He grins, looking forward. “Anytime.”
The knight waits for me to open the door before he drives down the street.
I walk inside, toss my coat aside, and glance at a stack of junk mail on the end table.
“You’re an evil genius,” I call to Nicole. “I kissed Eric.” Sighing, I lean against the wall, closing my eyes. “Twice. I should have given in while we were in Vegas—”
“Chloe,” Nicole says, stepping into the room, her voice sounding…off.
My eyes fly open. Peter stands behind Nicole, his expression hard. I freeze, and my stomach drops to my toes.
“I stopped by to make sure you made it home all right.” Peter crosses his arms, fire in his eyes. “It seems you’re fine.”
“Peter…”
Excuses. I must find some. Unfortunately, I’m much better with electronics than words.
“I think we need to have a chat,” Peter says, and the room cools with his anger. Even if I can’t see it, I can feel his magic sparking to life. He turns to Nicole. “Excuse us.”
Nicole has gone pale. She clasps her hands in front of her, and I’m pretty sure she’s trembling. Neither of us can protect ourselves against a Dragon.
“Should I make coffee?” she asks weakly, trying to smile like nothing is going on, trying to quell his suspicions.
He turns to her, thinking entirely too hard. “What team were you on before you went into hiding?”
She gulps. “Trent Paulson’s.”
His eyes narrow further. “Before that? Was there another?”
We’ve never given him details. Peter knows Nicole defected from the guild, and he knows we were childhood friends, but he has no idea that she’s from Gray’s team—and after Madeline’s identity came out, we intended to keep it that way.
But the Deer can’t lie to save her life—literally. If she doesn’t manage it, we’re both dead.
“I was on another briefly.” Nicole looks away as if thinking. She huffs out a breath, blowing her long bangs out of her eyes. “It was so long ago…”
Maybe Peter won’t remember. Rafe and Nicole left the team at the same time. Eric replaced Nicole—he has no reason to connect her with the group currently hiding the Obsidian Queen.
Peter turns from her, his icy gaze falling on me. “You’ve been playing us.”
Before I can think of an answer, he turns away, seeming eerily calm and collected—until he slams his fist through the wall. Ice coats the broken plaster, spreading to the ceiling.
Nicole gasps and stumbles back.
I’m frantically looking around the room for a weapon when the doorbell rings. We all swivel to the closed door, and then Peter looks my way. With his cold glare on me, he grabs Nicole, holding her by the neck. She stumbles toward him, her eyes wide, not daring to fight. She’s a Deer—she knows exactly how quickly he could bring her to a state of hypothermia.
The move isn’t subtle—I get it. Keep quiet, don’t make so much as a peep, or Nicole dies.
“Chloe,” Eric hollers through the door. “You forgot your phone.”
But…my phone is in my pocket.
“Chloe,” he hollers again, insistent.
I could manipulate the lock with my magic, maybe even swing the door open. But what about Nicole?
Eric rings the doorbell again. “Come on, Chloe. I won’t stay.”
Movement from the dining room, behind Nicole and Peter, catches my attention. I almost cry out, but Jonathan brings his finger to his lips.
I blink at him, trying to process. How the heck is he here?
Quietly, Peter drags Nicole over to me and says, “Open the door, take your phone, and tell him to leave. If you try anything, I will kill Nicole, and you know I don’t want to do that.”
I sure as heck don’t know that.
Trying not to look at Jonathan, I turn to the door, walking slowly.
The doorbell rings again several times, and Eric hollers at me—completely out of character. Suddenly, I realize what the Bunny is doing—he’s trying to distract Peter to give Jonathan a chance to—
A gunshot rings through the small house, making me jump a mile in the air.
Suddenly, the front door comes flying open, and Eric is in the room, gun in hand, looking very much like a knight marshal and not the man I kissed five minutes ago.
I swing around and find Peter on the ground, bleeding into Nicole’s white carpet. I’m pretty sure he’s not getting up again.
Clasping a hand over my mouth, I turn. The combination of the sight plus the adrenaline running through my veins makes me ill, and there’s an excellent chance I’m going to be sick.
Suddenly, I’m in Eric’s arms, and he’s squeezing me so tightly, I can’t breathe. “Are you all right?” he demands.
Numbly, I nod. “How did you…”
When he’s sure I’m not injured, Eric releases me. “Peter saw us leave the wedding together. Jonathan noticed him paying too much attention, so he followed him to the parking garage, and then he tailed him here. Once he ran the address and found out it was your house, he tried to call.”
“Next time you should freaking answer,” Jonathan mutters. He leans over Peter’s body, rubbing his temples. “By the time you showed up, I was halfway up the lattice, hoping to get into the room over the garage. Eric finally called me back just as I was breaking in.”
