Page 5

“How many times have I heard that before? You think telling me one more time is going to make the slightest difference? The truth is that you did something stupid by screwing my mother, and now you’ve got a lifetime of me to put up with.”

“It’s not like I had much of a choice with your mother, is it? Like I said, your kind are vampires.”

“And now your only son is half one.”

He shakes his head and turns back to the window.

“This conversation is over,” he says. “I’ve had a long journey, and I need to rest before the feast tonight. I won’t stop you from coming, but if you’re not there, you won’t be missed.”

I scowl. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

3

RUAROK

I return to my room,anger thrumming inside me.

I’d expected to be replaced, especially with the new queen taking my seat beside the king’s throne, but I hadn’t expected this.

A child.

It’s no secret that my father has…issues…in conceiving. I was an outlier, something so unexpected that he hadn’t been able to turn his back on me. With the amount my father whored around, he should have bastards all over the place. But he’d never conceived with his first queen, and stories say she died of heartbreak from not being able to mother a child, and none of his whores had ever fallen pregnant either.

Until me, that was.

Of course, it was questioned whether my mother had conceived me from another man, but since my father had kept her prisoner for years, to be his own personal concubine, and there was no possibility any of his staff wouldhave been so foolish as to sleep with her behind the king’s back, it was clear he was the cause of her swollen belly.

Then I was born, and he had no way of denying me. I might only be half Fae and look nothing like him, but I have the royal birthmark like a tattoo behind my right ear. All of our line had some variation of it, including my father.

But now he has a full-blooded Fae child, who may not be his biologically, but who he’ll see as far more suitable to take over the kingdom when he’s gone. He’s always hated the idea of me being on the throne when he passes, diluting the royal Fae bloodline, but, until now, there was no one else.

My mind races. What can I do?

I stand at my bedroom window and gaze out across the kingdom. My father’s flags containing our emblem, the dragonfly, with its lethal sting at the tail and its ability to fly faster than any other creature in the lands, flutter in the breeze. The numbers here have swelled over the last few years. A rot is setting in, something dark and magical that no one understands yet, but it’s eating away at the very ground beneath our feet, sending entire villages plummeting into the darkness of whatever is lying far, far, far beneath the world’s crust.

What if I need to get rid of them? Could I do it? Murder a young child and her mother? I search my heart for even a flicker of potential remorse or regret but find nothing. It wouldn’t be a pleasant job, but if they stand in the way of me inheriting the kingdom, then yes, I could.

Or maybe there’s another way…

Instead of killing them, maybe I could make Lorith myqueen instead. While I have no use for the daughter, I know the mother won’t be able to resist me.

I’ll bend her over the king’s throne and fuck her until she can’t retain a single thought in her pretty little head. If she were to choose me instead, that would really screw up my father’s plans.

I’m sure I can sense her in the castle.

Something has changed. A different kind of energy vibrating within the thick stone walls. I’m used to being surrounded by Fae magic, but this feels more…Incubi.

I shake the thought from my head. There’s no possibility my father would allow another Incubi into the castle. He’ll have demanded to know the new queen’s ancestry for generations back. He wouldn’t risk making the same mistake again. Maybe this is a different kind of magic—one I haven’t come across before.

It pulls to me, though, like she’s a beacon in the castle, the only light I can see, and I’m drawn to it. Should I go to her? I’m tempted, but I also know I can’t be too obvious. I can’t risk my father wising up to my plans and using it as an excuse to banish me. I don’t believe even he would do such a thing, but if he knew how I was thinking about his new bride, he might change his mind.

I’m quite sure Queen Lorith would rather have me fucking her than the old man who is my father.

Blood rushes to my cock at the idea. I didn’t get the chance to finish myself off earlier. The thought alone of how much it would piss off my father for me to climax over the new queen is enough to make me even harder.

I throw myself down on my bed, lying on my back, one arm over my head. The other reaches down to open mypants. My cock springs out, and I wrap my fingers around my length.

I’ve got a few hours until the feast in the Great Hall, and I plan to make the most of them.