“No, I didn’t damned well violate you,” he rasped. “And if I had, I can assure you that you would not only remember, but you’d be on your knees thanking me for the privilege.”
Her fear was replaced by a more familiar disdain. As if he was a bug that needed to be squashed beneath her royal heel.
“Why, you arrogant . . . leech.”
He folded his arms over his massive chest. “At least I’m not a stuck-up prig of a fairy.”
“If you didn’t violate me, why are we naked?” she demanded, careful to keep her gaze locked on his face. Was she afraid his bare body might strike her blind? “And how did we get here?”
He snorted. “That’s a question I should be asking you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m a vampire.”
Her lips thinned in annoyance, her chin tilted as she continued her ridiculous charade of innocence.
“Yes, I had managed to figure that out.”
“Then you know that I can’t create portals,” he snapped, deliberately allowing his gaze to skim downward. Unlike the aggravating female, he had no problem enjoying a naked body. Especially one so appetizing. “Only the fey can do that.”
She frowned, belatedly realizing she couldn’t try and pin the blame of their abrupt teleportation on him.
Odd, she hadn’t struck him as stupid.
Just the opposite, in fact.
“Fey aren’t the only creatures who can create portals.” She tried to hedge.
“Well, I obviously didn’t do it.”
“Neither did I.”
He made a sound of impatience. Why was she continuing with this game?
“You expect me to believe you?”
The flecks of emerald shimmered in her eyes. “My father has forbidden his people to leave our homeland.”
“Oh aye, and a daughter has never dared to disobey her father.”
She cast a condemning glance around the barren cave. “Trust me. If I did decide to defy my father, I wouldn’t choose to travel to this dump.”
His low growl filled the air. He was a true hedonist. A vampire who reveled in rare books, fine wine, and beautiful women.
And in turn, women adored him.
All women.
But this female . . .
She wasn’t the warm, willing, bundle of pleasure he was accustomed to. She was rude and prickly and downright dangerous.
“Watch your tongue, princess,” he snarled. “This dump happens to be a part of my private lair.”
“There.” She pointed an accusing finger toward him. “I knew it. You kidnapped me.”
Cyn rolled his eyes. Could this farce get any more ridiculous?
“The only one kidnapped was me.”
“Why would I kidnap an oversized, ego-bloated vampire?”
Yeah. Why would she? It took him a minute to shuffle through his still-fuzzy thoughts.
“To keep me from protecting my friend,” he at last concluded.
Hadn’t she pulled him out of the throne room, leaving Roke at the mercy of her father, Sariel? And then she’d plied him with some wicked fey brew that had knocked him unconscious.
Aye. It made perfect sense that it was a nefarious plot to separate him from his friend.
At least it did until she glared at him in outraged disbelief.
“Are you completely mental? Your friend was exactly where he wanted to be.”
Okay. She had a point.
Roke hadn’t looked like he needed Cyn’s services. In fact, the last he’d seen of his fellow vampire, he was wrapping his mate in his arms, his expression one of besotted devotion.
Bleck.
“Then perhaps you simply wanted to be alone with me.” He flashed a smile that revealed his snowy white fangs. One way or another he was getting answers. “You wouldn’t be the first female to use magic to get me into your bed.”
She muttered something distinctly unladylike beneath her breath.
“I am a fairy princess.”
“And?”
“And I don’t share my bed with—”
He planted his hands on his hips, his expression daring her to finish the sentence.
“With?”
Her lips parted to complete her insult, but before she could speak there was a sizzle of power in the air. Cyn turned toward the center of the cave, his muscles coiled to attack as there was a faint pop, and then a tiny demon dressed in a long white gown appeared out of thin air.
Cyn gave a startled hiss, his eyes widening at the creature who could easily pass as a young girl with her small stature and long silver braid that nearly brushed the floor. Cyn, however, wasn’t fooled. He recognized the strange oblong eyes that were a solid black and the sharp, pointed teeth.
This was no harmless juvenile.
She had enough power to crush him and his entire clan.
Even worse, she was an Oracle. One of the rare demons who sat on the Commission, the ultimate rulers of the demon world.
“Enough squabbling, children,” she chided, folding her hands together as she studied them with an unnerving intensity.
“Holy shite.” Cyn offered a belated bow. “Siljar.”
Fallon crouched on the ground, her arms wrapped around her knees in a futile effort at modesty.
“You know this person?”
“Not person,” Cyn corrected, shivering as Siljar’s energy sizzled over his skin. “Oracle.”