by Amy Sumida
“I thank Danu every day that you gave into the Call and united Fairy, Princess,” Torquil said. “You've done more than you know for our world, and I'm proud to have been chosen to protect you.”
“Thank you, Torquil,” I whispered.
“And you do a good thing here too, Count Daxon,” Torquil added. “I applaud your efforts and ask for your forgiveness for believing the worst of you. I may not consider you to be a king, but I do think you're a savior, like our princess.”
Daxon's eyes went wide. “Thank you, Sir Torquil.”
“That's some high praise indeed. But perhaps we should reserve our judgments—for good or ill—till we know Count Tromlaighe better.” I looked from Torquil to Ainsley, and they both nodded. Then I turned to Daxon. “Is it like this everywhere?”
“What do you mean?” He cocked his head at me.
“The fairies living as homeless people,” I said. “Are they in every city?”
“I don't know,” Daxon murmured as he searched my face. “Why do you ask?”
“Because obviously something needs to be done,” I huffed. “They need to know they can come home now, that Fairy is safe once more, and the Fairy Council needs to establish transition centers to help our people adjust to life here.”
“Dear Danu,” Daxon whispered, his eyes going wide. “You are a savior.”
“From the instant she stepped foot in Fairy, our princess has been saving the fey,” Ainsley said proudly, “of all races.”
“I was raised to protect people,” I said crisply, “all people. Fairies forget that the Extinguishers are a form of police, and police are meant to serve and protect. The Extinguishers monitor the fey and execute criminals, but they also protect fairies. If I'd known about this situation years ago, I would have done something then. Not because I'm a savior, but because I was an extinguisher... because it's the humane thing to do.”
“She doesn't know how wonderful she is,” Daxon said with wonder.
“Nope.” Ainsley beamed at him. “And doesn't that just make her all the more wonderful?”
“I believe it does,” Daxon said softly.
“All right,” I muttered, “enough blowing smoke up my ass. The situation with the fey has been noted, and it will be handled. But for now, Daxon, I'd like to continue the tour.”
“As my lady commands.” Daxon smiled and nodded to the driver. “Take us to Foxy.”
“Foxy?” I growled the question. “That better not be a strip joint.”
“Of course, it isn't,” Daxon huffed. I started to relax until he added, “My strip club isn't open yet; it's far too classy to operate during daylight hours.”
I glared at him.
“Taboo is a clean and modern establishment.” Daxon smirked. “We have separate areas for male and female dancers, and I promise you, they are talented. It's entertainment, not just a bunch of naked fairies dancing across a stage.”
“Oh, well, if it's entertainment.” I rolled my eyes.
“I think we should probably check it out, Your Highness,” Ainsley said with a grin. “Just to be certain that it's legit.”
“Shut it, Ainsley,” I snapped.
“Yes, Your Highness.” Ainsley didn't seem chastised.
“Foxy is a day spa,” Daxon said.
“A day spa?” Torquil asked.
“It's where people go to be pampered,” Daxon explained. “They do facials, manicures, pedicures, haircuts, makeup, and massages. Oh, I think they do waxing too. Care to try a Brazilian, Seren?”
He smirked and started to take a sip.
“I prefer to have it all waxed off,” I said casually. “It just feels cleaner.”
Daxon sputtered and nearly spat out his champagne. I smiled and winked at Ainsley, who was blushing like a schoolboy.
“I think I love you,” Daxon said with the utmost sincerity.
“Men are so easy.” I smiled despite myself.
“I thought perhaps we could get a couple's massage,” Daxon offered as we pulled into the private parking lot of Foxy Day Spa.
“You know what? Yes,” I said with surprising eagerness. “I do want a massage. I can't remember the last time I had one.”
Daxon lifted his brows.
“At least, a professional one,” I amended.
“Then I'm thrilled to provide one for you.” Daxon got out of the car—still holding his glass of champagne—and helped me out.
The spa was white and chic in the way that luxury spas are. Everything was sleek; from the polished chrome and leather furniture to the glass shelves full of beauty products. There were fresh flowers placed artfully around the room, but it smelled like pomegranate candles. An Asian woman came out from behind a glass desk to greet us.
“Kotori, this is Her Majesty, Queen Seren Firethorn,” Daxon introduced me to the woman.
“Your Majesty.” Kotori bowed respectfully. “It's an honor to serve you. What can we do for you today?”
“We'd like to get a couple's massage,” Daxon said.
“Single massages will be fine,” I corrected him.
“As long as we're in the same room,” Daxon added with a mischievous grin.
Ainsley cleared his throat.
“These are my guards; Ainsley and Torquil,” I introduced them. “Will they be in the way if I post them outside the door?”
“Not at all, Your Majesty,” Kotori assured me. “Our spa is quite spacious. I can even have some chairs brought out for them.”
“We're fine with standing, my lady,” Torquil said gallantly.
“As you wish,” she smiled shyly. “This way, Your Majesties.”
“Did she just make me a plural?” I asked Dax as we followed her down the hallway. “I've put on a little weight since becoming princess, but I don't think I look like two people.”
