Page 34 of Insidious Monsters
The incubus prince had recovered from my knee to his royal jewels and stood flanked by his liveried guards, silver eyes slits of rage.
“You have no right to deny me. I am a crown prince of Faerie, and the treaty my kingdom has with your city allows me open pick of any supernatural I wish to feed from, I—”
“Barathos!” someone yelled across the street.
That was it. His name was Barathos.
Lothos strode toward us, bare-chested, barefoot, his long dark hair spilling across his tanned skin like an inky waterfall. The air sizzled where it touched his flesh and the gleam in his eyes told me he’d been mid-feed.
“Get away from her,” Lothos demanded.
Barathos turned to face him. “Why? What version of the truth will you tell me today, Lothos? I made inquiries; she hasn’t lain with you for the past few weeks. A nova prima cannot go that long without her primus’s touch, and a primus—”
“This is none of your business,” Lothos snapped. “What I do with my nova prima is not your concern.”
Barathos’s eyes narrowed. “If you’ve released her from the contract, then she is fair game.”
Telarion growled softly, teasing the simmering anger in my blood to a burgeoning inferno, because once again the fucked-up government had put the rights of the non-humans below the rights of the pure humans, and like hell would I allow this fucker to get a taste of my life force.
“Fuck you, Barathos.”
He tipped his head my way. “It’ll be me fucking you soon enough.”
Telarion’s rage communicated itself as a rumbling vibration against my back. The air grew heavy with the tension that preceded an explosion.
This was one bastard I wouldn’t mind seeing getting his head chewed off.
“Don’t!” Lothos rushed forward. “Telarion, please. Don’t. My people need him.”
“Not my problem.” Telarion’s grip on me tightened as he began to push me aside.
“No, but August is…” Lothos gave me a pointed look. A reminder of all he’d done for me.
I didn’t want to intervene, but heck, I owed Lothos. “Telarion, we can’t kill him.”
He stilled. “We?”
I wasn’t sure why I’d said that, but it felt right. “Yes. We.”
Telarion snarled, his displeasure evident in the vibration of rage in his chest.
If Lothos felt this guy needed to live, then I had to trust that. I mean, Telarion had threatened him, and he hadn’t shit his pants and run, which meant he had confidence that a killing move was a last resort. That he was protected.
By who or what?
We didn’t have enough information to make a move on this guy.
I placed my hand on Telarion’s chest. “Please.”
Telarion exhaled heavily. “If he touches you, he dies.”
Lothos had moved closer to Barathos, his tone placating as he spoke to the prince.
I stepped in front of Telarion again and pressed my back to his chest, lending him what little calm I had left. “You can’t hurt him.” I kept my voice low, a whisper.
“I can.”
“Semantics. You know what I mean.”
