Page 59 of Demon Queen
Honey nodded. “She mentioned rabbits twice, so it’s definitely important.”
Gloria shook her head. “Um, no. If I inferred that you should work with one of that psycho queen’s favorites, feel free to completely disregard my vision. It’s clearly all rubbish.” She dove into her cake with intensity she usually saved for spirits.
The front bell started ringing, and then there was pounding and a few howls.
We left the kitchen but hadn’t crossed the living room when the front door burst open and Dorian wearing his human glamour entered the room, Hazen and Alpha Joe on either side. Dorian walked with authority, power, like he really was a king, coming over to scoop me up and cradle me against his chest. Even in a glamour he was dominating.
I was still holding a plate of cheesecake. “Um, hi there,” I squeaked, heart beating too fast. Wilkie was dying, but maybe I could do something about it. Something involving the White Rabbit. No way any of these men would be down with letting him out of jail. So I’d have to break him out. Cue hysterical laughter.
Dorian ran his nose over my face, down my cheek to my neck, leaving a trail of shivers in its wake. He smelled like cinnamon bears, and he felt like the coziest fire in the most awful winter. But that was a distraction. I had to save Wilkie no matter what else I did, and the White Rabbit was the key. Maybe. I might just be completely out of my mind over here.
“Time to return home, my love,” Dorian murmured, running a hand over my head, cradling me carefully in his strong arms. “There’s news of zombies stirring. You are not putting your arm in anyone’s mouth again.”
Dorian snuggled me close and carried me out to the car, like I was the child who couldn’t stand on my own two feet.
eighteen
. . .
How didyou break a rabbit out of a high security vampire prison? First, you have to get rid of your bodyguards. If you can’t get rid of them, you have to convince them to help you.
“You can’t talk to the White Rabbit,” Straldi said, tentacle beard twitching as he studied me on the other side of the charcuterie board in Drigo’s basement cave.
I gave him my most appealing smile. “But he knows the most about the Mad Hatter.”
He gave me a sharp fanged smile. “And yet, you can’t talk to the White Rabbit.”
“But if you’ll just…”
He actually put his hand over my mouth, the irritating, slimy, not terribly bad tasting fish man. He tasted more like Swedish fish than actual fish. His rainbow eyes swirled as he stared at me. “No. Absolutely not.”
I bit down, unthinkingly. He leapt away from me, horror written on every one of his tentacles as they twined and twirled in panic and he held his hand where I’d left a bloody gash.
His blood didn’t taste so good. My tongue started to tingle and then go numb. I slumped back on the couch and stared at the ceiling while my extremities got weird. Tingly.
“Dorian!” Straldi’s voice was panicked.
The door crashed open and Dorian stalked in, looking like a pre-erupted volcano upside down from my position on the couch. He leapt over the rail and then was there, practically on top of me as he checked my pupils.
“What did you do to my Queen?” He ran his velvety fingers over my cheek and throat, resting the tips on my rapidly beating heart.
“I didn’t think she’d bite me!”
Dorian lifted his head to snarl at Straldi before he returned his focus on me. “Precious love, you can’t die on me. Not now.” He slashed chunks of flesh from his arm and put it against my lips. What was he doing? Everything was buzzy and weird, but it seemed like I shouldn’t eat him. He’d hate me if I knew I was an angel. But he tasted so perfect, and…the world faded away into dreams and fog until everything turned to black.
And then he was kissing me. His skin was on mine and he was kissing me like his life depended on it. Fangs pricked my lips, then my throat, then my heart.
I gasped a breath and then my hands were in his silky hair, grabbing his king spikes and kissing him like there was nothing else in the world. He burned under my fingers, but I wanted more heat, more contact. All of it. I was drowning in this world and I needed to drown in him so that everything made sense. Which didn’t make sense, but what did in this mad, mad world?
I kissed him hard, pressing against him, knocking him onto the table, knocking the charcuterie board on the floor. I didn’t care. I needed him with every particle of my being. I tasted his tongue, and bit deeper, tearing into his lips and tasting the sweet addictive syrup of his blood. His heat ran through me, burningaway all the pain, fear, and misery, leaving me with a bubbling euphoria that grew when I pressed my teeth to the side of his throat.
His wings wrapped around me, and then in that little cinnamon bear cave, while I devoured him, he whispered words in a language I didn’t know, kissing me and touching me while I ripped him apart.
Then he gasped like someone had stuck him with a pin and arched back, away from me, bare chest, gouges in his neck and face that left him almost unattractive in the most attractive way. Wait. I’d just eaten him. What did that mean? And Wilkie. What…
He convulsed three times and then melted to the ground in a puddle of molten lava.
“Well that was unexpected,” I said to no one, and then the lava puddle shivered, shook and then came together, lunging up to reform into this massive lava bear that dripped liquid cinnamon metal as it moved, shaking itself, sending droplets of molten sweetness around the demon den while he fixed his flickering gaze on me. A bear was in the den with me. He was much larger than a polar bear, with molten fur and a spiked crown and tail.
