No one was going to interrupt us.
The queen’s four guardians were tied to her lifeforce, meaning their own life force was draining with hers. They couldn’t save her. Obviously, she hadn’t thought the implications of that one through when she so selfishly tied four men to her.
The idea made my mind slip to another group of men. Fuck, I missed them. With the revelation that Mack and I had been in love for years, I realized that I could have had all that time with him, but I’d thrown it away. Now, I wanted decades. I wanted it with all of them. Darrel and I had an almost instant, soul-deep connection. I’d had to wake up and smell the roses with Aaron. With Lance, we both had to work, but he was worth it. We were worth it.
I’d lost minutes, hours, years, with these men because I was afraid to let them in. And now, I would never get them back.
There was a swishing sound behind me like a door opening. I wanted to check, but I had no hope of moving.
Hands jostled me, and I felt the chain from around my feet uncoiling.
Holy fuck, yes.
The person continued to roll the chain from around me. They flipped me over, sending a shock of agony through my jaw. My vision blurred, but I could still recognize my rescuer’s face.
Princess Mab.
I wanted to thank her, but I was gagged, and my jaw hung from my face, smashed and broken. Mab continued to untangle me until the silver chains were completely off.
The reality TV star crouched down before me. Her hands went around the back of my head, and she yanked out the gag.
Pain exploded through my broken jaw, and even though I was trying to be silent, I couldn’t stop a moan from escaping. The princess heaved my shoulder, sending me toppling to my stomach, and my broken face hit the floor.
Pain seared every inch of my body, and though I couldn’t move, I finally felt my wolf stirring.
Mab pulled at my robe, ripping it off. Several seconds later, the noxious aroma of burning hair filled the room. My wolf rose within me. She had almost no energy, but my cheek began the tell-tale scorching sensation of healing.
I pushed onto my forearm, looking over at the beautiful celebrity princess. She stood at the hearth, silver chains dangling from her hand. A scrap of burning silk robe fluttered out of the fireplace, and the princess plucked it up and set it back in.
Beside her lay a familiar figure. For a moment, I thought it was the incubus pretending to be Prince Summer again. Then I noticed the prince’s pallor and the sweat rolling down his brow. His eyes were wide open, though they didn’t seem able to focus.
“Are you healing?” he whispered, his chest heaving.
“She’ll heal soon enough,” Princess Mab said. “Maybe she’ll even give you pity sex as you die. Unlike other werewolves, this one doesn’t discriminate against fae in her bed. Do you, Slutty McSlut Slut?”
She turned to me, her eyes shining with triumph. Up until this moment, I’d held onto the hope that Princess Mab was simply too selfish to use care when handling my broken body. She’d helped me before. But seeing her incinerating my clothing and removing my chains, the truth hit me like an oncoming truck.
Princess Mab wasn’t helping me. She was removing evidence that I’d been taken here against my will. She was covering her tracks.
Fuck. It was Princess Mab. It had been her all along.
“Can you move, Summer?” I whispered.
“No.” He gave me a sad smile. “And my name is Marius, please.”
“Aw, cute. I’ll leave you two to get better acquainted.” Mab headed for the door, and I knew that the moment she stepped outside, this would all be over. Mab would get away with her mother’s assassination—and by extension the murder of the four fae princes—leaving me locked up at the crime scene.
I took a steadying breath as a new wave of exhaustion threatened to pull me down. Shaking my head, I returned my gaze to the fleeing princess. “You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”
Mab paused at the door to glance over her shoulder. “You’re not the first person to say that to me.”
Gathering all my strength, I moved to a crouch. Just as Mab turned the knob, I called, “And framing my pack—nice move. Now, after your mother dies, you’ve paved a road to take over Heartland and exterminate the wolves. The other fae courts will support you as well, grieving their fallen princes.”
