Lust. Charlotte Featherstone

some of my men who are posing as footmen.”

      His mother brightened. “London?”

      Crom smiled. “Indeed. I’ve warded off the Lennox town house. Naught but mortals shall enter their domain—at least until we have decided what is to be done about my brother and his band of cursed princes.”

      “I need to speak to Lennox,” his mother demanded.

      “Four mornings from now,” he announced. “It’s all arranged. He will meet you at the gates of Richmond Park. I assumed that would be beneficial to you, since the park incorporates your court. You will be safe on your warded ground if the Dark Fey decide to follow Lennox.”

      His mother’s smile widened, making her expression beam with loveliness. “You are very much my protégé, are you not?”

      Crom inclined his head. “You have been both mother and father to me. Naturally, I have followed in your footsteps.”

      “And what do you want, Crom? I sense that this interest in the virtues is not merely to keep your mama happy and the curse against your bastard brother alive.”

      Ah, at last they had arrived at the crux of the matter. He needed to be cautious, for his mother was as shrewd as she was beautiful. Every move, every decision was made for the greater good of the Seelie Court. The damn court was all his mother lived for, thrived for. Her vengeance against the Unseelie had never wavered, only grown since she had fled his monster of a father’s court a little more than two hundred years before.

      In mortal terms, it was an unfathomable length of time for vengeance to perpetuate. In the world of the fey, it was nothing. But Crom felt as though it was aeons. He was tired of it. Sick of being treated as a youngling by his mother. It was time to take over the helm. The Seelie needed a king, and never more so than now, with the Unseelie coming out of their dark court to wreak retribution upon them.

      “Crom?” his mother prompted, her voice full of suspicion.

      There was no need to rile her, to make her suspect that he planned to throw her over and build a new Seelie Court. No, he needed to play his hand wisely.

      “I would request, Mother, that you consider bestowing one of the virtues to me.”

      “To you?” She laughed as she picked up a silver mirror and gazed into it. “Whatever would you do with a virtue?”

      It annoyed him, the way she thought of him as an ineffective courtier. Well, what did she know? He had been gathering his little mutinous army beneath her nose for the past three years. With the promise of fairness, and a mating with a virtue to strengthen their Seelie powers, the six fey he had chosen to help usurp his mother’s throne were more than eager to set his plan into place.

      His mother had ruled too long. Her only care was for the utter destruction of the Unseelie Court—a vision he shared. But he had many more ideas of making their court thrive, something his mother had long ago abandoned. There were alliances to be made with other fey in other countries. Fortunes to be created, both with fey and mortals alike. The world was advancing, and more and more the mortals who inhabited the earth failed to believe the stories of the Daoine Side the way their ancestors once had. No, times were changing, and if the Seelie were to survive, they must change with it. There were millions of mortals in need of fey gifts, and millions more to use as pawns.

      His mother didn’t see that. She only saw the destruction of the court that had turned her into an embittered woman.

      There was nothing he would have enjoyed more than informing her that her days of ruling the Seelie were numbered. But one thing he had learned being her son was that one needed to be certain that one had the upper hand—fully. Crom was not quite convinced he had that yet. So, he pretended that his motivation was far more benign.

      “I would like a wife, Mother. I believe I am entitled one. And younglings. Wouldn’t you enjoy that, playing the part of doting grandmama to lovely little fey-virtue children?”

      She waved her pale hand, dismissing him. “Pick one of my ladies-in-waiting, or a courtier’s daughter.”

      “I want a virtue,” he said, grinding his teeth together. His mother arched her brow, replaced the mirror atop the table and glared at him.

      “And what would you do with a virtue?”

      His mother would not believe it if he told her. For three years he had been fantasizing about Chastity Lennox. Her innocence, her purity would be the perfect symbolism for his new court. As queen, she would emulate everything he was trying to achieve. And in bed … he felt himself grow aroused as the image of the voluptuous Chastity Lennox formed in his mind. In bed he could be as wicked as he wanted to with her. She would belong to him—only him. Oh, he kept his Dark Fey blood well hidden from his mother, but the appetite of a virile Dark Fey was there, simmering deep within him. He wanted to dominate the virtuous Chastity, and hide her away in his bedchamber, corrupting her through the night, and purifying her by day.

      “Mother?”

      “I suppose I can think on it.” Which meant she wouldn’t give the matter a passing thought.

      “After you meet with Lennox?”

      “Yes, yes,” she replied absently as she reached for the decanter and poured herself some faery mead.

      Crom stood and smoothed his waistcoat with his palm, then he turned and reached for his sword, which was tucked safely away in his scabbard. “Good day, Mother.”

      There was silence until he reached the door, then her voice called out to him, engaging and lyrical, sweetening the warning in her words. “Do not think to overrule me, Crom. You will not enjoy the effects of losing to me.”

      Closing the door, Crom pressed his back against the carved wood. It was not going to be easy, but he would do it. He would overthrow his mother, and in the end, he and his faithful men would possess a virtue, and thereby form a new Seelie Court.