I stare at the Griffon, still too overwhelmed to truly process any of it.
“Well, this is a fine mess.” Jonathan stands, shaking his head. “What are we going to do with him? We can’t report him as Entitled without exposing Chloe and possibly Madeline, and the guild is going to realize he went missing as soon as he doesn’t show up to work on Monday.”
“Jonathan,” Nicole says softly, and the knight freezes.
Tears stream down my best friend’s face. When I realize how close she came to freezing to death, I choke back a sob that hits me out of nowhere. Her neck is red and angry where Peter clasped her, and it looks like it must hurt something awful.
Slowly, the Griffon turns, and his tan face goes ashen. He stares at his former—supposedly deceased—teammate, looking like he’s seen a ghost. And I guess to him, he has.
The knight’s attention was so focused on Peter, he didn’t realize who the Dragon had in his clutches. Eric finally takes a moment to look at her as well, and then he freezes too. Together, they stare at the Deer, gobsmacked.
“Nicole?” Jonathan finally whispers, taking a tentative step forward. “What in the—”
Before he can finish, she crosses the room and throws herself in his arms—not in a romantic way, but like a woman hugging a brother she hasn’t seen in years. He hugs her back, holding her fiercely. She cries into his shoulder, spilling everything that’s happened since she left the team, and he listens, nodding dumbly.
“The guild can’t find her,” I finally say, deciding it’s time to break up this little reunion. I’m sure the neighbors heard the gunshot, and the human police are likely on their way as we speak. I glance at Peter, feeling ill once more. “And the Entitled can’t find me. Nicole, we need to leave now.”
Eric turns to me, frowning with thought. Then he nods to himself as if making a decision. “We’ll hide you both at our place.”
“What about Gray?” Jonathan clears his throat and then drops his voice. “What about Rafe?”
Eric glances at the body, and then he ushers me to the door. “We’ll figure it out later.”
The story continues in Creatures of Midnight, the fourth book in the Obsidian Queen series.
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Creatures of Midnight
View the Book on Amazon
Twenty-two-year-old Madeline Bennet is certain of three things: she’s sick and tired of being kidnapped, her love life is a royal mess, and something is wrong with her magic.
Madeline is fabled to be the only woman alive who can open the thresholds to Aparia, but there’s a tiny problem—she can’t sense the magic to unloc
k them, and time is running out. The creatures of shadows are creeping out of hiding once more, the Entitled are furious she slipped through their fingers, and the Royal Guild has discovered her existence.
At least her knights have her back…mostly. Eric keeps disappearing, Gray is half in love with the tracker who followed them home from Vegas, the tracker is half in love with Jonathan, and Rafe…
Well, no one ever knows what the Obsidian Knight is thinking.
It’s clear Madeline must shove thoughts of romance aside and focus on learning more about her Obsidian magic, but the answers she’s seeking seem to lead to more questions.
The most chilling of all: did she link her magic with the wrong knight?
View the book on Amazon
Also by Shannon Lynn Cook
Obsidian Queen
Guild of Secrets
Princess of Shadows
Knights of Obsidian
Creatures of Midnight
Traitor of the Entitled: An Obsidian Queen Novella
Writing as Shari L. Tapscott
Silver & Orchids
Moss Forest Orchid
Greybrow Serpent
Wildwood Larkwing
Lily of the Desert
Fire & Feathers: Novelette Prequel to Moss Forest Orchid
Eldentimber Series
Pippa of Lauramore
Anwen of Primewood
Seirsha of Errinton
Rosie of Triblue
Audette of Brookraven
Elodie of the Sea
Grace of Vernow: An Eldentimber Novelette
Fairy Tale Kingdoms
The Marquise and Her Cat: A Puss in Boots Retelling
The Queen of Gold and Straw: A Rumpelstiltskin Retelling
The Sorceress in Training: A Retelling of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Contemporary Fiction
27 Ways Series
27 Ways to Find a Boyfriend
27 Ways to Mend His Broken Heart
10 Ways to Survive Christmas with Your Ex
Glitter and Sparkle Series
Glitter and Sparkle
Shine and Shimmer
Sugar and Spice
If the Summer Lasted Forever
Just the Essentials
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About the Author
Shannon Lynn Cook is a pen name for an Amazon bestselling author who woke up one day and decided life would be more interesting with magic and lots of love interests. (For her characters, not herself.)
She drinks too much sweet tea, prefers pie to cake, and hopes to someday own a hairless cat of her very own. Shannon lives in Colorado with her beloved (romance-hating) husband, two creative kids, and several extremely demanding fur babies.
Shannon also writes contemporary romance and fantasy fiction as Shari L. Tapscott.
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Traitor of the Entitled Novella Page 8