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

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “We were discussing a possible lead.” Caden looked over at me, and our gazes met. Nothing could be gained from his expression, but heat bloomed across my cheeks nonetheless. His lashes swept down, concealing the amber hue of his eyes.

  “Oh, so now you’re okay with bringing her in on this?” Ivy demanded.

  Faye sighed, muttering, “Here we go again.”

  Kalen stared up at the ceiling.

  “I’m not okay with it,” Caden answered, refocusing on Ivy. “Not remotely. But it does not appear that any of us, no matter what we do, will change her mind.”

  Did including having sex fall in the whole no matter what we do equation? My eyes narrowed on him as a seed of illogical and ridiculous suspicion took hold.

  “This isn’t okay.” Ivy unfurled her leg. “I won’t be party to you—”

  “Stop.” Ren placed his hand on her leg. “He’s right. Nothing is going to change her mind. And at this point, we’re just beating a dead horse, and we don’t have time for that.”

  Ivy looked as if she wanted to argue. “Fine,” she snapped, sending me a look that said this wouldn’t be the last time I’d hear about this.

  Great.

  Kalen stepped forward at Caden’s nod. “We’ve learned that Aric is still in the city,” he explained. I stiffened. “He was seen this afternoon.”

  “Where?” I breathed.

  Kalen looked at Caden before answering. “He was seen exiting Flux.”

  “What?” I twisted in the chair and turned toward Caden.

  “Before you ask, yes, we’ve had eyes on Flux. He was not seen going in, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t well-hidden.” He paused. “Like some do when they go to Flux.”

  I ignored that. “And where did he go?”

  “That, we don’t know,” Ren answered. “They were able to tail him for a couple of blocks, but they lost him on I-10.” Based on Ren’s tone alone, I knew how ridiculous he thought that was. Yeah, depending on the day, traffic sucked, but…come on. “But he’s here. We’ll let Miles know so all Order members are on alert.”

  “And we’re increasing our own presence,” Faye added. “Between the two groups, we’ll form a net that can sweep the entire city. We will find him.”

  My gaze shot back to Caden, and I knew without a doubt that he would be out there tonight and every night until Aric was found. “I will—”

  The door opened, and I looked over my shoulder. It was Tanner and a younger man that I’d never seen before. They weren’t alone. There was a tall, lithe, dark-haired female fae with them. She wore a pretty, off-the-shoulder, pale blue and gold dress that would’ve looked great on a beach and terrible on me—someone who actually had hips. She was gorgeous, with delicate features, and whoever she was, she didn’t attempt to conceal the quicksilver tone of her skin. The male beside her didn’t glamour himself either.

  “My King.” Tanner bowed slightly before correcting himself and slipping into a full bow. His gaze flicked to me and then away. He swallowed, probably worrying that I was going to start screaming curse words at his King at any second. “I am sorry to interrupt, but I was sure you would want to know the moment our guests arrived.”

  Caden stood, but he did not speak as his gaze flickered across the two standing behind Tanner. A hardness settled across the King’s features, and tiny balls of unease formed in my stomach. I took a closer look at the two new fae, sensing that Caden was either not thrilled with the interruption or not exactly happy to see them.

  “This is Sterling,” Tanner advised. “And his sister Tatiana.”

  “I am pleased to meet you, my King.” The woman stepped forward, hands clasped under her breasts as she bowed deeply with the grace of a dancer. As she straightened, she smiled. “And I am honored to become your Queen and serve our Court together.”

  Chapter 7

  I couldn’t… I couldn’t have heard her right. Honored to be his Queen?

  A sharp blast of icy panic sliced through my stomach as I stared at the beautiful fae. No. No. There was no way I’d heard those words or understood them correctly.

  Because if I did, that would mean…that Caden was to be married. That he was engaged and belonged to someone else while…while I’d had him in my arms and inside me. If what I had heard was correct, that meant I’d never had him at all because he already belonged to someone else.

