Page 69 of Enticing Monsters

“Scaly, huh?” Cadmus offers me a sharp-toothed grin. “First you call me cowardly and then scaly. You really are testing my patience, aren’t you, little fighter?”

“She did what now?!” The unknown woman places a hand over her chest as if I personally offended her.

It wouldn’t surprise me if she daintily fainted like one of those maidens in a Victorian movie.

I take a moment to study her.

She’s taller than me. Significantly so. The type of woman Caleb would be drooling over if he were here with us. Her dark hair tumbles around her shoulders in loose curls and frames a seductively gorgeous face—plush red lips, violet-colored eyes, and a tiny nose. I feel a strange tingling in my body the longer I look at her.

I’m not into women at all, but I can’t help but imagine leaning in and pressing my lips to hers, inhaling her sweet scent, caressing her perfect body?—

Understanding dawns on me with a startling clarity, and I break eye contact with a curse.

Motherfucker.

That woman is a succubus.

She grins, pleased that she was able to use her powers on me, before her eyes trail over my men. They stop on Kian, and possessiveness shoots through me at the sultry look she throws him.

Possessiveness…and protectiveness.

No oneis allowed to touch him or even look at him if he doesn’t want them to.

She takes a step forward, her hips swaying in a way that’s designed to draw the eye, but I move before she can reach my mate. With an almost blistering speed, I grab a blade out of my hair and hold it at her throat. She stares at me in wide-eyed alarm, but this time, when her seductive magic pokes and prods at me, I’m able to bat it away as if it’s nothing more than a pesky gnat.

“If you go near my men, I will stab you,” I warn her seriously. “Don’t even fucking look at them.”

Her lower lip begins to tremble. “Cadmus,” she whines. Actuallywhines, like she’s a five-year-old girl instead of a twenty-something-year-old woman. “She’s threatening me.”

A single tear rolls down her cheek.

How does she make even crying look pretty?

I’m not an ugly crier by any means, but I definitely don’t make tears appear sexy.

“I heard.” Cadmus folds his arms over his chest, and I swear I see a tiny smile flirt with the corners of his mouth before he masks his expression. His eyes harden. “But you’re also aware of the sanctity of mating. You dare try to seduce a mated…quad?”

He fumbles over the last word, though his expression never changes.

“Cadmus…” She stealthily moves away from me and cuddles up against the snake man’s side, her breasts pushing against his arm. I roll my eyes so hard I practically see brain matter. “Who are these heathens? Why are they here? She was going to hurt me.”

Kian actually laughs out loud at that. “Trust me. If she wanted to hurt you, you wouldn’t be standing.”

The woman straightens and whirls on Kian, some of her tears drying up. She eyes him up and down like he’s a tasty morsel she yearns to devour whole.

Even still, anger radiates from every pore of her lithe body, permeating the air around us. “Are you threatening me, incubus?”

“Not at all.” Kian places his hands on my shoulders and gives them a squeeze. “But I will if you don’t stop eye-fucking me like you have any chance in hell of stealing me away.”

His lips touch my temple, the kiss quick and fleeting, and warmth skates down my spine.

“Rachelle.” Cadmus grabs the bridge of his nose and squeezes, almost like he’s praying for patience. “We don’t treat our guests this way.”

“Guests?” The succubus—Rachelle, apparently—scowls. “Where are they even from? I don’t recognize them from any of the clan gatherings.”

Cadmus’s gaze zeroes in on me, his expression unreadable. Those slitted eyes appear almost amber before the color darkens, turning subdued, almost brown, misted in shadow.

“That’s what I’d like to know as well.” He takes a single step closer to me, and I swear my heart pounds so loudly it’ll be shocking if no one can hear it. “Who are you, little fighter, and where did you come from? And, more importantly, how are you still alive?”

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