“Tell her to bring it.”
“Now?” Viper scowled, a businessman to his very soul. “The club—”
“Now.”
Viper rolled his eyes. “Bring what you have to the Anasso’s lair,” he commanded the beautiful imp who was in charge of his club a hundred miles south of Chicago. “But don’t try to travel directly into the estate,” he warned. Styx had a layer of barriers wrapped around his home to prevent magic. He had a lethal dislike for unwanted guests popping in. “You’ll have to stop at the edge of the estate and wait for an escort to bring you inside.”
Styx reached behind him to punch a button that opened the intercom to his security team, warning them to expect the imp.
When he turned back, Viper had put away his phone and was adjusting the lacy cuffs of his ridiculous shirt.
“Have you had any word from Cyn?”
“Nothing.”
Styx felt a familiar stab of frustration. When Roke had informed him that the clan chief of Ireland had disappeared along with the Chatri princess, Styx had assumed that they would turn up within a few hours. There were few women who wouldn’t leap at the chance to spend some time alone with the charming vampire. But as the days, and then weeks passed, the mildly annoying incident had turned into a looming disaster. The Chatri were the ruling class of the fey and if they decided that the vampires had insulted their king, they could make things very unpleasant.
He gave a sharp shake of his head.
“If Cyn has returned to this dimension he’s remaining well hidden.”
Viper shook his head. “I know Cyn. He can be impulsive—”
“He’s a damned maniac,” Styx muttered, recalling the night the clan chief had released a herd of cows in King James’s palace. It’d caused a near riot.
“But he would never kidnap a fairy princess,” Viper insisted.
“Unless she wanted to be kidnapped,” Styx pointed out.
“If that was the case then he wouldn’t remain in hiding. He would confront Sariel head-on, not skulk in the shadows.”
“I agree.” Styx grimaced. “He’s never been subtle.”
“Which means he’s in trouble.”
Trouble.
It was a word that he’d heard too often over the past year.
Was it really too much to ask that he have one damned week without some disaster lurking?
“I have my Ravens searching for him,” he said. “Between them and the fey there’s no rock that will be left unturned. And once I have my hands on whoever is responsible”—his power made the electricity flicker—“there will be hell to pay.”
“Yes, there will be, no matter who is responsible for kidnapping the princess,” a male voice drawled from the doorway.
Styx’s fangs lengthened, aching for the opportunity to drain the idiot who waltzed into the library as if he owned the place.
Prince Magnus was exactly what you would expect of a pureblooded fey.
His long hair shimmered like the finest rubies in the light from the chandelier. His brow was wide, his nose a thin, noble blade, and his lips lushly carved. And his eyes were the color of cognac and rimmed with gold.
Tonight he’d put aside his usual flowing gown encrusted with jewels to wear a pair of black slacks and a jade green silk shirt, revealing his surprisingly muscular body.
A humorless smile twisted Styx’s lips. The clothes had changed, but the outrageous arrogance was the same.
Viper moved to stand at Styx’s side. “I presume this is Magnus?”
The Chatri lightly touched the large emerald pendant that was hung around his neck, the intoxicating scent of finely aged whiskey filling the room.
“Prince Magnus,” the fey corrected, his expression pinched as if he had a corn cob stuck up his ass.
Styx wondered if his expression would be the same if it was a size thirteen boot stuck up there.
Viper smiled, deliberately exposing his fangs. “The last royal I met ended up as my dessert.”
The pale, elegant features hardened, hinting at a dangerous power hidden behind the fey’s pretense of namby pamby stupidity.
“I do not fear you, vampire,” he said.
Viper tapped the tip of his fang with his tongue. “Then you’re even more stupid than you look.”
“Enough,” Styx interrupted, not entirely pleased by the suspicion that Prince Magnus wasn’t quite the harmless fribble he’d first assumed. “What do you want now?”
The prince sniffed, once again a harmless, aggravating pain in the ass.
“I smelled imp,” he said.
Styx belatedly caught the scent of plums at the same time that Viper glanced in his direction.
“He’s right. Tonya’s here.”
“Thank God for portals,” Styx muttered, lifting a hand as the female imp appeared in the doorway. “Enter.”