Page 110 of Fae Champion

Oh, so when she was trying to manipulate him with her feminine wiles, suddenly she reverted to it beingtheirsubjects,theirrule. Surely my father wouldn’t fall for her fickle dragonshit.

A familiar disillusionment coated my skin like a dirty film as my father’s anger gentled in response to her artifice, the ire lighting his brown eyes dimming so that they became once more unremarkable.

He looked at me with an expression I imagined was meant to convey parental disappointment. “You really shouldn’t have done that. Such an offense…”

My mouth dropped open. I snapped it shut, protesting, “Shewaslying.”

“That’s not the point,” said my idiot seed donor. “Lying’s a given with ruling. It’s how it’s always been done, forever and ever. It’s how it always will be done. It must be this way.”

“Oh,must it?” I snarled.

He yanked his chin into his neck as if me mouthing off—when my freaking life was on the line—was the worst of everything going on here. For sunshine’s sake, the pygmy ogres’ heads were still strewn about!

Nostrils flared, he said, “Yes, Elowyn, it must. Clearly, my wife is right and you don’t understand anything about what Embermere’s like or what its needs are. Hmmph.”

The queen smiled slyly, then hid it by transforming it into some demure bullshit when my father again faced her. She gazed up at him coyly from beneath lashes coated in a dark kohl that made the blue of her eyes seem to glow, and I decided with finality that I was rescinding my offer to allow Rush to kill me. I must have been out of my mind to agree to it in the first place. If for nothing else, I had to live because I was theonly one who apparently saw right through her. Well, maybe Dashiell saw her for the treacherous serpent she was. He alone looked at her with evident wariness, quietly clicking his nails together as if as desperate to escape her presence as I was.

The queen finally rose from her throne, the train of her dress slinking along the floor behind her as she sauntered over to the king. The heavy beading of her train scraped along the floor, sounding like someone trying to claw their way out of one of the many dungeon cells several floors beneath us.

She trailed fingertips along the king’s arms and shoulders as she circled him, leaving Dashiell to scamper out of her way. Even though the gauzy fabric dragged across splatters of blood, gore, and crystal, not a single speck of any of it affixed itself to her impeccable attire—more magic.

“I’m glad we understand each other, my darling,” she cooed.

I grimaced at the sugary sweetness of it. No way would my father fall for this obvious display of manipulation!

The moron leaned into her touch, allowing his eyelids to drift closed.

My own eyes shut for a few moments in utter exasperation. If only it had been my mother’s people who’d found me instead of his. Surely any of them would have been a thousand times more intelligent than he.

“She might be the … misguided fruit of your loins,” the queen continued in a purr I wished I could unhear, “but she’srottenfruit. And you, my dear, are deserving of nothing but the most splendid, shiny, ripe, colorful fruit on the tree. You deserve … perfection.”

She pressed into his side, brushing her lips across his neck. He moaned so softly it was little more than an exhale, but those blood-red lips of hers curved at her success.

“After all,” she added with a seductive smirk, “you have me: perfect … squeezable … gropable … lickable … edible … fruit.” The tip of her tongue snaked out to slide along the tip of his earlobe.

He shuddered.

Everyone but Dashiell, Rush, and me seemed mesmerized by the sexuality she slathered on the man like butter. Though he did a decent job of hiding his true feelings, Dashiell was as disgusted as I felt, I was sure of it. Rush merely appeared terrified—or perhaps it was regret that made him visibly vibrate against his chains.

The queen finished rounding the king and faced him, the fingertips of both hands playing along his shoulders as if strumming the very mandolin he’d accused her of wielding.

“You like your perfect fruit, don’t you?” she said, voice imitating a girl much younger than she was.

“I do,” he breathed.

She pouted. “And you don’t like rotten fruit, now do you?”

“No,” he again breathed, sounding so absent that Iwondered if the queen might not be using some magic on him.

“Good.” She spun to face me and leaned back into him. Greedily, his hands latched onto her hips. She allowed her head, with all its shiny loose hair, to drape across one of his shoulders. “Then let’s go and have some …fun”—she peeked up at him, dragging teeth across her bottom lip, thinning the scarlet pigment coating it—“and leave Rush to do what he promised.”

The king inhaled her scent, his eyelids fluttering while he bent to kiss the long line of her neck she pointed his way. “And what’s that?” he asked, sounding fully addled.

“Oh, nothing for you to worry yourself about anymore, darling. Elowyn isn’t good for this kingdom, which means she’s not good for either one of us, so Rush has agreed to kill her. Take me now, and let’s leave him?—”

Slowly, my father blinked away his arousal. “Rush can’t kill Elowyn. No one can kill her.”

The queen growled, her act dropping in a flash as she stepped away from him, spinning on him and crossing her arms over her chest. “And why the hell not? We’ve already been over this.”

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