Beguiled Read Online Free PDF

feel better. At least I’m not the only one out of the loop.”
    “Maggie,” he said, with a very human-sounding sigh, “as Queen, you are the ‘loop,’ as you call it.”
    Wouldn’t that be nice? But . . . “Clearly not.”
    He scowled again, folded his massive arms across his broad chest and planted both feet wide apart. Maggie’s breath hitched unsteadily. He looked so damn good. Like a pirate on the cover of a steamy romance novel. His black hair lifted in the cold sea breeze and his pale green eyes narrowed on her. Strange, that even when he was crabby and pissy, Maggie still felt sparks dazzling through her system.
    Seriously, Culhane was enough to tempt the saints right out of heaven.
    “I will speak with Quinn,” he promised, and from his tone, Maggie almost felt sorry for the other warrior. “But there is more to think about than the coming child.”
    “I know, I know.” Maggie forgot about her paint-stained fingers and shoved one hand through her hair, giving it a yank so that the tiny jerk of pain would make her focus on something else besides the urge to throw herself at Culhane and forget all about everything but how he could make her feel.
    Didn’t really work.
    “I’m the Queen; I’ve got to pay attention. I have to be in Otherworld, trying to fix what’s wrong; like that won’t take a couple of decades. . . . Oh, and a shiny new—old—grandfather to think about, not to mention that there are Fae who don’t like me, not that they even know me.” She looked up at him and blew out a breath. “But Otherworld isn’t the only thing I’ve got to think about and you don’t seem to get that. This is still my world, Culhane, and here, I’ve got to eat and I’ve also got to pay bills—”
    “You could live in the palace and never pay another bill,” he whispered.
    That sly hush of sound probably was just what the snake in the Garden of Eden had sounded like. Tempting. Alluring. Making her envision a life of pampered luxury. She’d been in the palace a few times and it was pretty damn impressive. Huge and beautiful, its white marble and crystal walls shimmered with an inner light. Windows that overlooked gardens so breathtaking you could hardly force yourself to stop looking at them. Breezes that tickled and teased your skin, carrying with them the tangled scents of those flowers, the far-off seas and foreign spices.
    For one brief shining moment, Maggie let herself think what it might be like to surrender her version of normalcy to live forever in that world so far away from her own. Imagine having no electric bill, no phone company getting snippy because the check was late. No insurance bills, car payments, ooh, and no taxes. She sighed. “Wouldn’t that be something. . . .”
    For the first time, she didn’t consider all of the palace intrigue, the pixies against the Fae, the women against the men, the rogue Fae threatening to break loose of the icy world they’d been imprisoned in, to wreak havoc in her world. Nope. All she thought about was the incredible notion of having no responsibilities beyond, you know—ruling.
    Then she caught herself, frowned at the Fae Warrior watching her with a knowing gleam in his eyes and said, “You’re evil, Culhane.”
    He smiled and her stomach did a quick spin.
    “I know what you’re trying to do,” Maggie said, shaking her head and holding up both hands, forming a cross with her fingers, as if she were trying to hold off a vampire. “You’re trying to seduce me onto the throne. Well, it won’t work. I told you. I’ll be Queen. On my terms. I have a life, Culhane, and I’m not ready to give it up.”
    Muttering something under his breath in a language she didn’t understand, he practically snarled at her; then he moved so fast she didn’t see the motion, him sweeping in close, grabbing her upper arms and dragging her up against him. He held her so tightly pinned against his body, she felt the hard, solid length of him pressing into