Oak, Sophie - Beast [A Faery Story 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic) (5 page)

Beck sighed. “For several reasons. He’s been contracted to sell her. Those demons are damned serious about their contracts. If Rhys simply lets her go, he’ll be in violation. There’s also the fact that he has no idea what he’ll be letting loose. He doesn’t know how to get her back to her home.”

“We’re going to find a way,” Meg vowed. Her face was solemn. “I won’t let anyone put her down like an animal.”

“Of course not, darlin’,” Beck agreed, but there was worry in his eyes. Dante knew that sometimes it wasn’t easy to be the king. “We’ll figure out some way to help the poor girl.”

“You say she’s violent?” Dante heard himself ask. His brain was working overtime. A violent woman who could serve as a consort. A woman who frightened the gnomes. A woman who tried to kill the men who touched her. She sounded awful—and a little perfect.

“That’s what Rhys said,” Beck corrected. “He says she’s out of control. The women can’t get close to her cage.”

“And you’re sure she’s a consort?”

“Again, according to Rhys, she is. The demon said she glows. I could tell you if she was a bondmate. Bondmates can usually pass for consorts, too.” Beck’s voice became suspicious. “Why? Do you want to come and have a look at her, then? You could tell just by looking at her.”

Cian was staring at Dante with narrowed eyes, but he said nothing.

Dante shrugged. He would be able to tell if the girl was a consort by her glow. It appeared as a slight halo around the consort’s form. It was a lovely, infinitely appealing sight to the royal vampire. “Sure, why not?”

It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. It wouldn’t hurt to go take a look at the girl. He got up to follow his cousins out. At the very least, he would meet someone who didn’t know who he was.

* * * *

It was late in the afternoon when Dante found himself walking through the marketplace following Beck as he strode toward his goal. The door between the Vampire plane and this plane—a refugee plane—was easily accessible. There were hundreds of ways to get to different planes. Vampire scientists had theorized that there were still thousands of planes to be discovered. Many scientists would love to work with the Planeswalker clans to map out all the different doors. Unfortunately, the Planeswalkers came from a plane called Hell, and they didn’t have a problem with eating scientists.

Rhys of the Gentle Hills had the largest and most impressive tent in the marketplace. There was no question the gnome had done well for himself in the years since the civil war in Tir na nÓg.

Rhys’s tent was at the center of the small village, and everything had built up around it. Dante liked the marketplace. It was filled with the weird and wonderful things that could be found across the planes of existence. He even liked the feel of dirt beneath his feet. The surface on this plane was radically different from his home. It was closer to Tir na nÓg. This particular plane had been deserted when Beck and Cian had fled their home. It had been used by vampires as a place to hunt in the old ways and to raise cattle.

There was no smog here. The sun was bright and everything was open and airy. At home, the surface was tight and confined. Sometimes, the sun didn’t get past the clouds of pollution that clung close to the surface. It was why most vampires who could afford it never left their high homes.

Dante adjusted the hood of his jacket to better cover his pale skin. The sun was stronger on the Faery planes. His sunglasses had already adjusted to the light. The nanites in his clothing adapted quickly to keep his temperature in an optimal range and ensure the ultraviolet light didn’t burn him.

But what would it be like to walk unclothed in the sunlight? What would it be like to laze about unencumbered by clothing while the warmth of the sun kissed his skin? He would never tell anyone, but that was what had attracted him to the sunscreen project.

“What do you think you’re doing, cos?” Cian asked. He’d allowed Beck and Meg to get ahead of them.

Dante hoped he projected an air of curious innocence. Ci was right. Ci knew him far too well for Dante’s comfort. “I just wanted to come along. It might get dangerous. You never know, you and Beck might need backup.”

Cian’s gray eyes rolled. “Yes, the warrior king requires backup. He’s not only the greatest warrior to rise from the Seelie in a thousand years, but he’s a storm lord, too. I think he can handle one small female. Now, spit it out, cos. What happened with your dad last night? Don’t lie. I know that look in my uncle’s face. I saw it when he caught me and Beck with his personal assistant ten years ago.”

Dante’s eyes went wide. “You two did Helena? Seriously? How did I not know that? She’s twenty years older than you.”

Cian’s smile was slightly lecherous. “She was very experienced. We were just young lads looking to learn. It was a beautiful afternoon that we got our asses kicked for. Uncle Alex had that look in his eyes last night. What’s going on?”

Dante shrugged as they passed a goblin vendor selling all manner of odd items. “He was a bit upset. He thinks there’s going to be some bad press about the DL.”

“I believe the talk shows labeled you ‘Asswipe of the Year,’” Cian confirmed. “I didn’t think that was a term serious journalists would use, but they seemed happy with it.”

“Stupid tabloids,” Dante cursed. They were always on his back. The paparazzi waited to capture his fuckups on tape for the world to see. “What do they want me to do? I didn’t even like many of those girls. Most of them just wanted to be DL stars. Should I have asked one to marry me so I didn’t look like a jerk and then break it off later?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have gone on the show in the first place,” Cian said with a sensibility that set Dante’s fangs on edge. “I find it hard to believe you were serious about finding a wife from twenty females desperate enough to share one man.”

