Free Fairest 02 - The Frog Prince by Adrianne Brooks Page B

reluctant to leave the small punctures alone. Something about not wanting the smell of blood to get into the air.
    “What do you mean?”
    He shrugged. “It’s probably nothing, but that mermaid didn’t pay us a visit until after I snagged my finger on the vines.”
    “It was just a coincidence,” Rachel told him weakly.
    He eyed her as he continued wrapping her leg. “Maybe. But better safe than sorry.”
    Rachel allowed it, a small smile blossoming on her face as she watched him fuss over her leg. It was as if he thought she was made of glass or something. His hands were so big. Strong looking. There was something undeniably erotic about someone with his kind of power choosing to treat her with kindness rather than brute force. Or maybe she’d just gone to long without sex. When he’d tucked in the last half inch of material, he ran his hands down her calf and his touch made her shiver. He met her eyes from beneath his lashes and heat speared through her like a knife. She pulled her knees up to her chest, effectively taking her leg back, and he smiled slightly before getting to his feet.
    “Let’s go,” he said, holding a hand out to her.
    She placed her hand in his. “Another random direction?”
    “Oh yeah.”
    She groaned. “Goody.”
    They were going to be stuck in here forever.

Chapter Nine
     
    Maximillian Zaran wrapped his arm around the throat of the screaming fae and swayed with her about the room. She whimpered, her voice like music as she began to plead and beg. He enjoyed the way her crying bounced off the walls and he kissed her lovingly upon the shoulder as he continued their dance. Years ago, an amount of time not easily measured by human standards, the fairies had made the mistake of going up against the Black Widows. Oh, the fairies had the firepower to be worthy contenders, but they also had morals. A sense of right and wrong. Of dignity and justice. The Black Widows suffered from no such handicaps, and as a result an entire race of magical beings had been wiped out.
    There was no such thing as an afterlife for the fae. Not in the human sense. Magic didn’t just cease to exist. But rather it was shunted to one side. The fae had ended up trapped within the ether. Limbo for creatures like them. Unable to return to either the human realm or the realm that they called home. As a demon, Zaran could travel betwixt any realm he wished. The humans believed his kind to be nothing more than slaves. Which meant that he was always being summoned from his own little corner of hell to cater to the idiotic whims of some air breather with a desire for riches and fame. Other demons thought that Wish Granters such as himself were beneath him, but it couldn’t be denied that his species had certain perks that larger, more powerful, demons lacked.
    Like being able to harvest the fairy souls wandering aimlessly through the In Between.
    Not only did the demons who couldn’t travel between realms pay a lot of money for them, they also made a fine soup. Not to mention how useful their ground up carcasses happened to be for certain spells. In his world, status was everything. A demon could make or break himself based on his status. Status was what determined whether or not he would be considered a lord over his kind or just another mindless drone. Zaran had always had high aspirations. Much higher than just following along blindly with the other Djinn. For centuries, when he’d spent most of his time trapped within magical bottles and boxes, waiting for a human with more curiosity than common sense to set him free again, he’d lamented his imagination. Now, foresight had finally managed to pay off.
    All he had to do was wait for the Toadstone to mature. It should only take a few days more. Then he’d be able to carve it from that sniveling human’s skull. He knew, perhaps better than the man himself, why Danielle had turned him into a frog. As a Widow, the webs she wove were complex and far-reaching. She