The Summer King Bundle: 3 Stories by Jennifer L. Armentrout

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Incapable of moving, all I could do was stand there as what felt like a fist reached into my chest and squeezed. That was how I knew what he was about to say. My heart already knew.

  “I think you’re incredibly brave, foolishly so at times,” he continued, and a rush of prickly heat crept up the back of my neck. “You’re intelligent and kind, and your beauty rivals that of the sun.”

  I sucked in a shaky breath. All of that sounded… sounded wonderful and beautiful and something I felt like I’d been waiting my whole life to hear, but…

  I knew where this was going.

  “Stop,” I whispered, voice embarrassingly hoarse. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I do,” he said, and I closed my eyes against the sudden, unwanted burn. “You are a treasure, Brighton.”

  “Okay,” I laughed, the sound coarse to my own ears. “I’m a treasure?”

  “You are.” His voice softened.

  I opened my eyes and I hated that. Hated how his expression wasn’t void of emotion anymore. It was strained and tense and his gaze was conflicted.

  Pressing my lips together, I dragged my hand through my hair as the wind seemed to whoosh out of my lungs.

  “I don’t want things to be awkward between us,” he said, and another laugh crawled up my throat.

  I turned back to him. “Why would it be awkward, Caden?”

  He flinched at the sound of his name. “Because what we had, whatever that was, it wasn’t real. It was an act that… that got out of hand.”

  There it was.

  He wasn’t beating around the bush anymore, but I didn’t understand. I knew what he was saying, but it didn’t make sense.

  “You told me it was real.” I managed to keep my voice steady. “You even called me out when I lied about how I felt. You said you wanted me. You just kissed me. You said you—”

  “The physical part was real. How could it not be? You’re beautiful and I’m—”

  “And you’re a man, and that’s just how it goes? Really?” My eyes widened. “That’s how you’re going to play this? There was just a physical attraction and that’s all?”

  “I’m not playing anything. It’s just the way it is.” Caden turned from me, shoving a hand over his head, through his hair. “It’s the way it needs to be. You’re human and I’m—”

  “I know what you are.” My heart pounded in my chest as I folded my arms across my stomach. “I’ve always known what you are.”

  “Then you should know,” he said.

  “No, I don’t. You just kissed—”

  “I know I kissed you and that was—that was a stupid mistake.”

  “A mistake?” I whispered.

  “Things have changed.” His voice hardened now. “I don’t want things to be uncomfortable between us. We need to work together. You need to put this behind us. I already have.”

  The hole in my chest cracked my heart as I stumbled back from him. I knew it shouldn’t matter. I was just acknowledging that I had feelings for him—how deep those feelings ran, I didn’t know—but there was a hole opening up in my chest.

  There was no denying he meant what he said. I heard it in his voice. I saw it in his face, and I had no idea how I’d misread things with him so badly. How I could’ve been so damn foolish to think there was more to what was between us.

  Humiliation festered to life, settling into my bones and spreading like a fever, flushing my skin.

  Caden—no, he wasn’t Caden to me anymore. He was just the Prince, and he must’ve sensed the sharp, bitter swirl of emotions churning through me, because he stepped toward me.

  “Brighton—”

  “I get it.” I cut him off as I stepped to the side. “Message received.”

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t apologize. God, please don’t apologize. That’s….” When his face began to blur I knew I needed to get out of this room. I would not lose it in front of him. I would not cry over what could have been when there was apparently nothing in the first place. “You said… you said you wouldn’t hurt me. You lied.”

  He drew back as if I’d hit him.

  “I need to go,” I said.

  And I did.

  Ivy and Ren would’ve been here by now, waiting for us in the main common area, and I just… I just needed to get the hell out of this room.

  Giving him a wide berth, I skirted around the chairs and made a beeline for the door. I made it and I made it out into the empty hallway knowing that the Prince could’ve stopped me at any moment.

  But he hadn’t.

  He’d chosen not to.

