Bound by the Vampire Queen by Joey W Hill, now you can read online.
1
JACOB squatted on his booted heels on a mountain of broken concrete. Looking down the slope of rock and across a thicket of ruined foliage, he wondered how hard it was to pul off a fairy's wings. He'd sure as hell like the chance to find out.
His lady and Fae Lord Keldwyn were a few hundred yards away, standing next to the clump of twisted trees where the verandah used to be. She cal ed it the mangrove, evidence of her macabre sense of humor, given that the trees used to be a pack of rabid vampires. That is, before she turned them into future firewood, and crushed the surrounding marble and concrete like popcorn.
Thanks to his ability to be in her mind, Jacob could easily hear their conversation. Which was why he was envisioning wing extraction. Of course, since Keldwyn's wings were currently concealed, Jacob would settle for breaking a limb or two.
“As long as you had no true grasp of Fae power,” Keldwyn was saying, “the court had no interest in you. You were like solitary elementals; pixies, dryads, gnomes. The peasantry of our kind. Less than that, even, because of your inferior vampire blood.”
Through his lady's mind, Jacob watched the Fae lord's eyes, like onyx and pale moonstone, slide over the center tree. The shape of the trunk was undeniably like the tortured body of the male vampire trapped within it. One large aboveground root kinked up like a leg, in a futile struggle to push out of its prison.
“But this, and the potential of your parentage, has set your future course. The Unseelie queen demands you come before her, for assessment and possible acknowledgment. If she determines that you are significant, you will be made a member of her court, one of her subjects, required to attend her will as she deems appropriate.”
“What are they saying?” The question came from Lord Mason, sitting at a lower point on the pile of debris. He had his elbows braced on a jagged slab of what used to be the veranda steps. His long legs were stretched out, ankles crossed.
“He's saying he misses us. That he wants us to come join the conversation.” Jacob rose, and with a couple of graceful leaps, was on the ground near Mason's polished riding boots.
“The same tight-assed bastard who said ‘the vampires need to wait here,' like we were lepers?” Mason arched a brow.
Jacob gave him a grim smile. When Keldwyn had issued that curt directive, not even by a twitch had Mason reacted to being treated like chattel on his own estate. Of course, that wasn't surprising.
Though Jacob had warned Mason of the Fae's contempt for vampires, Mason had dealt with plenty of egos in his own world. Hadn't they all ? Jacob's lip curled at the thought.
“Yeah, he's had a change of heart. He's feeling all warm and fuzzy about us now.”
Mason snorted, but Jacob knew neither of them gave a rat's ass what Keldwyn thought. Lyssa was their mutual main concern. As such, when he headed toward the mangrove, he was aware of Mason rising to fol ow him at a sauntering pace, ostensibly to check his surviving roses, but Jacob knew he had his back. A Fae might be able to kick a vampire's ass any day of the week, but kicking two of them, as well as dealing with Lyssa, might be more than Keldwyn wanted to do. He'd muss his perfect hair, after all.
Jacob. Easy. Lyssa spoke in his mind. Let's see where this goes.