Any Story LGBTQ+ Paranormal/Supernatural Romance

Chapter 12 – Charles

He’s been where? None of the guards figured out that someone slipped into the castle while I was gone? How did he . . .

“The tunnels.”

“Yes, baby.”

Damn, his voice was sexy, but he could not be calling me that. His father was Lord Zarus. He’d murder me if I even thought of his son in such a manner. Not that I hadn’t already decided the guy was sex on a stick. Which was odd for me to begin with. No one had drawn my sexual eye open since Lord Zarus shut the portals.

“Baby, you are —”’

“Stop that,” I shoved his hand away from my face as he came closer to me. “Who told you about the tunnels?” Who stopped patrolling the tunnels? “Who told you about the secret passages?” Had he known about the one in his room?

“Are you going to tell Lord Zarus, baby?”

Tell him that his son is going to do the one thing that he never dreamed would happen. “Hell’s no. You are going to.”

“The hell I am, baby. I am going to put this world right. Lord Thadus is unhappy. My father has been unhappy all these years. He tore how many people apart, including you, if I am not mistaken. Not even the Fays and the Angels benefited from the portals being closed. It is time they are reopened, and Lord Thadus knows it, but is too damn stubborn to do anything to reverse it.”

“And you think you can,” I glanced down at the two jerks lying at my feet. Neither of them could hold their own at a Lord’s side. They’d fold soon as trouble came their way, which is what they’d done. They feared that what was happening was throwing their fearless leader off course, so they turned on him. “You do not have strong people backing you. These two,” I kicked Darren again, “are weak and fear what they do not know.”

“That may be the case,” He ran his hand through his hair, “but with you at my side, I can make this happen. More and more people will join my cause. Not only those on the outside of the castle, but those inside the walls.”

“How did you know your father would put me at your side?”

“I did not.”

“Then why do you think people will join if they know I am at your side?”

“Because I have heard of your gallant task and all the success you have had before and after the portals were closed. I know you lost the loves of your life, and that they were killed during the battle that raged between Lord Thadus and my father.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I was raised by stories of before the realms were closed, and the ones my grandpa and mother told me were full of stories about you and your two lovers. I do not understand how you are still able to work so closely with my father after he took your true loves from you.”

I’d asked myself that question many times, but each time I came up with the same answer. My husbands would have wanted me to continue to hunt the demons who broke their code and our code. That was how I honored them. “I have my reasons, and it has nothing to do with your father or Lord Thadus, because it took both of them to take my husbands from me.”

“Then help me reunite all those who still have their husbands and wives on the opposite side.”

Shit. How was I supposed to say no to that? There were many of my friends suffering because they were apart from their lovers. If Prince Daro could do as he says, then . . .

“Fine. I’ll help as long as you promise you wish no harm to your father.”

He came over to stand in front of me, gripped the bottom of my chin, and pulled it down until my lips were an inch away from his. “I promise.” He rested his lips against mine.