Enticing Monsters (Fae Revealed #4)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

V

“ P lease.”

The sob echoes dully off the trees surrounding me. I dig my feet into the pine-needle-covered ground, the chill of the air unnoticed against my skin, even as my breath comes out in white bursts, quickly dissipating in the night air.

Only the barest light breaches the thick branches of these ancient trees, casting macabre shadows that enhance my excitement. The sound of a bone snapping—and the short, pig-like screech that follows it—makes me grin.

My knuckles are swollen and split from the blows I’ve delivered, and my mind trails to my kitten, wishing they were her marks on me. Wanting the sting and the ache, rather than the void of sensation that these leave in their wake.

I lash out, my foot connecting with flesh, the solid thunk vibrating up my leg.

“Please!” the little worm in front of me cries out again. “Help me, someone, please.”

The weak morning sunshine that trickles overhead bounces off his face as he attempts to crawl forward, away from the hidden thicket I found just for him.

Rude of him, not to appreciate the thought and planning that went into this moment.

Not shocking, however. Few truly appreciate the time and effort that I put into torture. It’s about the psychological as much as the physical, really. Anyone can make someone bleed. Not like it’s hard. Even other supes are breakable. And whiney.

But not many can make them piss their pants before the fun has even begun.

I dig a finger into my ear as the sobbing squeals this guy makes bang against my eardrums. Honestly, it isn’t like I skinned him. I haven’t even stabbed him, though if he keeps this noise up, I’ll seriously consider it. If he’s going to attempt to pierce my eardrums, I’ll certainly see about piercing an organ or two.

Or maybe just piercing his ear…

I did that once to one of the lords when he offended me as a child. The man still instinctively covers his ears whenever I walk into a room. I think even his mate is a bit amused that the man is more offended by the ears I pierced than the bones I broke.

Pride is interesting like that.

And so much more fun to break than a bone.

Bones can be treated by a healer.

But when you shatter someone’s pride? Leave it in tatters around them?

That is nearly as good as death.

I consider it for the worm currently inching his way across the forest floor, gasping and whining with every inch he manages. I cock my head to the side, watching his pathetic attempts to escape.

It isn’t like I worked him over that hard. A broken nose, maybe a couple fractured ribs, a concussion, a broken hand or two…

Child’s play, really. I showed great restraint. Honestly, I deserve a reward. A nice one.

Too bad my kitten won’t know about this to give me the reward I rightfully deserve.

It is because of her—and those obnoxious twin mates of hers and their moral compass—that the male in front of me is still breathing. Not that I am scared of them, of course. But if I kill him, it’ll piss them off. And them being pissed off will hurt my kitten. And if my kitten is hurt, she won’t play with me.

Huh.

Maybe this is what having a conscience is like.

I prefer living without one myself.

“Help!”

His cries grow louder, more fevered, and it takes me a moment to realize why. The griffin’s elevated hearing has picked up the sound of footsteps moving towards us at a rapid rate.

I don’t bother to flee, or even to release my wings and lift myself into the obscuring branches thick above my head. If someone wants to object to my justice, I’ll either bring them around to my line of thinking, or they can join in on the lesson.

I am hoping for the latter, mostly because this griffin has made for a boring morning. I could have stayed asleep and gotten more exercise than he’s given me. His griffin has retreated inside of him at the first sign of my dominance, not even allowing me to fight against his claws and beak.

Truly a pathetic excuse for a supe. I’ve killed humans who put up more of a fight. And they only had their measly weapons to protect themselves.

“Really?”

The exasperation in the tone makes me swallow a smirk as I take in the way my kitten leans against a tree, rubbing her hand across her face as though she can scrub the image from her brain.

“Veronica, what the hell are you doing, and why is it disturbing my morning?”

“It wasn’t meant to, though if I get to see you, maybe I should move all my torture sessions nearer to you.” I consider that for a moment, tapping my finger against my lower lip. “Your father may let me, if I talk to him. Or your mother.”

I truly approve of how blood-thirsty my mate’s family is. They’ve trained her well, even if they let her think she was a human for the first seventeen years of her life. It is only their innocence—and the fact that she adores her family—that has kept me from enacting justice on her behalf.

Justice like I am enacting here.

“Stay away from my parents, Vagina,” she demands, pointing a finger at me.

Not a finger, I realize, as a stray, weak beam of light catches the shine. A knife.

