by Alisa Woods
A soft glow of light surrounded her throne, but she was so pale in every way, she almost emitted her own shine. The last time Leonidas saw her, she was covered in an endless sea of silver-and-white ruffles. This time, she was barely clad. A filmy white dress draped a thin strip over each voluptuous breast. A skirt that barely covered her sex in front billowed behind her and hung from her swing, sweeping the floor. Her unearthly white hair was still piled in curls on her head and floated softly behind her as she swung. With each sweep, her bare toes played with the flowers that crowded her throne. Huge butterflies in spectacular colors flitted around her, large and humming with energy. It was like nothing he’d seen on earth.
“Well, come on,” his fae guide—the queen’s lover—beckoned him impatiently. He’d already reached the throne.
“Why, Kalen,” the queen drawled, her voice thick and happy. “You brought me a present.” She was checking out Leonidas as he strode toward her swing-throne, and that half-mast look was one he well recognized, even on a fae queen. Kalen must have satisfied her before he answered her magical phone. The scents of this place were powerfully earthy and floral and masked any hint of sex. But with the look in the queen’s eye, she was basking in the afterglow and was definitely up for more… and dragon was potentially on the menu.
Much to Kalen’s apparent chagrin.
Leonidas held in his smirk but kept his head high as he strode up to her. Sex with a fae queen would be dangerous business all around—not to mention something he was loathe to do, given he was in love with Rosalyn—but he’d do whatever it took to secure her release. After all, Nyssa was the purebred fae daughter of the original queen who set the treaty in motion by falling for a dragon from the House of Smoke. Maybe the daughter had the same proclivities as the mother.
But better to start with the more palatable options.
He bowed. “Queen Nyssa. Thank you for accepting my call, your highness.”
She laughed, breathy and sensuous. “Kalen insisted he could take care of it.” The queen leaned forward in her swing, her breasts straining against the nearly see-through fabric. “But I see you have something that only I can help you with.”
Her lover looked even more stricken.
“I sincerely hope so, your highness.” Leonidas kept his eyes off her proffered body and on the queen’s nearly-clear eyes. They were beautiful, just like she was, and trimmed in violet at the edges. “My True Love has gone missing, and I pray to magic you can help me get her back.”
Her silver-white eyebrows lifted. “Oh, I see. This is about your True Love, now that the first prince of the House of Smoke has found his. Very well. But why should I help you, dragon prince? You don’t truly appreciate my gifts. The last one I gave you went unused.”
Leonidas’s heart stuttered. “Your highness?” When had the fae queen given him a gift? That wasn’t something he would forget.
She leaned back and smiled. She was playing with him, but he had no idea what the game was. “I visited your House. Do you remember?”
“One could hardly forget. Your beauty and power were breathtaking. As they are now.” Flattery—always a winning strategy. Meanwhile, he was scrambling to decipher the game.
Her knowing smile made his nerves ratchet up, but then she leaned forward in the swing again, giving a lazy push to a posy with her bare toes. “Perhaps my beauty overwhelmed you. That might be a sufficient excuse for not remembering my gift.”
The gift. Of course. She gave a tiny bronze dragon to Lucian for baby Larik. Leonidas quickly scoured his memory to find what it was for—supposedly to soothe the baby when it cried. But Lucian had rightly kept the fae gift away from his dragonling. As far as Leonidas knew, it was still stuffed in storage somewhere, unused.
“Of course, I remember your kind gift of a bronze dragon,” Leonidas rushed out. “But my nephew Larik never cried or fussed. Sweetest baby you’d ever lay eyes on. That’s the only reason your very considerate gift has gone unused.”
“I see.” She swung back, then rose from her seat and stepped toward him until she was only a few feet away. “The token was intended for a child of the House of Smoke, but perhaps it will be used for your child, Leonidas Smoke.”
His heart stuttered again. Was this a requirement for her help? “With any luck, my child won’t be in need of—”
Her violet eyes flashed, and the lazy haze of sex was gone from them in an instant. “No harm will come to the child, Leonidas.”