  My chest rose and fell with short, quick breaths as disbelief ripped through me. Knots formed in my stomach, and a tremor started in my legs, traveling rapidly throughout my entire body.

  “As I am honored to be joining my family with yours,” the brother spoke, bowing as gracefully as his sister.

  My heart started thumping harder, and then it was racing. Pressure seized my chest as I slowly turned my head toward Caden. He was speaking. I knew this because I saw his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear the words over the pounding of my blood in my ears.

  Caden was…he was to be married.

  I was going to be sick.

  Nausea twisted up my insides. I could taste bile in the back of my throat. I needed to get out of there. I needed to be far, far away.

  Placing my hands on the arms of the chair, I started to stand but couldn’t. The muscles all along my calves and thighs seemed to have turned to liquid.

  Caden looked at me then, and our gazes connected. I saw… I saw nothing in his expression, and I knew he saw everything in mine. He faced the door. “Give us a moment, please.”

  There was a brief hesitation. Tanner murmured words I couldn’t understand. Then Ivy and Ren shuffled out when they realized that Caden was asking them to leave. I felt Ivy’s stare, but I couldn’t look away from Caden as what we’d done the day before played over and over in my mind. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. That every breath I took did nothing to inflate my lungs or push oxygen through me. Faye and Tanner leaving momentarily blocked Caden from my view, and I…

  I hadn’t known what to think about yesterday or what it had meant. I’d been too wary about allowing my heart to run away from me. But I’d loved him before we had sex and I loved him afterward.

  And he belonged to someone else.

  Caden’s amber gaze collided with mine once more. My fingers began to ache from how tightly I was clutching the arms of the chair.

  God, I was so incredibly stupid, so recklessly naive to believe that him not wanting to feel what he felt for me meant that he felt more than he should, not that he only wanted me physically. Never once had I considered that perhaps he’d been fighting what he felt for me—whether it be more than the physical or not—because he was already committed to someone else. Obviously, this wasn’t the first time he’d heard about this…engagement. As if he weren’t involved in the whole damn process up until a handful of minutes ago. I doubted even the fae operated that way. Caden knew he had been promised to another when he kissed me, when he stripped my clothes from me and fucked me. Because that’s what he’d done, right? We hadn’t made love. We’d screwed. We’d fucked.

  And I was the other woman.

  “Say something,” he said.

  I opened my mouth, then closed it before I tried again. “What do you want me to say?” My voice was too hoarse, but I couldn’t clear my throat.

  His gaze searched mine. “Anything.”

  A sharp giggle tittered out of me. “You want me to say something? Me? You…you’re engaged?”

  “I am.”

  The blow his words landed knocked the wind out of me. My fingers eased off the arms of the chair. “How long?” I heard myself ask as if I didn’t already know the answer or that it would somehow change things.

  “Shortly after I ascended.” Caden looked away, his gaze fixed on the window. “It was…” A muscle flexed along his jaw. “It’s what’s best for… The Court wants their King and Queen united,” he replied, his voice monotone. “I am their King. It is my duty to serve them.”

  I stared up at him, anger slow to break through the disbelief, but it was there, heati
ng my skin and my blood. “Was it the best for your Court when you fucked me yesterday?”

  Caden’s shoulders tightened.

  “Twice?” Anger solidified the muscles in my legs. I stood.

  “I told you before that there could be nothing between us,” he said.

  “Yeah, and then you fucked me—”

  “I didn’t fuck you.” His gaze shot to mine, and those amber eyes now burned. “That is not what we did.”

  “It’s not? What the hell do you call screwing someone who is not the person you’re engaged to.”

  “It was…” He looked away again. “It should not have happened. Yesterday is on me. Not you. You did nothing wrong.”

  “I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not fucking engaged to someone else.”

  “All I can say is that I’m sorry, Brighton.”

  “You’re sorry?” My chest felt as if it were caving in on me. “Which part are you sorry about? What happened between us? Or the fact that you failed to mention that you’re engaged?”

  His jaw flexed once more. “All of it.”