“I told you that I was King of the Underworld,” he reminded me with a chuckle. “Did you think I was just giving myself the title?”
“Yes, actually,” I huffed. “They seriously call you 'king?'”
“They do, Queen Seren,” he said pointedly. “Except my crown was earned with hard work.”
“I may have been handed one crown, but I earned two of them through blood and fire—not just paperwork,” I shot back. “And that's not counting the crowns I won for my husbands.”
“Oh damn,” Ainsley whispered—a line he'd obviously picked up from Killian. “She just gave you the Seren Smackdown.”
“There's a Seren Smackdown?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Ainsley said. “You just did it.”
“Your princess can smack me anytime she likes,” Daxon purred.
“Could you please stop flirting with me in front of my guards?”
“Then send them away.” Daxon shrugged. “I told you that I intend to make use of our time together. I'm not wasting a moment on pretending that I don't want to be your consort.”
Torquil inhaled sharply.
“Not a word to the kings,” I hissed at my guards. “Do you two understand me?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” they said as one.
“You haven't told your husbands about me?” Daxon asked with glee. His eyes widened. “Am I a dirty little secret?”
“You're definitely dirty”—I rolled my eyes—“but for the moment, you're only a colleague. Nothing has happened between us that would make me feel the need to confess it to my husbands.”
“Confess,” Dax shivered as he whispered. “I love that word. Perhaps we should work on your guilty pleasures so that you'll have something to confess.”
“Machiko and Haruyo will be your therapists,” Kotori interrupted gracefully as she waved us into a spacious room. “Please disrobe and lay beneath the sheets on top of the massage tables.”
“Thank you, Kotori,” Daxon murmured, then ushered me into the softly-lit room.
He shut the door on Ainsley and Torquil.
“There's no changing room,” I noted. “Not even a screen.”
“One date and you're already getting me to strip,” I muttered. “I have to hand it to you, Daxon, you're good.”
“That's what I've heard.”
“Oh, shut it,” I growled as I headed to one of the tables.
There was a rack with wooden hangers set beside the massage table. I kicked off my shoes and then slipped out of my clothes, leaving my underwear on. I quickly got beneath the sheet, and when I glanced over at Daxon, I found him still dressed, leaning against his table with his arms crossed and a smile on his face.
“You should remove that bra,” he recommended coolly. “The straps will get in the way.”
I held his gaze as I undid my bra and slipped out of it beneath the sheet, then tossed it onto the rack. It draped over the bar; black lace with red embroidery. Daxon stared at it as if I was still wearing it, then looked back to me. Slowly, he pulled off his T-shirt, revealing a thickly muscled chest and bulging biceps. His arms were completely covered in tattoos, and they continued up to curve over his chest.
Daxon made sure to give me plenty of time to admire him before he turned around and undid his jeans. His back had a battlefield tattooed over it in intricate detail. A castle rose on a cliff—Unseelie Castle—and fairy knights fought each other below it. I was so enraptured by the ink that I was shocked when Daxon bent over, sliding off his jeans, and giving me a full view of his perfect ass.
I swallowed past the dryness in my throat as I followed the artwork down the sides of his thighs, where they became tribal work again, but in the shape of metal plates—he had armor tattooed on him. I wondered if it were a protection spell. Daxon started to turn around, and I looked away resolutely. I heard him chuckle, and then the soft sound of fabric against skin.
“I'm covered now,” he called out to me.
“Hardly,” I muttered.
“I heard that.”
A small knock came at the door, and then two Asian women came into the room. As soon as my therapist started working on me, I forgot all about Daxon. I let her magic hands mash my muscles into putty, and I completely relaxed for the first time in months.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Where are my clothes?” I asked Daxon after I emerged from my massage haze. I sat up, holding the sheet to me tightly, and glared at him in accusation.
“Well, you could hardly be my date wearing jeans,” he huffed. “I had something delivered”—he waved his hand to a pair of garment bags hanging on the rack next to his table—“for both of us.”
He brought mine over to me. I was so annoyed that I didn't realize he was stark naked until he was standing right before me. In the shock of the moment, I looked down. It was an automatic reaction; I swear.
And dear Danu; I wish I hadn't. The man was perfect; even at ease, as it were.
“Seren?” Daxon's voice had an amused edge to it. “Are you going to take the clothes?”
“What?” I tore my gaze away from his lower half and up to his face.
Daxon was holding a garment bag out to me. I snatched it from him.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, if you don't mind?”
“Oh, you can ogle me, but I can't look upon you?”
“You put yourself on display,” I accused him. “You wanted me to ogle.”
“Perhaps.” He strode back to his side of the room and unzipped his garment bag.
I grabbed my bra, intending on using his distraction to slip into it. Thank goodness those sneaky Asians had left me my bra... Asians... Foxy.
“Son of a sea dragon!” I cussed as I turned back toward Daxon. “They're kitsune, aren't they? That's why this place is called Foxy.”