I swallow the moan that builds in my throat, my body already hard and ready for her, nearly forgetting the parakeet on the ground.

Well, maybe I could forget him if he didn’t try to touch my kitten, his hand reaching for her ankle as a sob catches in his throat.

I am on him in an instant, tossing him across the thicket as though he weighs no more than the parakeet I thought of him as. In the next instant, a blade is against my throat. Sera’s tiny body molds against my back as she holds me in place.

All of my blood rushes straight to my cock, which is already hard as granite, rubbing enticingly against the denim of my jeans.

“You’re ruining my morning, Virginia. If I bomb this midterm later today because I’ve had to be out here cleaning up your mess, you and I will have words. And not the kind you enjoy.”

Impossible. I enjoy everything my kitten does to me.

I debate telling her that, but her knife nicks my skin, and the burn of it sends fireworks through my system. I nearly sag into her hold. Her other mates may still see my tiny, ethereal mate as fragile, but even with her traumas, her pain, and her body fighting against her, she is as strong as the steel that is kissing my throat.

“Please,” the pigeon whimpers again. “He’s crazy.” He hacks out a cough, followed by a howling cry more worthy of one of the wolves on campus than a griffin. He is a shame to his people, truly. “He brought me out here. Started beating me. I didn’t even do anything to him.”

“Virginia?”

Why I find her mockery of my nickname amusing, I can’t be sure, but it creates a glow in my chest that I want to squash—or feel for eternity. It goes both ways, depending on the day.

If anyone else were to call me that, I would kill them without a second of hesitation. But with Serafina? My kitten? I want to bend her over and fuck her tight ass while she screams “Virginia,” “Vagina,” “Virginal,” and every other V nickname at the top of her lungs.

I shrug, shivering with pleasure as phantom pain lances my system when the motion digs her knife into me again. Of course, I can’t truly feel the kiss of the blade, not the way I would if her fingernails were digging into my flesh…

Focus, V.

“He’s not wrong.”

A tired, overburdened sigh works out of her body and buffets against my shirt as she slams her head into my spine. “You can’t beat up innocent kids.”

“Who says he’s innocent?”

“Of course I am!” he pants out. “You just agreed I didn’t do anything to you.”

Apparently, seeing my kitten holding me still is making the fool brave, but I am not about to break her hold. My mate overpowering me and bending me to her will doesn’t make me feel weak at all.

Proud. Thrilled. Horny. Sure, all of that.

But definitely not weak.

Especially not as weak as the fool currently staggering to his feet in a puffed-up attempt at fake bravery. I could escape her hold if I wanted to, have the pair of us dance, but I don’t desire that. And this bastard is distracting me from my time with her.

I glare at the bitching, blubbering bird, a snicker slipping through my lips at my mental alliteration. The things that amuse me…

“I told her you didn’t do anything to me .” I draw out the final word for emphasis, as well as for the way it makes her knife vibrate against my throat, leaving lovely little scrapes in its path.

If she keeps this up, I’ll come in my jeans without her even touching me with more than that blade of hers. For the briefest of moments, I am distracted by the idea of her kneeling at my feet, her blade in her hand, my fingers in her hair as I guide her across my cock, but I shake the image away.

Not now.

Soon.

But not now.

“Not doing anything to me is a far cry from being innocent, you moronic bird,” I continue.

Sera’s hold on me loosens, and she shifts her weight away from me, her focus more on the male across the clearing.

Jealousy roars through my system, and I have to swallow hard to press it down. I don’t like her attention on others. Her other mates? I can deal with that. Not happily—I’ll be the first to slice them from crown to groin if they hurt her—but as long as she cares for them, I know hurting them would hurt her.

Not to mention weaken her.

But the thought of her with anyone else…

It makes me stabby.

Very, very stabby.

“He hurt someone else?” A thread of darkness runs through her words, and a smirk twists the corner of my mouth as the bird’s eyes widen, every instinct his griffin holds probably screaming at him that another predator has entered the game.

My kitten is so pretty when she is killing.

Running feet sound through the trees, and I pout. Who the hell is interrupting us now? Whoever they are is far from graceful or stealthy, the snapping of branches, trampling of undergrowth, and panting breaths a clear beacon.

“Foster?” Sera asks, the question clear in her voice as she steps up beside me.

She studies the boy who is mussed and mildly bloodied, a long scratch across his cheek, though, like me, part of her attention remains on the griffin shifter whose healing has finally started to kick in.