  My heart fissured into millions of pieces. I’d been a lot of things in my life, but I’d never been a mistake. I’d never been a mistake with the same person twice. What did my mom use to say when I was younger? “Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me.”

  “You don’t understand.” He glanced at me. “You cannot possibly understand—”

  “Because I’m not a fae?”

  His eyes met mine, and an eternity stretched between us as a wild array of emotions flickered across his face. And then it all went away as if he’d shut down whatever he was feeling. “Yes, because you are not like me. I am a King. I must have a Queen, and you… You’re a distraction. A weakness that I will not allow to be exploited.”

  I jerked back a step. Deep, wounding hurt collided with fury. My legs knocked into the chair. Thrown off balance, I stumbled. Caden stepped toward me, reaching out.

  “Don’t touch me!” The sound of my voice was shrill to my ears as I straightened myself. A burn crawled up the back of my throat and then entered my eyes. “Don’t ever touch me again.”

  Caden—no, he wasn’t Caden. He was the King, and I shouldn’t forget that. The King pulled his hand back, and our gazes connected once more. The pressure in my chest continued to expand until it felt like something might burst.

  And then words did break free of me. “I want to tell you I hate you. I want to tell you that I despise you, but you would know that it’s not true.”

  He remained quiet, and a long moment passed between us as a hundred quick, in-complete thoughts flashed through my mind, forming all the things I thought I wanted to say to him.

  But only one fully formed.

  “I never once thought you were terrible for all the things you did while under the Queen’s spell. I hated that you held yourself responsible for things you had no control over. It killed me a little, but this….” A shudder racked me. “You did this. You led me on the first time, and you did it again. No, you didn’t make me any promises, but you know me better than most. You knew before yesterday that it was going to mean something to me. And you turned around and made me the other woman. You made me feel shame and regret, and for all of that, I think you’re terrible.”

  The King closed his eyes.

  Turning away from him, I picked up my purse and walked out of the room with my head held high, but my heart broken, and my body weighed down.

  It was only when I left the room that I realized it was the same one we’d stood in weeks before when he’d carved out his first piece of me.

  * * * *

  The trip back home was nothing but a blur of trees and concrete, people and cars. Ivy called. Three times before I silenced my phone. I didn’t know if she was calling because she’d sensed that something had happened between…the King and me, or if she was calling about my hunting. Either way, I couldn’t deal with her at the moment.

  I was strangely numb after I walked out of Hotel Good Fae and all during the ride home. Even as I pushed open the iron gate and walked toward my front door, I felt nothing. Or maybe I was feeling so much that it had overwhelmed my senses to the point where I couldn’t feel anything. Like I had reached some sort of internal meter where the gauge had been blown.

  But my hands trembled as I unlocked the front door, and they shook as I placed my purse and keys on the foyer table.

  I stood there for…I don’t know how long. Seconds? Minutes? I was supposed to be at work, but I didn’t think I could do that. Face Ivy. Miles.

  Stiffly, I turned from the foyer and walked through the silent house into the living room. Dixon wasn’t scampering across the hardwood floors. Tink and Fabian weren’t there to distract me with movies or silly conversations. I swallowed, but my throat seemed to lock up. I forced myself to take a deep breath—

  “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”

  Heart jumping into my throat, I spun around.

  A male stood a few feet behind me, brown hair clipped short, his cruelly handsome face just as I remembered. The faint smirk he wore twisted the scar that cut through his lip.

  Aric.

  Instinct kicked in. I sprang back—

  He was horrifically fast and on me before I even had a chance to engage the iron cuffs. He caught my wrists, locking them behind my back as his other hand clamped down on my throat.

  Seconds.

  Within seconds, he had me.

  “So, I thought I should come find you,” he said.

  I twisted, but his grip tightened. My eyes widened as he lowered his mouth to mine. I knew what was coming. Oh, God, I knew what was—

  Aric inhaled.

  My entire body jerked as if a tether had been formed between us. I was hooked to him, deep in the very core of my being. My insides flayed as he fed. The pain was like icy fire, burning me from the inside out, and I couldn’t break free as it dragged me down into an abyss of nothing but searing coldness.

