King of the Unsightly (Tempting Trickery #1)

A Mischievous Fae and the Gullible

K aschel didn’t move a muscle, refusing to acknowledge the two of us occupied this room. I couldn’t comprehend how he could sleep at a time like this. Or how either of them could act so unconcerned with everything going on.

“You seem to have a bad habit of staring at others and it’s quite distracting,” Kaschel muttered under his breath.

He lounged with no cares in the world. It always irritated me how apathetic he behaved.

I rested my cheek on my hand and compelled myself to stay strong like I had so many times before. I might be stuck in an undesirable situation, but the feelings of helplessness I knew all too well. I could handle this.

I was so done with my Addy-only, pity party.

And damn all these cryptic assholes keeping me in the dark.

I demanded answers, and I wouldn’t stop until I was satisfied.

“So, a royal, huh? Why are you out here playing the part of a petty crime lord when you should be up in your ivory tower? Why aren’t your servants the ones scrambling for the keys?” I asked, half-mockingly.

I was poking the bear, but I got this far with my unfiltered mouth, and nothing had happened yet, so let’s see how far I could push him until he gave in.

A soft chuckle left Kaschel’s lips, deep and seductive, and it tickled my skin in all the wrong places. He slowly opened his eyes and moved his arms from the top of the couch, positioning them on his knees.

He leaned forward and took me in.

His stare felt hot against my skin. My nervousness rose as his wild look burned right through me.

He broke eye contact, and I emptied my breath.

Kaschel focused on the fireplace behind me. The faint flames danced across his face as the crackling of the fire cut through the silence.

Kaschel spoke in a soft, velvety tone and it sent gooseflesh down my legs. “Why should I indulge your curiosity and tell you my life’s story? If I feed a beggar scraps once ... they always come back demanding seconds, and I’m not as charitable the second time around.”

I bit my lip, avoided facing him and traced my fingertips along the seams on the side arm of the couch. “Comparing your life’s story to food scraps ... you must feel quite pathetic to be reduced to nothing.”

Kaschel stood up and prowled in my direction until he towered above me.

He held a bloodthirsty spark in his eyes along with something else I couldn’t determine.

He bent down and gripped the top of the couch, leaning into me.

Kaschel’s mouth was centimeters away from my ear as he whispered, “Do you believe I don’t know what you’re trying to do?” He moved his face in front of mine. His lips pulled into a wicked grin as he tipped my chin up to meet his hypnotizing stare. “I think you’ve forgotten what I am. Shall I remind you, little flea?”

I lowered a brow and parted my lips. “Oh. Did I push some buttons of yours, old man?” A weak insult when he didn’t look a day over thirty, but I couldn’t think of anything else. When he didn’t respond, I kept pushing. “Did I render you speechless, or are you just looking at my lips with such lust?”

Kaschel gripped my chin tighter and rubbed his thumb gently over my bottom lip. He inclined his head closer to mine until our lips were parallel for the second time tonight.

I couldn’t break away from his intensity as he kept my chin in place.

I felt like a mouse trapped by a hungry lion, prowling, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

I swallowed, hard.

I couldn’t think as the man before me smiled so devilishly my whole body wanted to cave in.

Kaschel dropped my chin and leaned back. “So, you were looking at me with desire and not the food,” he chuckled with such a haughty tone that anything I felt two seconds ago vanished.

“I-I wasn’t.” Damn it. That wasn’t convincing at all.

What the fuck, Addy? Get your shit together. Stop getting distracted by his looks.

He had nothing else going for him.

A thunderous explosion rattled the floor beneath us and an inhuman screech followed. The glasses on the bar dropped and shattered into hundreds of shards of glass as the reverberating clangor made the world mute.