“Yes,” Daxon turned to me as he said it, a smile hovering over his lips, then stopped short and stared. His eyes widened, and his lips parted.
I glanced down to see what held his attention. I'd forgotten all about my bra in the midst of my revelation and was giving Dax quite an eyeful. I turned sharply on my heels and slipped the bra on, my face flushing. Daxon remained quiet. I glanced at him over my shoulder and saw him visibly swallow and pick up a pair of slacks with shaking hands. Shaking! I have to admit, that made me feel a little better about flashing him.
The dress he'd bought me was classic-black and cocktail length. It was simple and yet screamed money. The silk lining felt luxurious against my skin, and the cotton sateen fell in sleekly tailored lines around my body. It was perfect except for one thing; all I had to wear on my feet were my leather boots.
“Allow me,” Daxon said as he came over with a pair of sexy slingbacks. He knelt before me and slipped them on my feet, lingering over the last one with his hand on my calf. He looked up at me and smirked. “This feels familiar.”
“Daxon,” I whispered with horror. “I can't do this.” I stepped away from him. The tide of lust had receded just enough for me to catch my breath and realize where I was headed. “I love three other men. Three! That was hard enough for me to accept. I can't make room for another man in my heart.”
Dax stood abruptly, an angry and determined look on his face. He didn't say anything, just grabbed me around the waist and yanked me against him. I expected him to kiss me, to force some kind of sexual attention on me, and I was prepared to knock his ass flat again. But he didn't; Daxon just held me tightly and stared at me. We were pressed so closely together that I could feel his heart beating violently against mine. His whole body was trembling as if he were fighting against himself.
The top of my head fit right beneath his chin as if we were made to stand this way together, and I lowered my gaze from his so I could lean into that space. Daxon sighed and folded himself around me. His hands roamed up my back and slipped into my hair. Gently, he eased my head even closer, so that I was pressed to his throat, kissing his pulse. My arms had been straight at my sides, rigid with anxiety, but when he did that, I melted, my arms surging up around him.
“Seren,” Daxon whispered into my hair. “Don't cut me off before we even have a chance to see what this is. I've only just found you, and there's this voice inside me that insists that this was meant to happen—that we were meant to be together. If you walk away now, I will utterly humiliate myself and chase after you. I will chase you to Fairy and back again if I have to. Please don't make me do that.”
My breath shivered against his heartbeat. Raza's face flashed in my mind; the expression he had worn when I told him that he was all I wanted. But he wasn't, was he? I wanted Tiernan before I'd ever wanted Raza, and I wanted Killian. I loved them all, and I didn't want to hurt any of them. But now, I wanted Daxon too.
“You make me feel selfish and wicked in the most horrible way,” I admitted. “I should be content, but every time I look at you, I feel unsettled.”
“Well, that's a start,” there was a smile in his voice. “I'm willing to bend for you, Seren, but I can't change who I am. I am the nightmare lurking in the shadows of the mind, and nightmares don't tread softly. We make your heart race and call the sweat to your skin; then we cool your flesh until you shiver and scream for us. That's the heart of me, and I can't alter it, but with the first touch of your lips, I wanted to. I wished I could be something else; something you would not only scream for but sigh for. And I don't know whether to love you or hate you for that.”
“You aren't just a nightmare,” I said gently. “You walked into my dream, Dax. That means you have a dual magic. You are the terror and the relief; the nightmare and the dream. Perhaps you're attracted to me, not because I'm your other half, but because I've given you a glimpse of it—of the other man you have inside you.”
“A nightmare and a dream.” Daxon eased back to stare down at me in astonishment. His cerulean eyes were glowing with his emotions. “I think you may be right about that; perhaps I do have more to me than the nightmare, and you could be the woman who will help me become that man, but that's not why I feel thi
s way for you, Seren.”
“What then?”
“You know what,” he whispered. “You know who.”
“Danu.”
“Tell me again that you can deny the Call,” he dared me.
And I couldn't.
Chapter Forty
We toured Daxon's other businesses after that, everything except for Taboo, which—ironically—I declared was off-limits. Every business was perfectly staffed and brilliant in conception. The Cleaning Fairy was a house cleaning service offered by brownies—fairies who were known for loving housework, Fantasy Flowers was a florist staffed by anthousai—Greek flower nymphs, Inkantations was a tattoo shop with skilled sidhe artists who could also enchant the ink for a few hundred extra, and then finally, Dax took us to Dark Muses, an art gallery run by leanan-sidhe.
I gave him a narrow-eyed look for that one. Leanan-sidhe love to inspire their human lovers, but they also slowly drained the humans of their life energy in payment. Daxon promised me that these leanan-sidhe were adhering to Council Law and weren't killing their lovers. He admitted that they might be taking a drop or two of energy, but nothing that would prove fatal. After viewing the amazing art in the gallery and meeting the leanan-sidhe, I was inclined to believe him, but I was also worried. One afternoon with him, and I was reevaluating my stance on fey-human interaction. Instead of me having a good influence on Daxon, it seemed that he was bringing me over to the Dark Side—the Dax Side.