sworn to massacre my friends and family. And yet, I couldn’t wish this death on her.

She leaned back, a smile blooming on her lips. “Can I ask you something rather silly?”

“I told you, my queen, I’m here to serve you,” the demon said.

“Will you take me to bed?”

“Yes, my queen. I would like nothing more.”

“May I call you by another’s name?” she whispered.

“If you wish to call me by my father’s name, I would very much enjoy that.”

Oh, fuck. Not only was she lusting over her son’s half-brother, a man who was practically her step-son, but she was fantasizing that he was his father. This shit was never going to leave my nightmares.

Still, as warped as she was, I couldn’t let her die without warning her. I gathered all my energy and screamed into my gag.

“One second, my love,” the queen whispered, rubbing her fingers up the demon’s chest. She pulled away from the incubus, crossed the room toward me, and reared back her foot. Pain exploded through my jaw, and the world again slipped into darkness.

Chapter Thirty

Mack

How could I have let her go? She had been in my arms. I had been inside her. We had experienced something so intense that I was sure there wasn’t even a word for it. And when Scarlet had rushed away from me, I’d let her go.

It was a miracle that the Knight Brothers didn’t blame me for Scarlet’s abduction. I almost wished they would. But like me, they blamed themselves, so I had no one to punish my mistake with the violence it warranted.

It had been eight hours. The incubus had had Scarlet for eight hours, and not one of us had slept a single second of it.

After climbing out of Lance’s van into the parking lot of Luxury Inn and Suites, our group headed for the hotel entrance.

The Knight brothers kept their gazes on the floor. If anyone met their eyes, they’d see wolves shining through. Right now Darrel, Aaron, and Lance were three loaded guns walking into the nicest hotel in the county.

Jane and I walked ahead, dressed in suits. She managed the calm, elegant veneer of business seemingly without effort, and I was doing my best to imitate her composure. We’d spent the entire night looking through websites of hotels in a two-hour radius, trying to find a conference room for rent with blue walls and white stripes. Unfortunately, it was a popular design, and this was the fourth establishment we’d visited.

As I pivoted to open the door for the group, all four of the werewolves with me turned their heads. Their gazes fixed on the high hedge that ran the length of the hotel.

Before I could even identify the disturbance, Darrel pounced. As the large biker closed the distance, there was a loud rustle in the bushes. Three people sprang from them, leaping straight up into the air and landing on the second-floor balcony. They looked like a small family with a middle-aged couple and a school-age child. But all three of them had large-lens cameras around their necks. They also had poorly concealed two-handed axes strapped to their backs.

“Get down here,” Darrel roared.

Wide-eyed, the man and woman hopped up to the next story, but the child pointed his camera down, focused the lens, and snapped another shot. The camera wasn’t pointed at Darrel, though. It was pointed at Jane.

“Mountain goblins,” Lance growled as the third goblin followed the others up the balconies. “Probably working for whoever summoned the demon.”

“How could they have anticipated our arrival?” Jane asked as she shaded her eyes against the early morning sun. “Either we’ve been tapped, or someone is following us.”

The world spun as I had the strangest feeling of déjà vu. A goblin photographer had fled after snapping photos of me before years ago. It wasn’t just goblins, but the goblin had been the one who’d escaped. I was perhaps thirteen. My sister and I had been out to lunch on one of her visits, and as we headed for her limo, a group of paparazzi cornered us, going so far as to stand in the way of the vehicle. Mab’s bodyguards had started grabbing and crushing cameras, but one photographer had leapt over the limo and onto a nearby roof.

Mab had been incensed, and three days later, a tabloid sported the headline, “Princess Mab Dines Out Amid Controversy Surrounding Death of Primetime Rival.”

Jane opened the lobby door. “Well, someone knows we’re here.”