A Queen of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 4)

“Just let him taste it,” Nyfain said. “After the issue in Starvos’s castle, I doubt anyone will comment.”

“I don’t like that suddenly he’s the one protecting me,” I grumbled. “I’m supposed to be the family protector. First there’s you, and now there’s him. I don’t like this big-brother role-reversal bullshit.”

Shit. I was starting to sound like my dragon, something she underscored by thinking, Neither do I. It’s unnatural.

Neither of the guys said anything. Apparently I’d have to just sulk rather than argue. How annoying.

Two staff members waited on either side of the grand doors. When we stopped in front of them, Hannon directly behind us and Weston behind him, the men pulled the doors wide for us to step forward. Another staff member waited just inside the dimly lit room, his arm folded up across his chest. He waited for us to stop beside him before calling out our names to the large room. He announced Hannon as well, making note of his animal, and said nothing about Weston.

Weston was noticed, though.

The king and queen of the Red Lupine Kingdom, King Xeno and Queen Annise, zeroed in on him immediately, tracking him as he moved to the side and found a position there. He didn’t glance their way, and if he was uncomfortable, he didn’t let it show.

King Xeno stood up and plastered a slick smile on his face. Anger simmered in his eyes.

“King Nyfain,” he said as he approached.

It was rude not to give an approaching royal one’s attention, which kept me from scanning the rest of the room to see if that slime Dolion was lurking somewhere. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be going anywhere.

A staff member in the customary white approached us and asked for our drink order. Xeno waited until the staff member had left before speaking.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again.” He stopped beside Nyfain, but his body was angled toward Weston against the wall. “I’d forgotten you existed for a minute.” He laughed like it was a grand joke.

I angled away, what Arleth had taught me was a polite slight. It was too early in the evening to be blatantly rude. Or so I had been told over and over again. She clearly knew me well.

“King Xeno, hello,” Nyfain said with a very obvious tone of boredom. “Please meet my mate, Queen Finley. And her brother the phoenix, Hannon.”

“Charmed.” Xeno showed his teeth when he smiled at me, a not-so-slight show of displeasure, or perhaps a warning. I wasn’t sure how he meant it. Wolf nuances were still tricky for me. He barely glanced at Hannon. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new…commander, I think you call it? Or is a dragon stooping to use the term beta for his second-in-command?”

Nyfain didn’t glance Weston’s way. “Weston is the commander of our wolf shifters. A beta is a fine term, as well. I really couldn’t care less what his role is called, as long as he does his job. He seems to agree.”

“Does he now?” Xeno turned just a bit, his teeth gritted and his eyes on fire. Every line in his body screamed frustration and anger. “Is that what you’re doing now, dragon? Poaching from other kingdoms?”

Nyfain glanced at him and then started laughing. When he spoke again, he reduced his tone to a low growl.

“That’s rich, Xeno, coming from you. I don’t have the magic to poach wolves, as you well know. And my guess is, you haven’t found anyone as strong as Weston to continue illegally doing that for you either.”

Xeno’s face blanched.

Nyfain nodded. “I know all about it. We both know all your efforts to reclaim Weston were in vain. He walked away and never looked back.”

“How’d you get him, though? I heard he’d died. His pack confirmed it.”

“He didn’t die. He was taken by the demons. He was kept in their dungeons and tortured. That is, he was tortured when he wasn’t being sold to wealthy demons to be their plaything. It was my mate who saved his life—who rescued all of the prisoners from the dungeons—and Weston repaid her by helping us rid the kingdom of our demon invaders. His desire to stay was all his own. He approached me. It seemed he thought he had nowhere else to go. If he wanted freedom, at any rate.”

Xeno’s lip curled. “Bullshit. The demons wouldn’t poach from my land.”

A flurry of emotions rolled through the bond, but Nyfain kept his composure.

“There’s that word again, Xeno. Poach. I think the word you’re actually looking for is kidnap, don’t you? That’s what you were doing, right? It is certainly what Dolion does. You kept people in a prison of magic. He keeps them in a dungeon.”

Nyfain turned to him, over a head taller, much more robust and wickedly scarred. He couldn’t have hidden the danger radiating from his person, or the vicious intent sparkling in his eyes. He didn’t try.