  Chapter 8

  I was cold.

  That was the first thing I realized when I slowly drifted out of the black fog that consumed every part of my being.

  Shivers skated up and down my body. I didn’t know I could be this cold. My skin was chilled to the bone, and icy dampness seeped through my dress. How…how could I be this cold? It had been chilly earlier, in the low sixties, but this felt as if I were lying in a mound of fallen snow.

  Confusion swept through me as I tried to remember what I’d been doing before I…before I fell asleep. That was what’d happened, right? No. That didn’t make sense. I tried to open my eyes, but they were heavy and felt as if they were glued shut as cloudy images of my living room flickered through the fog in my mind. I’d been there…

  What was going on?

  I willed my eyes to open, but the concentration sent a sharp burst of pain bouncing around my skull. Wincing, I kept my eyes closed as the throbbing slowly dulled. Did I have an injury? That would explain the confusion and pain, but how did it happen? I was in my house, having…

  I’d come home and…

  Aric.

  My heart rate kicked up as the lost memories crashed through the wall of nothingness and flooded me. He’d been waiting for me when I came home. He’d been so fast, on me before I even had a chance to scream or release my blades.

  He’d fed on me.

  Oh, God. That bastard had used me like I was a juice box. My lips tingled from the memory of his icy breath and the horror of the feeding that resurfaced. It had felt nothing like when Cad—when the King had done it. That had been orgasmic, but this…this had felt like frigid claws reaching deep into my very core, tearing through bone and tissue and yanking out what made me who I was. Now I remembered. The tide of pain had sucked me under into an abyss.

  How much had Aric taken from me? Based on the way my head felt, more than enough.

  I needed to get up. I needed to figure out where the hell I was, and then I needed to find
that bastard and kill him a million times over.

  Turning my head, I stopped suddenly when something hard bit into my neck like a frigid vise. My eyes flew open as I lifted my hand to my neck. Metal—cold and unforgiving—encircled my throat. I pressed my palm against the band, my fingers digging into the narrow space between it and my skin as I jerked upward and scanned the…

  “What the hell?” I croaked out, my voice hoarse.

  I wasn’t home, that much I knew, and that was about all I knew. The flames did very little to beat back the shadows, but what I could see reminded me of… God, it reminded me of some kind of underground tomb.

  A tomb.

  Pressure clamped down on my chest as my wild gaze darted around the circular chamber. Two torches jutted out from a grayish brick wall, spaced several feet apart. Dark and ropey lines climbed from the low ceiling and down the walls, forming a network of veins. Vines? Across from me was a slab of stone standing about five feet high. The center was stained with something…dark.

  That was when I realized that I was on a similar rectangular stone bed.

  Holy crap.

  I was in a damn crypt, chained by the freaking neck to a stone slab that had quite possibly been used to murder people based on the stain. My hair fell forward and slipped over my bare shoulders as I lifted my arm. Dread exploded. Part of me already knew what I was going to see when I looked down, and I wasn’t wrong. The bracelet that held the four-leaf clover was missing. Without it, I was susceptible to a fae’s glamour.

  Jesus.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I struggled to stay calm. I was trapped by a psychotic creature, and I knew how this was going to end.

  Not with me breathing.

  No. I couldn’t think like that. I dragged in a deep, musty breath as I struggled to push back the creeping panic. I couldn’t focus on that scenario. If I did, I’d have no chance of surviving this.

  Opening my eyes, I ignored the pounding of my heart as I drew up my legs and swung them off the edge of the slab. A wave of dizziness rolled over me, and I took another deep breath before I picked up the heavy chain and stood, wincing as my bare feet touched the floor. I didn’t think about how I’d lost my shoes since those suckers would’ve had to be removed as I followed the length of the chain to the metal hook embedded in the stone floor. There were several feet of chain, allowing me to edge toward the darkened area of the chamber, but not long enough to reach what appeared to be a wooden door.