Page 57 of Enticing Monsters

The only person who stands to gain if V and Charise are taken out is…

Avril.

The youngest sibling.

Holy fuck.

It can’t be her. No way.

“So either someone in the royal family is aiding these attacks…or they have a traitor in their midst.” His eyes harden, turning to granite, and a muscle in his jaw tics. “Either way, if we have any hope of stopping the killer, then we need to get on Queen Marianna’s good side.”

“Which means going along with this sham of an arrest.”

Fuck.

I don’t like it at all.

Devyn tentatively steps forward and cups my cheek, his palm warm against my skin. His gold-flecked eyes search my own, but I can’t tell what he’s looking for.

“Do you trust me to do what needs to be done?”

I push up on my tiptoes and press my lips to his. It’s a chaste kiss—fleeting, really—but it’s all I can offer him at the moment.

“Do what you need to do to stop this murderer once and for all,” I tell him. “But make no mistake—I will put my mates first one hundred percent of the time, even if that makes me the most selfish bitch in the world. If this decision leads to the death of any of my men, then…” I swallow around the ball of fire in my throat. “Then I’ll nevereverforgive you.”

“I thinkI found someone who can help us,” Kian says as soon as I walk through the door of Xander’s apartment an hour later.

I feel exhausted, my limbs weighing one hundred pounds apiece. A splitting headache threatens to blow apart my skull and decorate the floor with brain matter.

“With which issue?” I ask, stepping aside so Xander can enter the apartment as well. “Because we have a shit ton at the moment.”

Kian simply waves his hand and leads us towards the spare bedroom, where V is lying beneath a mound of blankets. Sweat beads on his forehead, and his skin is an unhealthy shade of white that makes unencumbered fear pulsate through me.

Tristan stands on one side of the unconscious angel, while Foster sits perched on a chair in the corner of the room. And standing at the foot of the bed, his hands emitting a pale-blue light, is an unfamiliar man with white and black hair, a wrinkled face, and a large, bulbous nose.

A healer, though I can’t tell what species he is. Perhaps a pegasus. I heard they’re gifted at using healing magic.

I turn towards Kian in alarm—we decided unanimously not to alert the public to V’s condition in case his enemies choose to use his vulnerable state to their advantage—but my incubus’s eyes gleam with excitement.

“Don’t worry,” he tells me, before lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I compelled him to keep his mouth shut about what he sees here no matter what.”

“Compelled him?” Understanding dawns, and I turn to stare at Kian fully. “You used your powers? Kian…”

My heart hurts for him.

I know he hates what he can do, the gifts he has, and the last thing I want is for him to feel like he needs to utilize his powers for me and our makeshift family. This sweet, broken man has been taken advantage of his entire life, and I won’t allow that to happen again. Not under my watch.

Kian places his hands gently on my shoulders and gives them a squeeze. “It’s okay, angel,” he tells me sincerely. “I want to do this.”

He swallows, and I watch the way his throat works in rapt fascination. Kian truly is a beautiful man, and not just on the outside. He glows with an inner radiance that puts most other fae to shame.

“I’d do anything to protect you and the others. You guys are my family. I know that you don’t want me simply because of my powers as an incubus.” A soft smile curls up his lips. “Which only makes me fall for you harder.”

Overwhelmed by the enormity of my feelings for this man, I wrap my arms around his waist and rest my head against his chest. I can hear his heart beat rapidly beneath me, the repetitive thump-thump-thump somehow able to calm the turmoil raging in my mind.

That is, until the healer steps away from V’s still form and says, “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

I whirl towards the old man so fast, I’m half afraid my head will fall off my neck. “What?” I reach for one of my bracelet blades, but Kian places a comforting hand on my bicep, stopping me. “What do you mean? You’re a healer?—”

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