  Acknowledging that hollowed out my chest, and I walked to the common area in a daze, focused only on breathing around the burn in my throat.

  Hands shaking, I kept them fisted tight as I picked up my pace, reaching the main hall. There were fae everywhere. They spilled out from the common area, their eyes wide and the hum of excitement charged the room.

  I had no idea what was going on as I scanned the unfamiliar faces. There was a shock of red hair toward the back. Ivy. She and Ren were here, which meant that was probably where Tink was. Concentrating only on getting to them, I didn’t notice the first fae to drop to their knee before me.

  But then they went down in a wave, one after the other, dropping to their knees and bowing deeply, placing their right hands on the floor. All of them went down until I could see Ivy standing near the entrance to the common room and beside her was Ren. Both looked surprised as I felt.

  Neither of them looked as shocked as Prince Fabian, though, which was saying something because both Ren and Ivy looked about as confused as I felt.

  Prince Fabian’s long blond hair was pulled back, revealing just how pale his face was as his lips moved wordlessly.

  Then he dropped to his right knee and placed his right hand onto the floor.

  “What the hell?” I whispered, turning around slowly, knowing they weren’t bowing for me, because duh.

  Things are different now.

  I saw him in the hall I’d just hurried out of, the edges of his blond hair brushing those wide shoulders and those odd amber eyes were not on the fae who were bowing to him but on me.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered as Tink’s words from the night the Prince was wounded came back to me in a rush. If he dies, then Fabian becomes King and he… he can’t be King.

  Did that mean…?

  He closed his eyes and a reddish-yellow glow appeared, just like it had before, as if there was a halo of light behind him. There was no flaming sword this time when the glow receded.

  Instead there was a burnt gold crown atop his head.

  Caden was no longer the Prince.

  He was the King.

  The King

  Acknowledgments from the Author

  Thank you to Liz Berry, Jillian Stein, MJ Rose, Kim Guidroz, Chelle Olson, and the wonderful powerhouse team behind 1001 Dark Nights. Thank you for allowing me to continue to be a part of the family.

  And thank you, the reader, always and forever.

  Chapter 1

  “I don’t think this is wise,” Tink said for what had to be the hundredth time since he realized I was getting ready for a night out. “Like I think this is very poorly thought-out, if you ask me, Lite Bright.”

  “I didn’t ask you, Tink.”

  My uninvited roommate of sorts hovered outside my bathroom. Tink wasn’t human, but right now, he looked like any normal twenty-something guy. Well, if normal, twenty-something guys had natural, shockingly white hair and were beautiful in a way that almost seemed fragile.

  This was his full-grown Tink size, something I was still—even after all this time—getting used to. I was more accustomed to pint-sized Tink with the translucent wings. After all, he was a brownie.

  After the attack that had taken my mother’s life and should’ve ended mine, he’d basically moved in with me. He’d been here for the last two years, something Ivy’s husband pretended to be grateful for, but in reality, I kne
w he secretly missed the dude.

  “You should ask me,” he replied. When I glanced over at him, I got a little distracted by the dazzle…emanating from the sequin tank top he wore. It was so shimmery that I wondered if he was using some of his magic.

  Tink may be a goofball, but he was also one of the most powerful creatures in our realm.

  Thank God there was only one of him.

  “I am a wealth of amazing advice,” he continued. Dixon, the cat he’d named after a Walking Dead character that Tink called “the hottest redneck eva” slinked around Tink’s ankles. The cat was all gray except for his tail, which looked like it had been dipped in white paint.

  I snorted. “When have you ever given me good advice?”

  “When I told you two weeks ago not to eat the whole carton of beignets because you’d get sick and you did,” he shot back.

  I winced, picking up my mascara. I had gotten sick, but I deserved that carton of sugary, fried goodness. That day…

  I didn’t want to think about that day.

  “And what about when you ordered that supreme pizza and ate almost all of it?” he said. “I told you that it would probably make you feel bad later.”

