Page 56 of The Fae Menagerie
"Leave him alone," I said. "He doesn't want you."
"How?" Aidan tried to see him through my semitransparent wings. "How can he resist my call?"
I wanted to share my fear, that Parker and I were fated mates, but I didn't want that news to make it back to mygrandmother. If she thought Parker was my fated mate, she would send him packing to the human realm for the sheer audacity. No human and fae pairings in our histories, thank you very much. And definitely no fated mates.
"What did you think your bite would do to me?" Parker stepped out from behind my wings, despite my attempt to keep him hidden. We did a little sideways shuffle around Aidan, but he was not amused.
"What it does to everyone. Fill you with lust. For me."
Parker scoffed. "I'm ace. That won't work on me."
Parker was somewhere between gray or demisexual, but Aidan didn't need to know that. I wondered if Aidan even knew what asexual meant.
"If you're asexual, why are you having sex with him?" Aidan's look of genuine concern surprised me. "If Doyle claimed sex would free you, he's mistaken."
"He's claimed no such thing." Parker was still on his feet and definitively not swooning. I'd seen full-blooded fae brought to their knees by an incubus bite. Whether because he was demisexual or because we were fated mates, it didn't matter. He was still mine, and Aidan had no effect on him.
Mine? Since when was I possessive? I shivered at the thought.
"If you must know," Parker continued, "I'm having sex with him because we're bored out of our minds in here and I'm not getting any younger. Would you have preferred I die a virgin?"
Aidan made a strangled sound in his throat, like he was choking on his tongue. "Virgin?"
"Not anymore." Parker shrugged.
"Doyle, may I speak to you in your room, alone?"
"Promise not to bite me?"
His gaze narrowed to slits. "I doubt the result would be any different. Follow me."
Parker reached for me, missing my hand but running his fingers along the edge of my wing. I shivered from his touch.
Once Aidan shut the door between us, he rounded on me, even as he lit the room's walls with his magic. "Why didn't you tell me he was your fated mate?"
"He is not my fated mate!"
Aidan folded his arms and stared at me until my wings vibrated with nervous tension. I hated his lengthy scrutiny, especially when he opened his mouth to speak but said nothing several times over the span of a quarter-hour. I wanted to scream when he finally chuffed a laugh and scuffed the toe of his boot on my carpet. "Rumor has it, your grandmother is the only one keeping you here. If she knew you were trapped with your fated mate …"
"She would kill him." I hated begging, but I had no choice. I closed the gap between us and grabbed onto Aidan's still crossed arms. I met his gaze as my eyes welled with unshed tears. "Please, Aidan. She must never know. Let her think we're miserable."
If my grandmother thought I'd found my fated mate, and that we'd sealed our bond, she would kill us both. She'd separated our line from fate, and here I was, running back to it.
"Let me bite you. If my bite affects you, he's not your mate."
I nodded, offering my wrist, same as Parker. "Anything."
"Your neck, Doyle. It needs to be on the neck."
I took a step back. "That's a mating mark. You'd mate me instead!"
"Incubi are incapable of giving mating marks. Our venom prevents it. It's part of our curse."
I sucked in a breath. That was why all books on incubi were missing from my library. I wasn't supposed to know I'd been barking up the wrong tree all those years. "You let me think you were my way out of here!"
"That's why they call this fae prison," Aidan reminded me. "Your grandmother chose me to be your warden. She wanted you safe from Drummond and the other fae princes who wanted to steal you away. Meanwhile, your mother gave you an out, this lesson about true love."
I swallowed hard. "He's not my fated mate. He's human." Never mind the song my heart sang every time we touched.