He hadn’t been serious. He could admit that to himself. It had seemed like a fun way to waste some time while the bio-med unit worked on the sunscreen project. Dante had been surprised at how joyless dating twenty hot chicks was when there was always a camera around.

“Besides,” Cian was continuing, “it really works better the other way. You only have one dick, man. How are you going to keep that many women happy? It takes two of us to keep Meg happy. If you really want to go down that road, you should find a friend and get a woman between you.”

“I don’t want a ménage,” Dante growled. The last thing he needed was some dude in bed with him. It worked for Beck and Cian because they shared a soul. Dante had never shared anything, and wasn’t about to start now. “I don’t want anything at all, if I’m honest. I just don’t have that choice anymore.”

Cian stopped in the middle of the street, the dust churning under his feet. “What does that mean?”

“It means my father ordered me to get married or else,” Dante admitted harshly.

“Are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Dante sighed and began walking again. “He kicked me off the sunscreen project. He told me I can’t get back in until I have a consort at my side. He apparently thinks getting married will make me seem less like an asswipe.”

“You can’t get married just because your dad tells you to,” Cian insisted.

Dante snorted inelegantly. That was the pot calling the kettle black. “I don’t know why not. You were certainly going to, or have you forgotten a frigid filly named Maris? Are you trying to tell me it was your idea to bond with her?”

Before the civil war, Beck and Cian’s father had arranged their bonding with no thought to love. Dante remembered Maris. She’d been a highborn bondmate. She’d also been one of the coldest women he’d ever met. Cian couldn’t stand her. Many nights, Dante had listened to his cousin bemoan his fate.

“That was different,” Cian insisted.

A wave of rising irritation nipped at Dante’s patience. “Sure, cos. It was different because it was your father threatening you and your inheritance at stake. I remember how much you hated that woman, and you would have married her if fate hadn’t stepped in. I’m sure you would have stood up for yourself in the end. You would have told your father and Beck to go hell because you wanted to marry for love.” Dante’s sarcasm flowed through the room.

“That’s not fair, Dante.” Cian frowned.

“None of it is,” Dante shot back.

“And it was different. There was a kingdom at stake. I’m not trying to say I’m better than you. I don’t think that at all. I’m trying to tell you that you have choices. You have more freedom than Beck and I had.”

“Stay out of it, Ci. I’m going to do what I need to do, and that’s that. My father has always complained that I wasn’t willing to do what it takes. Well, I’ll show him.”

Dante hurried along, leaving his cousin with the perfect wife and happy life behind. He didn’t need a lecture from Cian. Cian was happily married. He had his brother to depend on. Dante’s sister treated him like he was still five years old. Come to think of it, everyone treated him like he was a child. He was thirty years old. He ran a business. He ran an arm of the family business. Of course, he had an assistant and a manager who did most of the daily work, but everyone had help. Not everyone was as efficient and organized as his sister. Not everyone wanted each minute of the day planned out to model efficient time management.

What, he asked himself brutally, did Cian expect him to do? Should he tell his father to go straight to the Hell plane and righteously pack his bags? Where would he live? How would he survive? He’d never gone without a day in his life. He liked being rich, and he was good at it.

A long wail split the air around him, and Dante stopped. It was the howl of an animal in pain.

“What the hell was that?” Cian asked with a hitch in his breath.

“I think that’s our guest,” Beck replied.

Beck broke into a run, his long legs eating the distance to the tent. Meg struggled to keep up with him. While Beck ran ahead, Cian took their wife’s hand and hurried her along. Dante jogged, easily catching up and matching Beck’s stride.

There was a crowd outside the large tent, though he noticed they gave the place a wide berth as though what was inside was too terrible for them to get too close to it. It was easy for Dante to fight his way to the front.

All around him, the people and creatures whispered in hushed tones. They talked about the animal in her cage and wondered if the bars were enough to keep her from their children. Savage, one called her. Brutal. Some spoke of her attempting to eat the little gnomes assigned to care for her.

Maybe he would rethink the whole getting-married plan. Maybe Rhys had another, less hostile consort he could buy. He didn’t need to die to prove this point to his father. A nice, homely, uneducated rube would do nicely. He wanted her to shock his father, not cannibalize him.

“Rhys, what’s going on now?” Beck asked.

A small man with a pointy red hat moved toward Beck and Cian, who had taken his place beside his brother. Dante felt Meg at his side, but he was watching the gnome. Rhys of the Gentle Hills, who had served the Finn family for decades, bowed deeply.

“Your Highness,” the gnome said, nodding to each of the Fae royals. “I am sorry to have bothered you, sir. I simply do not know what to do with the lass. She is completely feral. The demon gave us a potion to keep her weak. We’ve given it to her every day, hiding it in the water she drinks, but I fear it doesn’t work. She wouldn’t eat for the first three days she was here until Cara had the idea to give her raw flesh. She is an animal, sire. Though I am loath to do it, I must ask you to put her out of her misery.”

“No,” Meg argued instantly. She rushed to her husbands.

Dante held his tongue. The sounds coming out of the tent made him think that maybe Rhys was right. There was a long, loud howl. He wasn’t sure how a sound like that came from a thinking being. It was primal. The sound was pure rage.

“Meggie, calm down,” Beck commanded, his voice dropping to a low, dark bark. Meg’s head dropped immediately.

“Yes, sir,” she said quietly.