Page 80 of Filthy Fae

“Don’t destroy that.” Jane stepped before me, breaking my concentration with the note. She held out a hand. “He’s going to need every single piece of evidence, and he doesn’t have much.”

I handed the note over and looked up at the kid. “Can you send the demon to kill Mab?”

“Please, no,” Mack said from across the room. He sat down on the steps, his head in his hands. “Shit. She deserves it. She deserves worse.” His head came up, his piercing blue eyes finding mine.

“Damn right, she does,” Lance growled.

Mack sighed. “My mother has been trying to kill Mab for centuries. They’re both extremely powerful, but my mother is more so. Last time, the queen almost succeeded, and Mab asked me if I could kill Titania. I’m the only one powerful enough to do it. Fae ask me to do it all the time. Hundreds of people have asked me. Even the queen of Autumn asked, telling me that she would let me out of our engagement if I killed my mother. Mab’s request was the only one I ever considered. Mab is a horrible person, but the things she’s gone through at the hands of our mother...” He shook his head. “I said no, and then Titania was cursed and took the four fae princes as hostages.”

Aaron rested a hand on Mack’s shoulder. “I thought you said your mother was cursed when you were a kid.”

“I was seven when Mab asked me.” Mack’s hands fisted. “This is all my fault. If I’d said yes…”

“You’re telling me that Mab tried to convince a seven-year-old child to murder his own mother, and that’s why we shouldn’t kill her?” I growled.

Damn. I thought our family was fucked up. Clearly, Mack’s family surpassed even having a man-eating megalomaniac brother who sent us to die because we were competition.

I didn’t think I liked Mack. I didn’t really know how to feel about my mate’s fae lover. But heat surged into my whole body when I thought about the abuse he’d suffered at the hands of his mother and sister. There were many kinds of abuse. His mother and sister may have never physically touched him, but they’d callously sacrificed his innocence to pull him into their twisted death games. But despite his family, Mack had turned into a man who was obviously capable of showing Scarlet infinite patience, kindness, and love.

Mack worked his jaw back and forth, his miserable face betraying his conflicting thoughts.

“Look,” I said. “I know what it’s like to protect a monster in your family, just because they’re family, but this monster has Scarlet.”

“We can’t kill Mab,” Lance cut in. “First, sending the demon after Mab might endanger Scarlet. We don’t know for sure where or why she took Scarlet, but we can be pretty sure the demon delivered her to Mab. Second, we need her confession to stop the war.” He turned to the kid. “Can you immobilize the demon?”

“No.” Morte squeezed his knees to his chest. “But there’s a team of necromancers that are there to immobilize it.”

“Give me patience,” Jane whispered, her eyes cast to the ceiling. She turned to Morte. “You’re the only one controlling the demon. There are no other necromancers. What can you do to immobilize it?”

His face paled, and he ran a hand through his long silver hair. “I… Are you sure?”

“Can you at least track him?” Lance asked.

“He’s in the queen’s palace,” Morte said.

“Good,” Jane said, speaking in a soothing tone. “Can you tell us what you remember about the other challenges?”

“First I told him to meet with the queen. Every day I tell him to replenish his power. Yesterday’s challenge was for him to bring the queen what she desired most and obey her desires. But he’s becoming increasingly hard to reach. It’s taken more and more control every time.”

That sounded really fucking ominous.

Mack stood. “I can get back into the palace to find Scarlet if the demon took her there. I think I can do it undetected.”

“We can’t go in there half-cocked.” Lance paced down the length of the room.

“I like Mack’s way,” Aaron said, his hand falling on Mack’s shoulder. “If we go with one of your plans, Lance, we’ll be enacting the perfect way to extract her corpse.”

I flinched, feeling the word ‘corpse’ down to my bones. But Lance was right. This was not a situation we could handle alone. We were dealing with a demon that had almost broken free of his binds, and Scarlet was trapped in the fae palace with Titania and probably Mab, too. Taking my phone from my pocket, I leafed through my contacts. “I’m calling Rick, the union rep.”

“What?” Morte breathed, his face turning as ashen as his hair.

I ignored the kid and said, “Jane, you call Nancy. Mack, is there anyone you trust in that palace, anyone at all?” It took something out of me to ask it, but right now, I knew that this was the only way that we might save Scarlet. “Someone you could ask private questions to ensure they’re not the incubus.”

Mack’s eyes blazed. “My brother Naveen. He’s a trickster, which is what we need right now.” His face fell, his jaw clenching. “But if the queen is dying, so is he.”

Lance stopped pacing. “We can’t contact the palace. If we reveal the incubus without providing any proof, it’s only logical that Titania will continue to point blame in a constant direction without turning to a new suspect. She’d likely execute Scarlet.”

If she hadn’t done it already.