“That was the plan.” Mab kept one hand on the doorknob, keeping it in a turned position, but she pivoted toward me. “No one else was supposed to die. You can lay the blame for that at your sister’s feet, Scarlet. She blocked the incubus from his target at the party. The demon had gathered so much strength that he broke free of Morte for a couple minutes and went into a frenzy to slaughter the mages who were keeping him contained. He may have taken the lives of twenty-two fae and three mages, but your sister is responsible. Zeezee Riley and your pack deserve to die for that alone.”
“Your logic is so fucked. My sister protected her mate, and therefore it’s Zeezee’s fault you lost control of the demon you summoned.” I laughed. “Oh, Mab—you are exactly like your mother. You’re like her spitting-fucking-image. The apple fell in the tree and got caught up in its branches to rot.”
Mab’s nostrils flared, and she dropped the doorknob to run a hand over her floral dress. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. My mother has been trying to kill me for eight-hundred years. She’s sent assassins after me. She’s thrown me off cliffs. She’s blasted me with so much wind it tore off my face.”
“But has she ever killed dozens of innocent people and kidnapped more as mere collateral?” I clicked my tongue. “Yeah, on the bloodthirsty narcissist scale, you have your mother beat by a mile.”
Mab spun entirely, pacing toward me. “She bound my little brother to her lifeforce.”
I shrugged. “And you killed him. Yeah, sorry, Mab, you are a real—”
Mab reared back to kick me, but I grabbed her other leg and yanked. The princess went down, her back slamming into the wood floor, and I pounced. It was what I’d been planning, but my body was slow to cooperate.
My wolf pushed to the forefront, her energy sluggish. My fangs and claws elongated, but not nearly fast enough. A violent wind slammed into the front of my body and face. As I flew away from her, I just managed to hook my hands around her shoulders and dig my claws through the straps of her dress and into her flesh. My whole body elevated in the wind, and my arms seared from the pressure of holding onto the princess, but I clenched my hands, piercing my claws deeper.
Mab screamed as blood pooled under her. Her face twisted in rage, and the air blasted even harder, feeling like sandpaper rubbing my naked flesh. Blood dripped down my cheeks, and the area around my eyes ached like a raw wound doused in salt. My vision whitened as my eyes seared with piercing pain as if they were being ripped from my skull.
Pulling on my wolf, she surged into me, her strength gaining by the second. Fur pushed out of my aching skin as my bones shifted. Soon I’d lose the dexterity of my human hands, so with all my strength, I yanked my body closer to the princess and clamped my teeth around her neck. Hot blood filled my mouth, and I drank it in, burying my teeth deeper.
Mab gurgled, and wind hit me like a solid wall. Her skin shredded in my jaws, and I went tumbling end over end. I rolled and slid across the room, spitting out a chunk of the princess’ torn flesh. Adrenaline pumped through me, and I dodged, expecting immediate retaliation, but when I looked back, the princess lay prone near the hearth, blood bubbling from her neck.
“She’s not dead,” the queen called out from across the room. “Mab is far too powerful to die from simply having her throat ripped out. I’d appreciate it if you don’t kill her, either. She is my child and heir.”
I spun, baring my fangs, only to see Queen Titania leaning in the doorway.
“You don’t believe me? Mab loves to regale everyone with how much of a victim she is, but if I truly wanted her dead, I would have just killed her. I’m tired, and I don’
t want to have to play these games with any of my other children.” The queen looked as if she were fresh from a workout at the gym, her color warm and her eyes bright. Her hair was tousled with a just-had-sex look. She wore a silk robe with a cord wrapped around her thin waist several times. She held the tasseled end of one of the ties in a hand and spun it lazily. “How about you change so we can talk a while, Scarlet Riley? Unfortunately, it appears I can’t kill you, so there’s no harm in turning into your less lethal form.”
An image filled my mind, a small red wolf leaping over Princess Mab’s supine body, knocking the queen to the ground, and sinking my fangs into her throat.
