Page 7 of King’s Kismet

“Jack, I’m going to fucking kill you,” she told me with a certainty that made me suppress a shiver.

She wouldn’t hurt me physically or emotionally, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t file this moment away for later and give me hella shit for it. Payback was in my future at some point. I just wouldn’t know when.

I was deeply looking forward to it.

Lo’s vengeance had degrees to it. She played dirty, but always managed to dish out fair punishments. Where on her scale this particular incident would fall was beyond me, but I knew she would wait until I let my guard down.

When we were thirteen, I’d told our parents that Lo was buying thongs and skimpy lingerie. She wasn’t mad, but she was embarrassed. The bitch waited two whole ass months to get back at me. I’d been so pissed at the time, but looking back… it was just funny. She’d cut all my boxers and gym shorts to look like thongs, and when I’d explained it to Charlie, he’d laughed until he cried.

That same year, though, Lo and I had overheard Sam talking to a close friend who was telling him about how his mate had been beating their kids when the males were gone. We’d grown up with those kids. She’d killed one child and the other two were near death.

That was the first time Lo killed anyone. She’d snuck out and slipped straight into Stars, visiting a thirteen-year-old Dolyn and a six-year-old Hyde, before delivering her own brand of justice to their wretched mother.

The demon had been so vile that no one had mourned her death. Not her two mates, and not her remaining two children. But we had all mourned Dylan’s death.

Lo still wouldn’t breathe his name to anyone except Dolyn, and only if he brought it up first.

Fuck. Now I needed the liquor Sloane had asked for. I’d tuned out their conversation long enough to feel lost.

“Wondering what?” Lo was replying to the mage.

That was when I knew I needed to step in and tell her the last little bit of the mate business. I had to perk up first, or she’d drag me aside and question where my attention had gone and why I was working so hard to block her out.

“Sooooo,” I interrupted in a sing-song voice. “Four apprentices, two Princes, and the future Queen of Supes walk into a bar...” I let my poor attempt at a joke trail off as I wiggled my hips suggestively, “Now, you’re just missing one more, bitch, and then you can really get this party started.”

I was eager to see how long it would take them to figure it out and who caught on first, but I knew Lo would blow a gasket the moment his name was spoken aloud.

The druid was a sore spot for her.

I’d been searching for him since he disappeared, and I’d come to the conclusion a couple of months ago that he’d be kidnapped…

Taken?

Abducted?

Didn’t matter what we called it. He hadn’t left her high and dry like she’d been believing all this time. I didn’t think he had it in him to leave her at all, so something must have been going on that was bad enough for him to sacrifice himself to keep her safe.

Time was not on our side with the upcoming manhunt, though. He had to be found. She had to move past her issues with him. She would need every single one of these assholes to fight what was coming for her.

That was yet another secret I had to keep from her.

I couldn’t tell her and risk changing the course that was laid out for her.

The Fates would have my balls for breakfast if I fucked up their vision of the future.

Tats & Torture

I growled under my breath as I shoved the contract away. All work and no play made me ill as fuck.

My vampire blew through my suite door, into my bedroom, and then back to my desk in a matter of seconds. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” I asked as he hauled me down the stairs with my shoes in his grasp.

Briggs joined us in the living room, pulling up the sleeves of his hoodie. “We’re taking you to get a tattoo, Barbie. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Not an option,” he popped back.