He swallowed. “No, of course not.”
She smiled again, but it was cooler this time. “It’s a protective sprite, my dear dragon prince.”
“A what?” He legit did not understand what she was talking about, but he needed to move on from this to how he could rescue Rosalyn from Zephan. He bit his lip to hold in his impatience.
The queen held up her hand and extended a finger. One of the butterflies fluttering all around the throne—a brilliant purple one—alit on her hand. When he looked closer, the thing wasn’t a butterfly at all—of course. This was the Summer Court, a realm entirely conjured from magic. The thing was more like a wisp of smoke that held its shape and flapped around. It had no body or wings so much as a nebulous form—a magical cloud mistook for a butterfly.
“The sprites are my pets,” the queen said. “But they embody a spirit, a wish for magic if you will. They live in my court and please me, but I’ve gifted one to your House because I feel you’ll have need of it.”
Leonidas stared at the amorphous purple shape on her hand. “So you’ve captured one of these inside the tiny dragon?”
The sprite lifted from her finger. “Captured. Such an ugly word. But the one I’ve gifted to you will soothe what ails your child. When the time comes, I trust you will use it.”
He gritted his teeth, but there was only one choice for an answer. “Of course.”
She smiled again, more pleased, and it trickled dread through him. “Now, then. What is it that you’d like to ask of me, dragon prince of the House of Smoke?”
Relief replaced that cold dread. None of that would matter if he didn’t get Rosalyn back. And even then, he wasn’t sure if she’d choose to mate with him.
“Zephan has stolen my mate,” Leonidas said, struggling to keep his voice even. “On the eve of our sealing, no less. He’s in clear violation of the treaty.”
The queen seemed unmoved—bored, even. “Zephan takes many human women to bed. If you cannot keep her, that is hardly my business—”
“It’s not like that.” He was too forceful—he knew that the moment the words were out.
Anger enlivened the queen’s face, but it was Kalen who stepped up behind her with the true menace on his face.
“Let me, your highness,” he whispered in her ear. “I beg of you. I’ll think of something suitably horrible with no lasting marks.”
The queen’s anger faded into a smirk. She reached back and patted Kalen’s cheek, and the rune there fluttered and writhed in response. Kalen’s eyes hooded with lust.
Leonidas frowned. He knew the pleasure spark that danced between him and Rosalyn had something to do with his fae blood and her witch nature—how much more electrifying must a touch be between two purebred fae?
“There, there, Kalen, dear,” she purred. “Save it for me... for later.”
Kalen made a tortured sound, but it was as if he’d forgotten Leonidas was there—he only had eyes for his queen. But he stepped back when she waved him off.
To Leonidas, she said, “Let’s say Zephan has truly captured your soon-to-be mate. Even so, as long as he does her no lasting harm, I hardly have standing in the matter.”
Leonidas knew she could object to anything she liked—but she was saying she was unwilling to risk the treaty. “That’s not the only horror he’s up to,” he rushed out. “He’s infecting human women with demons and using vampires to do it.”
The queen frowned, the first sign of true concern he’d seen since he arrived. “You have proof of this?”
Leonidas kept his face carefully neutral. “I caught one of them red-handed. He confessed everything. I recognized him—he’s Tariq from the Gualtiero Coven outside Seattle, in the Olympic National Park. Send your pet…” Leonidas gestured to Kalen. “…to fetch him, and the vampire will tell you all you need to know.”
Kalen was seething again, hands clenched, and Leonidas could feel the magical energy vibrating off him. But the queen barely looked at him when she commanded, “Do it.”
Kalen whirled around and disappeared, slipping into one of those trans-dimensional doorways and leaving Leonidas and the queen alone.
She smirked and stepped closer, looking him up and down. He was still dressed in his mating clothes—a black wedding jacket brocaded with golden thread. Hardly revealing but then women seemed to enjoy the view no matter which clothes covered his body.
