Page 6 of Royal Ransom (Princess Procedural #4)
Maverick
It isn’t every day you see a vampire blush.
Most of the time, they don’t have the blood to waste on it. Vampires who have been alive for more than a century were pretty much masters of the poker face, using their biology as an asset rather than a drawback. But Charlotte Rose wasn’t a century old. She wasn’t even a year old, according to her friend, which meant she’d usurped Astrid’s position as the youngest and most inexperienced bloodsucker in Haven Hollow. I was sure my sister would be thrilled. It wasn’t every day she got to play wise sage to a new kid.
Charlotte Rose looked around forty, judging from the subtle lines on her face. She was definitely pretty—in a librarian, secretary sort of way. She reminded me a bit of Tally, though I couldn’t pinpoint why. Physically, they were nearly total opposites. Charlotte, or Charlie, as she insisted on being called, was a blonde. With her human glamour in place, Taliyah’s hair was darker. As a faerie, her hair was almost completely bleached of color, each strand as pristine and glittering as freshly fallen snow. I always wanted to run my hands through her hair when it was loose, half expecting to feel the powdery stuff slip through my fingers instead of the silken strands.
It was the strength in Charlie’s eyes and the set of her shoulders that reminded me of Tally, I decided. It was quiet resolve, buried beneath the layers of embarrassment as Angelo ribbed her about lingerie, while another woman I didn’t know, presumably a distant succubus cousin of his, did the same, flipping through a month-old fashion magazine Roy kept by the door for people waiting for takeout.
Angelo was a punchably smug prick on a good day. He’d mellowed some since meeting his girlfriend, Lydia, but not that much. If there were a pair of ripe breasts around, he’d leer at least once. Charlie wasn’t stacked the way my cousin and Fifi were, but she wasn’t hurting in that department either. She was girl-next-door pretty. In fact, I thought the beauty of her was in her simplicity. A daisy didn’t need to be bright or smell intoxicating to make a statement.
My lips twisted into a hollow smile. I was spending too much time with faeries these days. My metaphors were becoming more and more nature-based with every passing year. Though, I wasn’t entirely sure it was their fault. It was in me, too. The magic of the fae ran through my veins, courtesy of my father. Maybe I was destined to manifest a portion of his power and sensibilities at some point. We all turned into our parents in the end. Better Fennec than Mom, I figured.
The other new girl was... well, ‘voluptuous’ didn’t quite cover it. Everything about her was big and bright, almost too gaudy to look at. Scarlet hair, plum lips, creamy skin, and a few tattoos peeking out from beneath her hemlines. She was set to burst the seams of the sports bra and short-short combination she’d gotten from Wanda’s sale rack. She’d passed the warmer articles on to others in her group, according to Tally.
She called herself Anarchy Brimstone, but I doubted that was truly her name. She claimed the weather didn’t bother her species, though she’d been vague about just what that species was. The energy that struck me was demonic—larger and darker than the succubus she was pretending to be. A part of me wanted to interrogate her, to figure out why she was acting like an oversexed member of Angelo’s species when she wasn’t. In the end, I kept quiet. It wasn’t my business why she was putting on an act. It fell to me to rescue Charlie from the pair before she melted down into a pile of vampire goo. I was good at magic, but that was one situation I couldn’t easily repair.
I scooped the stammering blonde vampire from the little huddle they’d formed around her, tucking her under one arm easily. She felt like a waif against my side. Most women did. It was rare to find one tall or strong enough to not feel like a porcelain doll in my hands. I thought I knew Fox well enough to guess that was part of the appeal. He liked to protect rather than be protected. It might be worth going in to drag him out of Janara’s clutches, just to see the look on his face when he realized who he owed a debt to.
“Tell Angelo to piss off,” I said. “It usually works. He’s a piece of work, but he won’t flirt too much if you give him a direct no.”
Charlie looked shaky. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t due to incubus pheromones. People usually looked a little drunk after having their energy fed on. I’d caught glances of post-coital succubi and their victims before. It wasn’t pheromones making her tremble. It was fear. To my horror, I saw the beginnings of tears on her lashes.
“It wasn’t bothering me, honest. I’m just…” She waved her hand in front of her face, trying to fan away the heat pouring off her cheeks. “Damn it. I’m sorry. It’s just…” She tugged away from me, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. “I just want to scream!”
“Why?” I started as she turned to look at me with ire in her eyes.
“We’re wasting time! Janara’s had him for more than a week! She’s torturing him? By now, she might have even killed him. I just... I can’t...”
Charlie turned her face away before I could read her expression. I was glad. I didn’t want her to see pity in my eyes. Because I’d been exactly where she was now—worrying if the person you cared about was dead or alive. It still struck me as nothing short of a miracle that Dickhead Reynard had found love in a backwoods Hollow of all places. But Charlie was clearly smitten. You didn’t react like this unless your feelings were strong.
I patted her back, unsure of how to comfort the grieving vampire. I didn’t trust her near my neck, so hugging her was out. The idea of embracing an undead felt alien, but oddly, I didn’t feel much disgust towards her. If the story she’d told Tally was true, she’d been mauled and turned as a last resort. She felt almost human, as though the death magic on her hadn’t fully taken hold.
“He’s alive,” I said.
She looked up at me with hope in her eyes. “You can’t know that.”
I sighed. Tally was going to hate me for this, but... “He is.”
“But how—“
“—there’s a ransom demand. It arrived earlier today.”
“But,” Charlie started, shaking her head. “No one—”
“Janara is giving Taliyah two days to turn herself in, or she’ll kill Reynard. That’s part of why we’re meeting tonight: to decide whether to take the deal.”
The room erupted into furious mutters. I hadn’t tried to shout, but in a room full of monsters, it was hard to keep secrets, even when said secret was important. Tally would be furious about my announcement, but I couldn’t stand to watch the vampire cry over Reynard. The reasons for my feelings surprised me.
I hated the guy. I would have happily punched him for talking down to my wife. But… he was family. Estranged and uncomfortable, but still family. He held answers about a part of myself I’d never examined. I realized I didn’t want him to die. Which meant I had to save his life at some point. Damn it.
Charlie looked up at me with that expression of placid hope. I wanted to give her a reassuring smile, ignoring the arguments starting around the tables. The bickering would take most of the night before we came up with a concrete plan. But I couldn’t focus on anything but the pulse of dread coursing down my spine when a runestone in my pocket buzzed. It was a crude security measure, but I’d rigged it to alert me when and what kind of magic interfered with Tally’s wards.
I felt a chill seep from the stone. A chill that didn’t belong to Tally. Which could only mean one thing: they were at her house, waiting for her to arrive.
Fuck.