  Nose wrinkling, I tried to remember what night he was talking about. There were a lot of Friday nights—pizza night in my household—that I ate an entire pie and felt terrible afterward.

  “Or how about that time I told you that the seared ahi tuna looked a little gray for my liking? But, oh no, Brighton knows better.” He reached down, scratching Dixon between the ears. “You ate it all, and then I spent the night cleaning up your puke.”

  Ew.

  I hadn’t eaten seared ahi tuna since then.

  “And let us never forget when you ate the whole bag of—”

  “Why do all your examples involve me pigging out?”

  Tink raised his brows.

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. You know, you used to totally support me going out there and finding the fae responsible for killing my mother.” I twisted toward him just as Dixon scampered across my bedroom, launching himself onto my bed. “I have a name now. The Ancient who was with the fae that night. The one who ripped my mother’s throat out and tried to gut me.”

  “I know, and that’s all the more reason you shouldn’t go out there looking for him.”

  “I don’t understand your logic.” I pointed the tube of mascara at him. “I’ve been searching for him, and now he’s here, somewhere in this city. I’m going to find him.”

  “Aric’s an Ancient, Brighton,” Tink argued. “They are not easy to kill, and they’re incredibly dangerous. Way more powerful than an ordinary fae.”

  “I know that. Look, after I saw him at that bar Thieves, no one else has seen him. But Neal has been sighted at Flux. Neal is working with Aric.” I turned back to the mirror, and heavily lined eyes stared back at me. “If anyone knows where to find Aric, Neal will.”

  “And you think you can make him tell you?”

  “You don’t need to sound so shocked by the idea,” I muttered, opening the mascara.

  “Neal is an Ancient, too. He’s been alive for hundreds—”

  “I know what an Ancient is, Tink. Look, they’re doing something to the Summer fae younglings, turning them evil. This isn’t just about me.” And that was true. I suspected that I knew what was responsible, a substance called Devil’s Breath. It was similar to one of the world’s most powerful drugs derived from a borrachero tree—scopolamine, South America’s zombie drug. Harris, who had since passed, wrote about it in one of his journals, saying that a white, powdery substance had been found in nightshade, a drink the fae favored. The only way to be sure that it was responsible for what had caused the youngling to turn as he had was to catch one who was infected or get my hands on the drink.

  “We need to stop them,” I said.

  “Ivy and Ren will stop them.” Tink leaned against the doorframe. “That’s their job.”

  An uncomfortable rush of heat rose to my skin as I looked back at Tink. “It’s my job, too. I am a member of the Order, despite the fact that everyone keeps forgetting about that.”

  Tink’s pale blue eyes widened. “I know you are. I didn’t mean it wasn’t your duty. You’re—”

  “It’s okay,” I cut him off, knowing that whatever compliments he gave me about my battle prowess wouldn’t be words he believed. Over Tink’s shoulder, I saw Dixon stick his furry ass in the air, shaking it for a second before attacking my pillow, sinking his claws and teeth deep as he rolled.

  I’d gone through so many pillows because of that cat.

  I sighed, turning back to the mirror to get back to work finishing the rest of my makeup. In other words, I made myself look like a walking and breathing Snapchat filter.

  It wasn’t just makeup I was putting on. I was reshaping the angles of my cheeks and brow with shading and highlighting, skills I had picked up from a YouTuber who was probably all of thirteen years old. I was drawing in fuller, pouty lips with a liner, and creating the illusion of wider eyes by using thick eyeliner and deepening the lower eyelid with foundation and shadow. Combined with my newly contoured face and the long, curly, black hair courtesy of a wig, no one would recognize me as Brighton Jussier.

  Except him.

  He would know it was me.

  I closed my eyes as a pang lit up my chest. Damn it. I was not going to think of Ca—of the King. Nope. Not at all.

  After swiping on a layer of mascara, I shoved the wand back into the tube. Finished, I stepped back and got a full look at myself.

  The thigh-length, super-tight, black dress and red lips combo could be summed up in one word. Vampy.