Part of me agreed with my wolf, but this situation was just too fucking weird. Hesitating only a moment, I pushed down my wolf, urging her back. My skin itched as fur slid back into my pores, and bones once more shifted under my skin. When I’d completely changed back, I stood and spat the princess’ blood onto the floor. “You call this a game?”
“Of a sort.” She sighed. “You’re right. My daughter and I are too alike. It happens when you spend nearly a thousand years with someone you both loathe and love.”
“The man in there is a—”
“Demon? Yes, I know.” Titania swept her hand toward Marius, who lay slumped on the floor, his eyes shut. I studied him, only looking away when I saw the telltale rise of his chest that whispered that he was still alive.
“They’re alive, too. This isn’t my first time with an incubus. I know when to stop. I can have a little fun as he drains my guards’ energy, but I stop before he has access to mine.”
“That’s sick,” I whispered.
Titania’s shoulders shook. “You sound like her.” She tilted her head toward her daughter. “Next thing I know, you’ll be calling for witch burnings. It was one of Mab’s favorite hobbies for a time. I found it rather distasteful.”
“There are worlds of difference between Mab and me, but that doesn’t make what you did any less twisted,” I said. “So, you were what—in on this whole thing? Is there really no curse?”
“Oh, there’s a curse. Hence me not killing you, daughter.”
I winced. “What the fuck?”
“Aren’t you my daughter now?” Titania tilted her head. “I do hope that you’ll do my son the honor of a handfasting after the declaration he made for you before his entire kingdom. We will also have to discuss your dowry.”
“Hold up. What the hell is going on here?” I pointed down at Mab who looked very dead at this point. She lay with her blonde hair spread around her face, soaked in blood. If she was breathing, I couldn’t tell.
“Princess Mab is getting good at planning my assassination, but not good enough. I got wind of her Mage of the Ages plan months before that party. It was one of her more creative attempts, but still, poorly conceived and even more poorly executed.”
I shook my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Just tell me what the hell is going on. You knew she was going to raise an incubus at the party?”
“Of course. Several of Mab’s staff work for me. I got regular updates on the plan up until the night of the party.”
“No one slipped you a note?”
She gave a wicked smile. “I suppose I was the one who placed the note into Summer’s pocket at dinner.”
This detail had bugged me from the start. It just seemed so unlikely that someone would warn the queen off and then simply vanish, letting everyone else at that party die.
“I got wind that Mab planned to work with both the werewolves and the mages. I even helped her out, telling Oxonos that I wanted to sleep with a werewolf at the party. He came back telling me that he could arrange for me to have sex with your closest kin. This, of course, confirmed in my mind that you and Mab were working together.”
“We weren’t,” I said. “It was a coincidence.”
Titania gave me an amused look. “I have clearly figured that out. I do have ears and eyes.”
“So, you just let this all play out. You knew that everything was going to go down, and you just let it happen? You let your daughter slaughter twenty-two of your own people just to prove a point?”
“I didn’t know Mab would be idiotic enough to cause the deaths of everyone at that party.” She tilted her head back and forth. “Though, I might have still let it happen, regardless.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“I have never concealed the fact that I wanted Heartland—not from you, not from your father, nor from the alpha who came before him. I want it, and, believing that you were conspiring with my daughter to have me assassinated, I saw an opportunity to rid this area of both you and the mage union. After you two left, the humans would soon follow.”
“Were you going to exterminate the trolls and dragons as well?” My anger rose, and my wolf stalked forward, ready to take our enemy down.
“Not them. They are always welcome in the Spring Kingdom. At least, they would have been should this have played out differently. My curse simply states that I cannot take action out of ambition. It does not state that I cannot let inaction serve me for the same purpose. If you had struck the first blow in a war by conspiring in that massacre, I would have been forced to conquer the area for the safety of my fractured kingdom.”
“So, we all just walk away from this like nothing happened? You’re going to call off the hunt?” I swept my hand through the air. “I’m supposed to let all of this go?”
Queen Titania’s brows rose, and a spark lit in her gaze. “Oh, did you want to declare war? If you’d like to, I’m not going to object.”
