Page 56 of Fae Champion

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said despite the absurdity of her comments. If Xeno and Saffron were indeed alive, then I had even more reason for my prudence.

Not prudence, cowardice, my thoughts corrected. But I didn’t have the current luxury of walking the moral high ground. I had friends to protect, and that was without her reminding me that Pru and her kind were also on the line.

The queen frowned at me, then glanced at the king. “The things I do for you, darling.”

I swallowed the snort of all snorts.Yeah, I’ll bet.

She pasted a pretty smile on her face and giggled, patting his hand before withdrawing hers, as if too long touching him might … taint her somehow.

“Tomorrow Rush and Elowyn will be our entertainment,” the queen sang. “We’ll admire their prowess … or at least his.” She chuckled, setting off a chain reaction of mockery at my expense. “But tonight, allow my dancers to whisk you away to thoughts of … imagined delights. No fantasy is too great or too far out of reach at the Court of Embermere, where we faced off with the dragons and showed them who’s mightiest.”

Courtiers roared behind me. Even Dashiell celebrated the decades-old victory against dragons.

Then, on some invisible cue, the lights dimmed and smoke scented with a musk of bad decisions flooded the floor, obscuring much of the writhing snakes beneath. The orchestra shifted into a song that was pure seduction, deep bass beats and the persistent tempo of heated lovemaking.

Dancers clothed in silver, lacy scraps of fabric that valiantly attempted to conceal their erogenous zones and largely failed, swarmed out in front of the dais, crowding Rush, me, and the others out of the way. I found myself with my back pressed to Rush, his hands possessively gripping my waist. His sword was now within my reach and the queen a mere dozen feet away.

But then … most of the dancers dipped low, skimming the smoky floor with serpentine undulations that matched the constant writhing beneath their feet. They jerked left, right, then left again in a coordination so perfect it was art. They twisted, twirled, jumped up, then popped, locked, and popped again. I was mesmerized.

Five of the dancers, undoubtedly the most dauntless of the bunch, slunk toward the thrones. Ivar, Braque, and Dashiell retreated to stand with the royalguards who surrounded the dais, eyes pinned on their monarchs.

A man and woman danced on either side of the king’s throne without touching him, their movements jerky, overly revealing, and intended to provoke.

But right away, the queen’s dancers escalated their teasing to the next level. A male climbed atop her lap while another male and a female gyrated to either side of her, the one male coordinating with the man performing for the king so as not to interfere with each other.

The air grew dense with desire. A cello beat out adum, dum, duuum, dum, dum, duuumthat strings chased after. The dancers writhed over the king and queen until I decided I didn’t want to see my father like that. When the queen rubbed both hands across the crotches of the males, then encouraged them to rip away the top part of her dress, exposing a bustier that was morebustthan anything else, I murmured to Rush, “Can we leave now?”

“Yes, yes we can.”

But he and I remained glued to the spot, unable to look away from the arguably depraved spectacle. The queen continued to stroke the loins of the men to either side of her—and both of them responded eagerly, if their growing erections were any indication, visible through the tight shorts they wore. They jounced until their groins were within reach of her face.

But the queen now reached for the female instead, dragging down her stretchy silver top so it exposed bothbreasts—save for some see-through lace—and hooked it below them. The woman’s nipples were pert, pushing against the lace.

The queen snagged my gaze then, somehow finding me through the haze separating us, licked her lips, and dipped her head toward her dancers.

I jerked my sight away only to discover that her court was following her example. Sometime during the queen’s condemnation of Sandor, the petite, tall tables for small gatherings had been pushed to the side along with the refreshments, and now love seats dotted the floor and every recessed alcove. The courtiers’ colors were muted by the dim lighting and the smoke, but nothing could disguise what they were up to, and if they weren’t up to it quite yet, they intended to be soon.

I faced Rush. “What in the dragonfire is happening right now?”

His gaze trailed slowly across my face, down my neck to my cleavage, extra tempting thanks to the mighty efforts of my bustier, and back up to my lips. In the near darkness, his eyes were glassy with his mounting desire.

“Rush,” I prompted.

His eyes—intense orbs of turned-on silver—settled on mine. “Yeah?”

“What in sunshine’s going on?”

“They’re building energy for the Gladius Probatio finale tomorrow.”

“Aren’twesupposed to be the onesdoing that?”

His eyes glazed further, and his grin was wolfish. “If you insist.”

I rolled my eyes.That, of course, wasn’t what I’d meant.

Perhaps more confused than ever before, I sighed loudly and said, “Get me out of here.” Wherever he took me was guaranteed to be better than this.

17.THE MIGHTY, SACRED BEJEWELED WAND

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