  Dressing this way wasn’t exactly normal for me. I was a sweats and a T-shirt type of girl, but no one in this world or the Otherworld was more distracted by tits and ass than the fae, male or female.

  Brushing past Tink, I went back into my closet that used to be a small nursery.

  Tink followed. “The black knee-highs would complete your I-charge-a-lot-for-sex look.”

  “Perfect.” I snatched them up.

  He watched me shove my feet into the footwear. “Why don’t we have an Avengers marathon tonight?”

  Right boot halfway zipped up, I stopped and looked up at him. “We have watched every one of those movies five times, even Captain America. I don’t think I can sit through another Captain America.”

  “The movie is a little boring, but Chris Evans’ fine ass makes up for it.”

  I tugged up the zipper and moved to the other side. “True, but not today. It’s Saturday. Fabian is back. Aren’t you going to spend time with him?”

  “He can come over,” Tink suggested, clapping his hands excitedly. “You know I’m leaving soon. I’m going to be out of town for, like, forever. We should spend time together.”

  Tink was finally going with Fabian to Florida, where a large populace of Summer fae lived. For the last two years, the Prince had been trying to get Tink to visit, but he wouldn’t. The brownie claimed it was because he wasn’t ready to make that kind of commitment, but I thought it had more to do with the fact that Tink didn’t go out much. He’d gone with Ivy to California once, but other than a trip to Hotel Good Fae—the compound where the Summer fae lived—he stayed home. I imagined the human world was a bit overwhelming to him.

  “You’re not going to be gone forever,” I pointed out, admitting to myself that I was going to miss him and Dixon since he was taking the cat with him. “You’re only going down there for a few months.”

  “That is forever. Come on, it will be the best threesome ever.”

  Straightening, I arched a brow.

  “Chris Evans. Popcorn. Face masks. That kind of threesome.”

  “Uh-huh.” I reached into the cubby hole, grabbing what looked like simple bracelet cuffs. In reality, they hid iron blades sharp enough to pierce fae skin and cut an Ancient’s head off. “You can still have that threesome without me.” I snapped the cuffs into place. �
��I’ll be home late.”

  Tink turned. “The King doesn’t want you out there.”

  I stopped, and it took me a moment to face him. “That’s why you’ve gone from wanting me to take you with me, to asking that I don’t go out.”

  He lifted a shoulder.

  Taking a step toward him, I reminded myself that I liked Tink and stabbing him wouldn’t be cool. “Have you been telling him I’ve been hunting?”

  The brownie’s face went impressively blank. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Tink.” I met his stare and held it.

  He threw up his hands, startling Dixon enough that the cat released my pillow. “I didn’t tell him anything, but just so you know, if he demands it, I have to. He’s my King.”

  “Really?” I replied dryly.

  “Yeah. Sort of. But, seriously, he hasn’t asked me if you’ve gone out, but he has told me that he doesn’t want you out there. It’s not safe. He thinks—”

  “I know what he thinks.” I’d seen the King since he told me that there was nothing between us, which had come right after I admitted to myself that I was developing serious feelings for him—had already fallen for him, actually. Things weren’t exactly amicable between us. I was confident that if Tanner, the fae who oversaw Hotel Good Fae, heard me call his King an asshole one more time, he was going to ban me from the hotel. My jaw tightened. “He’s told me every time he’s seen me that I have no business hunting fae. That it’s the Order’s job. I guess, like everyone else, he’s forgotten that I work for them, too.”

  Which was why I kept calling him an asshole to his face. It wasn’t because he didn’t want me, even though he’d led me to believe that he did. It wasn’t because he made me think I was special and beautiful and interesting without the makeup, the fake hair, and the skimpy clothes. He was a different kind of asshole for those reasons. In a way, his dickish attempts to control me—which had failed—made it easier to deal with what had happened. The deep hurt had quickly given way to anger. And cursing someone out was far better than lying awake at night, crying as I ate yet another cupcake.