“That’s like trusting a wolf inside your sheep pen. Besides, don’t you want to watch?”
Maggie averted her gaze like it was a dirty secret. She still didn’t quite realize that this was what I loved about her.
“Yes,” she mumbled.
I knew the shadows of my own palace like the back of my hand. It would be easy to find a hidden perch to see Brad get his just desserts. We wouldn’t reveal ourselves.
“Come on, Pumpkin. Let’s go watch a regicide.”
I dragged her into the shadows in the furthest corner of Yaya’s kitchen, rushing through the void as my Nightmare ran over Maggie in a torrent of smoke and darkness.Did I hear her moan? My glowing eyes lit the nothingness.
“Wait until you see this, Pumpkin.”
I would try the private reception chamber first. It was gaudy enough that Brad would still use it. I rushed forward, death on my tongue and mayhem on my mind, right into a wooden door. I staggered back into Maggie, rubbing my forehead.
“Did it leave a mark?” I bent over so she could look.
Maggie smirked and ignored me. “What am I supposed to see again?” She gestured to the closed door.
I adjusted us a couple of feet to the right, out of the closet I accidentally smacked into and peered out of the shadows. My opulent reception room was full of clothes!
“What the fuck?” I snarled.
A cheap jacket was using a five thousand year old chair as a hanger. Under clothes sat in a pile on the floor. Sweaters and beige trousers spilled out of boxes stacked on top of my vampire-crafted side table. Was that a sock in my chandelier? None of it had seemed important before I saw it used like this. I would kill him myself if the Fae was too weak.
Maggie pulled me back into the void, petting me with busy hands. “He’s not here. Don’t give us away by throwing a tantrum.”
Murder flooded my blood. I sent my shadows racing throughout the castle. I needed my eyes and ears to find that bowl of butt soup right fucking now.No more playing around. Maggie paused, watching the darkness spread around my eyes, over my hands. She was right to be afraid.
“Found you,” I growled.
A few steps to the left bent the void to the dark and steamy baths underneath the main palace. Heated by the Firebird nesting below, someone must have remembered to keep feeding it because the baths steamed into the dimly glow-worm lit space. I didn’t dare get much closer in an open room so Maggie and I peered at Severin standing over Brad settled in the hot water. My fists grew claws. Brad’s bare ass was on my favorite seat, worked into the stone basin.
“Easy, Rat Face,” Maggie said and slipped in front of me like that could physically hold me back.
Maybe she could. It was nice to have her warmth against mine and something to do as I fiddled with the end of her braid. She was pretty good at handling herself in the kitchen. Not perfect, but a weapon I could hone. She had enough innate understanding of manipulation and plenty of fury to be a fearsome ruler. I gritted my teeth. Did I have hope for us? That might have been the most dangerous part of this day.
“Was that fun?” I murmured in her ear. Severin was right. I could, and I did, block any sound from leaking into the room as the Fae gestured to a frustrated Brad.
“What do you mean?” Maggie asked.
“Getting Severin to do what we want.”
I should have been focusing on the conversation escalating before us. The quick hand gestures grew larger and more punctuated.
“Men always think with this.” Maggie meant it to be an aggressive reprimand, but her grabbing my cock made me instantly hard instead. “It’s easy to get them to do what you want. I just didn’t know guys did it to each other too.”
I pushed it into her hand until she let go. Wrapping my arm under her chin, I hauled her tight against me.
I couldn’t stop myself even as I saw my old bodyguard–the one who handed me over to Brad–draw her sword against Severin. “How do you feel about attending meetings?”
There were a lot of meetings in my life. I couldn’t really be thinking about her as Queen, right?
“Would I have to listen? Or do I just terrorize everyone gathered?”
This was an absurd conversation. It wasn’t real or practical. But the more I didn’t think about it, the more I thought about it.
“Both, probably,” I said.