“How. Do. You. Run. Like. That?” His chest heaves as he bends over and places his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath even as he studies the clearing, taking in every aspect.

His glasses are crooked on his nose, and it seems as if one lens may be cracked. His red hair is soaked with sweat and stuck to the top of his head, highlighting the color the run must have put in his cheeks.

“You’re joining her in the gym,” I tell him, the words slipping from my lips before I really consider them. I pause and then nod, certainty washing over me. “You and all of the others. You need it.”

“Vagina!” Sera scolds, whirling on me with a scowl. “Apologize!” She turns back to her other mate, hurrying over to him as he winces at what appears to be a cramp in his leg. “Ignore him. You’re fine.”

“And if I wasn’t here…” I begin, kicking a rock at my feet up into the air like a Hacky Sack and pelting it at the griffin shifter as he tries to sneak away in the confusion.

It nails him in the back of the head, sending him to the ground in a moaning heap.

At that speed, I’ve likely fractured his skull.

Good.

I step towards Foster and Sera, my head cocking to the side as I study them, really considering it. “If you were incapacitated and I wasn’t here, could he help you right now? Could he watch out for his own life while you were distracted in another fight? Could he keep up if you had to run from danger?”

Foster winces with every word, even as Sera whirls on me, her hands fisting.

“I will gut you,” she hisses, her fingers inching towards some of the other blades I know she has hidden on her person. “I can protect myself, and him, just fine.”

“He’s right.” The words are a croak as Foster rubs his hand over his face, hauling himself to a standing position. He meets my eyes, and the heat, the anger, and the sadness that live in them flare to life. “If something happens to you, to any of us, I’m worse than useless. I won’t keep being useless.”

There’s clearly a double meaning in his words, a hidden depth that my kitten catches but doesn't understand as she shoots him a worried look.

All of her mates hold secrets, and for the moment, I’ve allowed them to keep them. But not for long. Secrets are just lies, hidden behind walls. They require lies to keep them hidden.

And I abhor liars and their lies.

My kitten will learn my past soon enough, and though it is dark and blood-soaked, I know she will accept it. Not because she is my mate or anything as melodramatic and falsely romantic as that.

I’d been under misapprehensions when I met her. Sure, she’s lived in a gilded palace, hidden away from pain, fright, or darkness, a weak-minded human female who didn’t have to experience more than a bad grade, the breaking of a nail, or a lack of popularity.

But what my kitten has lived through? Thrived through? Her agony is different from my own yet sings in harmony with mine. She won’t judge my pain, my darkness, my shame. She’ll seek vengeance in my name, the way I wish I could against what is hurting her.

It is so much harder when the enemy is her body itself. I can’t seek vengeance against it, offer my support in that way. I can only be there for her.

And take out new threats like the pigeon currently half unconscious on the ground.

“I saw you run into the woods and knew something was up,” Foster tells her, the shaking in his limbs under control now that more oxygen has reached his muscles. He lifts a hand to adjust his glasses, studying the boy on the ground. “I thought I could follow you, but I got lost. I have no idea how you run that fast.”

“Training,” she admits with a shrug. Her hands are gentle, and a bit hesitant, as they stroke across his cheek.

A different heat flares in his eyes at her touch.

“You don’t have to do what he’s asking.” Her words are meant for him alone, her eyes holding him entranced as she cups his cheek. “You have your own skills, Foster.”

“And now I’ll gain new ones.” The smile he offers her is shaky, but he meets my eyes over her head, the certainty in his making me grin darkly.

Yes, the pyro is a good choice for my kitten’s mate. He may not be a fighter or a killer, but he’ll do what needs to be done to protect her.

“What’s going on?” he asks, gesturing to the griffin. “I assume you aren’t out here to meet him.”

Sera shakes her head, looking between me and the bird. “I interrupted the two of them. I felt…” She shrugs slightly. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”

“Your magic drew you in.” Interesting. Was it drawing her to me? To pain? To trouble?

Something for us to experiment with.

She makes a small noise, part agreement, part uncertainty. “I found him beating the hell out of this guy. He says he’s not innocent, but that’s about when you interrupted.”

“Prince V?” Foster arches a red eyebrow.

Well, the fire user doesn’t judge, it seems, waiting calmly for facts rather than jumping down my throat about a lack of morality being the only reason to break someone.

Time to see if my kitten will be mad at me or enact some justice.

Either way will be entertaining.