“No. No war.” I pointed to Mab. “What’s going to happen to her?”
“That’s not really your business.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I hope you have some plan to banish this incubus. He’s feasted enough and is currently sleeping in my bed, well-sated. But I’m growing a little tired of his presence.”
“So your daughter summoned this demon, and now that you’re tired of playing with him, I’m supposed to get rid of him?”
She waved her hand through the air as if she were swatting my idea away. “Obviously I know that you can’t banish him back to hell. He can’t leave until his summoner gives him the instruction. But yes, I’m done with him. It’s fun for a while, but you can’t go giving demons too much of your life energy, or they’ll break free and kill their summoner. I’m sure you know someone who doesn’t want that to happen.”
The queen already knew about Nancy and her brother, too. She knew everything. This really had been nothing but an elaborate murder game.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I glared at the woman who called me daughter. “Even if I marry Mack, you are never going to be my family in any sense of the word.”
Titania rolled her eyes. “You get to pick your lovers, not your mother-in-laws. And if you and my son have children, if that’s even possible, you’re not going to be able to pick your child’s grandmother, either.” She tilted her chin toward the form on the floor. “Nor their aunt.”
This was the weirdest conversation I had ever had.
“You’re wondering why I’m suddenly accepting you with open arms?” Titania chuckled. “I’m not. I never will. Scarlet, you will always be my enemy. And yet, I have no intention of letting you take my son from his family. He already made it clear that he would choose you. You might not believe this—and I honestly don’t care if you do—but I do love my children.”
Yeah. Sure. She loved her children so much that she banished Mack from his home and family for that choice. Not to mention she’d fed her son Naveen’s lifeforce to a demon just so she could play out some sick fantasy.
A knock came at the door, and Titania pivoted. “Enter.”
A man with long dark hair burst through in full armor. He held up a fantasy sword, and this time I was positive it was one from the mall, as it had a distinctive leaf pummel. His expression looked increasingly alarmed as he surveyed the room until his gaze fell on Queen Titania. “Your Highness—the
princess.”
“Mab tried to kill me again. Just leave her here for now.” Titania stepped over her daughter’s body and strolled to the door. “Was there something you wanted from me, Barney?”
Barney’s gaze darted from me, down to Prince Summer who was still sleeping, and then back to his queen. “Twenty-two werewolves and your son Macklin have surrendered, Your Highness.”
Titania spun to face me, her eyes sparking with a cruel brand of mischief. “That would be your rescue team.” She clasped her hands in front of her, looking truly delighted. “Barney, bind and gag the prisoner.”
“Fuck no,” I growled.
Titania smiled. “Disarm yourself, Barney. That way, if she kills you, she’s killing an unarmed fae who was only doing his duty and was specifically ordered not to harm the alpha.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mack
A long line of werewolves stood in the clearing before my mother’s tree. A few had volunteered to risk their lives because she was the alpha of Six Rivers, but most of us were here because of our love for Scarlet.
Fae guards surrounded us on all sides. Sun reflected off their helms and breastplates and the silver-tipped arrows they aimed at the line of werewolves. No arrows aimed at me. From the looks on the archer’s faces, they had resigned themselves to firing the moment the queen ordered it. And if my mother was alive, she would order it. That’s what we’d planned for. If she was dead, we’d have to enact the scorched earth plan B—the one that truly would make me a traitor to the Spring Court forever.
Beside me stood the three Knight brothers, Scarlet’s parents, and her sister, their expressions stone-faced as they waited for the great door to open. This was the moment of truth. Had Mab’s plans finally succeeded? After everything my mother and Mab had done, it should’ve been easy to hate them. They were the most selfish and treacherous people I knew.
Did I want their toxicity out of my life?
Yes.
Did I want either of them to die?
I felt almost ashamed to admit that I didn’t. They were poisonous people.
Filthy Fae: A Dirty Alphas Novel (Heartland Forest Book 2) Page 26