Page 25 of The Fae Menagerie
"Don't you Ma'am me." Mother shook her head and frowned. "I love when humans call me Mother Thera. Makes me sound important." At least she hadn't said "saintly." No one, human or fae, would mistake my mother for a saint. "I'll have Payton look into the poisoned treats," she said.
"Aidan," I groused. From what I'd gathered from Horace, a Payton worked further down the line, in the spider enclosure, and he wouldn't know the first thing about who poisoned my scones. It wouldn't help if she contacted Aidan, either. Ifmy assumption was correct, he'd poisoned them when he'd deposited them on my table.
She stood and motioned me to my feet for another of her nonexistent hugs. She did the same to Parker, and then she disappeared.
Horace's kitchen window faced mine, and he waved. I waved back, wondering how much he'd gleaned about my life over the last month while I shared my space with Parker.
"Has anyone tried to poison your food lately?" I signed to him.
"No, but you've had far more activity in your enclosure than I have. Why do you have a cellmate?"
"Brought him back from the human realm when I was summoned."
Horace's head sank to his chest. "No one ever summons cuddlebugs."
"When I get out of here, I'll summon you, Horace Brown Sectidae."
I would, too. Cuddlebugs would terrify the shit out of humans with their spider mandibles and their extra appendages. I wasn't the type of fae who fed off human fear, but damn, some humans deserved to be scared with the way they pretended to be better than everyone else. Parker's ex, Bret, was the perfect example. I'd show Horace to Bret's place and have him make it his home.
"Do you know where Bret lives?" I asked Parker.
He frowned at me. "Yes?"
"Does he like bugs?"
"No. He always asked me to kill them for him."
My laugh was a little sinister as I motioned for Parker to join me at the window. I introduced him to Horace and translated for them. Well. Sometimes, I didn't share everything verbatim, like when Horace said he wanted to eat Parker up and that he wasgoing to make a feast of Bret's bones once he'd redecorated his apartment. (I now knew he lived in a walk-up on 11thavenue in a place called Bloomington, thanks to Parker.)
"We're going to be great friends, the three of us," I signed to Horace. I motioned to myself, Parker, and then to him.
"Oh. You like this human. He isn't torturing you?"
I snorted a laugh. "No torture!"
"Pleasure?" Horace rubbed his shorter front legs across his mandible, a very lewd term in cuddlebug society.
"Don't let your daughters see that." I sighed. "It's … complicated."
"Humans always are." Horace nodded his head in agreement and then waved goodbye.
Parker waved and headed for the library to grab the book he was reading. He said he wanted to read something to me, which probably meant yet another impossibly dexterous (or sappy) sex scene.
Movement caught the corner of my eye as I turned to watch Parker go. Horace had returned to the window. He signed for me to look beneath my sink. "Aidan is up to something."
Aidan was always up to something. I thanked him and turned my attention to the dark and dirty area beneath my kitchen sink.
Chapter
Nine
PARKER
I thoughtDoyle would follow me into the library, where we usually spent our afternoons, but he was still banging around under the kitchen sink. I returned to the room to investigate.
"I'm sorry," I said when I found him on his hands and knees. "I told Chani we should clean under there, but they said not to bother."
"Can you grab a flashlight from my closet?"