“Perhaps you’ll indulge my curiosity, dragon prince.”
Fuck. “I’m sure Kalen will return any moment.”
She smiled, eyes bright. “This will only take a moment.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Normally, I’m not that fast.”
Her smile grew into a soft laugh, an almost genuine sounding one. Then it tempered, and the air around her hummed with energy, reminding him she was far more powerful than he could ever dream of being.
“My mother loved one of your kind,” she said, eyes blazing. “It was the cause of much ruin and havoc in both our realms. Aren’t you curious?” Her voice grew softer as she drew nearer. Close enough to touch but not kiss. Yet. “Don’t you wonder how spectacular their joining must have been in order to sacrifice a queendom for it?”
“Love makes you do crazy things.” They were Rosalyn’s words, but he knew of none more true. Even though he was late in the game of love, he’d played it with everything he had.
“Love? Perhaps.” She raised her hand and reached for him with long, delicate fingers. “Or maybe their touch melted them with pleasure.”
“Is that all you want? A touch?” He was holding his breath. Because this could go sideways so badly, so fast.
“Maybe.” She tilted her head, peering at him with frank curiosity. Then she bridged the gap between her fingertips and his cheek.
Holy mother of magic. The rush of pleasure through his body was like a tsunami.
The queen’s lips parted, and she sighed with the pleasure. “Ah yes, there it is.”
He didn’t know what she was feeling, but his cock was instantly rock hard, and every fiber of his being screamed to throw her down to the carpet of moss and ravish her body. His mind fought against the raging of his beast welling up inside him.
“Such wildness,” she breathed.
Then she broke the contact. Thank magic. Any more of that, and he wasn’t sure if he could have held back. Holy fuck. If it had been anything like that between his ancestor and hers…
Suddenly, Kalen appeared behind her, the vampire’s arm clutched in his hand. It took zero time for Kalen to notice how close Leonidas stood to the queen and the rock-hard erection he was still sporting. Kalen’s jaw clenched, and red splotches of anger raged across his chest.
Fuck.
“I have your vampire,” Kalen spat. “Your highness, if they dare lie to us, let us dispatch the both of them—”
“Enough, Kalen.” Her words cut him off and rendered him silent.
Leonidas felt a moment of pity fight through the blind terror of all of it. He was sure that Kalen would annihilate him if he could, but how much must the man suffer, always the consort to a lascivious queen? And the King—where did he fit in all this? The fae themselves were inscrutable. Their politics doubly so. And it truly mattered not to him, so he pushed those thoughts aside.
“Please don’t kill me. Please. Please, please.” The vampire had fallen to his knees, and blood tears were trickling down his face.
“Oh, for the love of magic.” The queen gestured for him to rise. “Tell me what you’ve done.”
Kalen “helped” Tariq to his feet. The vampire looked like he could barely stand on his own. “I… I… I…”
The man was clearly terrified. Which would not help Leonidas get the truth revealed. “It’s all right, Tariq. She’s not going to kill you. Right?” He directed that last part to the queen, but she was ignoring both of them and summoning another of her sprites. This one was bright yellow and pulsing. Tariq looked at it with horror as it descended upon him, but when it alit on his shoulder, all the tension went out of his body. He stood straight, his face slack.
What the fuck did she just do?
“There,” the queen said. “That’s better. Now, tell me, Tariq. What is this business of yours with the prince of the Winter Court?”
Tariq’s voice was calm, like a stenographer at a trial repeating back what he’d just recorded. “Zephan changed our venom. Enhanced it to contain both demon essence and forgetting magic. He encouraged us to feast on the humans of the city at large, but there were specific targets on the list as well. All women. Once we fed, the humans were infused with a DNA magic that brought out their inner demon. Makes them stronger and live longer as well. I was caught. Since then, I’ve fed three times—”
Leonidas couldn’t help the growl. So they were still at it! Despite the warnings from the House of Smoke. But all of that must take care of itself—he had to stay focused on getting Rosalyn back. “You see, your highness? Zephan’s tampering with humans—”
“You may take him,” Nyssa cut him off, but she wasn’t talking to Leonidas. Her fingers fluttered to the still-outraged Kalen. “I’ll summon you when I need you again, Kalen.”
The panic was back in Kalen’s eyes, and Leonidas felt it as well. Why was she sending the vampire away? But it only took a moment before Kalen and the pacified Tariq both disappeared.
Nyssa turned to him and said coolly, “This demon infection doesn’t violate the treaty. It’s a technology loophole that the ever-clever Zephan is carefully exploiting, but it falls within the scope of the treaty, protecting human women from harm to serve as mates for the House of Smoke.”
His heart sank. “Surely you can see—”
“No.” Her eyes grew colder. “We have to strictly abide by the terms if we wish the Winter Court to abide as well.”
His shoulders sagged. Without the Summer Court’s help, there was no way he could tackle the Winter Court on his own. Lucian had tried and had gotten Arabella back, but only because Zephan let it happen. Ostensibly, the king was in control of the Winter Court, but he was a tyrant and notoriously out of touch. It was Zephan who ruled, and there was no way he let Arabella go simply because Lucian asked. It became clear, later, that Zephan had been trying to destroy their love with his manipulations just as he had previously doomed Cara and her dragonling.
Which only reminded Leonidas that Rosalyn was still in that monster’s clutches.
His gaze had dropped to studying the slow nod of the flowers gracing the floor. He raised it to meet the curious gaze of the queen. “I beg of you. Help me win her freedom from Zephan and his mindfuckery. I’ll do anything you ask. Anything.” He put some of the heartache he felt into a blazing look that would hopefully convince her of his sincerity.
She lifted one eyebrow and eased forward. “Anything?”
“You were curious.” His stomach churned. “Why a fae queen would forsake everything for her dragon lover’s bed.” He pulled in a steadying breath. “I can show you.”
Her violet eyes darkened and the lids fell to half-mast. “Oh, such a temptation you are,” she purred. Then she smiled. “Your love for this woman must be True to offer yourself up in what you must know is an ill-fated trip into my bedchambers.”
He swallowed. He hadn’t expected to die there, but then again, he would die regardless… unless some miracle occurred. Several, in fact. Freeing Rosalyn. Her choosing to be with him, then surviving the sealing and mating. All things pointed against it. All fates seemed conspired against him. Dying in a pleasure haze in a fae queen’s b
ed might be the least terrible way to go—as long as Rosalyn was free.
“Free her first,” he said, thickly. “That’s the extent of my terms.”
Her smile gentled into something wistful. “Oh, to be the object of such affection.”
Leonidas frowned. What did that mean? “I’m sure your highness has many who love her.” How was that not obvious? Did she even see Kalen?
She sighed. “Things are not always what they seem, dragon prince.” Then she turned and waved her hand to summon a large mirror—only it wasn’t a true mirror but rather something with infinite gray depth, like looking into a pool but seeing no reflection. When she turned back to him, her expression had softened. “Clearly, it is causing you emotional harm to deprive you of your True Love, and in our world, the Summer Court, that counts… even if True Love is a currency much reviled in the Winter Court. And emotional harm to a dragon prince of the House of Smoke? It very much violates the treaty—in spirit, if not in letter.”
Leonidas was struck speechless. He would never have suspected the Summer Court to be so… understanding of love. Perhaps he had misjudged them.
As he was reeling from that, she continued, “And there’s the small matter that the treaty actually continues the peace between the Courts. Peace is more conducive to all sorts of more pleasurable activities than war.” She smirked. And he could see it—she liked riding Kalen or whoever her latest lover was, something she wouldn’t have time for if she were busy fighting the Winter Court.
“I’m a fan of making love not war as well,” he ventured, his heart lifting. He was still unsure what this meant about his end of the bargain. Surely maintaining the treaty meant the dragon princes of the House of Smoke had to survive.
