Summoned and Stolen (Summoned Series Romances) by Susan Hayes

hauled them to the far side of the tent, leaving them in a shadowed corner where he hoped they would not be spotted until he was well away. Then he returned to the doorway and set the rest of his mad plan in motion.
    “Your Grace!” he loosed a bellow as he staggered into the Duke’s chamber, once again playing the part of the drunkard. Inside was a sight Kel could have gone his entire life without witnessing. A pile of naked, writhing bodies filled a bed so large Kel had to wonder how many draft animals had died of heart strain trying to transport the behemoth.
    The rest of the room was no better. The walls, carpets and even the linens were all varying shades of eye-gouging crimson. As if that wasn’t bad enough, every surface was gilded, even the chamber pot Kel could see under the bed. Just scanning the room was enough to give him a headache.
    Out of the tangle of bare limbs rose a familiar, if flushed, face. Camford’s mouth gaped open in shock at Kel’s arrival, and he struggled to free himself from under a nubile young blonde…and a brunette. If Kel lived through the night, he was going to need a great deal of mead to wipe that image from his mind.
    “What are you doing in my chambers, mercenary?” Camford demanded, his bloodshot eyes glaring at Kel from beneath their flabby lids.
    “I came to talk to you about the very fuckable fairy. I want to buy her from you.” Kel shambled a few steps closer to the bed and leered as one of the Duke’s pleasure slaves winked at him.
    “Never,” Camford grunted, and heaved himself up to a semi-sitting position. The movement caused the bed to heave and the slave who had been eyeing Kel wailed in shock as she was sent tumbling off the bed and onto the floor at his feet. She scrambled to her feet and fled, but not before Kel caught the distinctive scent of dreamberry juice clinging to her skin.
    Well, that explained Camford’s bloodshot eyes. The Duke had slathered his slaves in the drug before indulging himself in their bodies. Rare and very expensive, the berries came from a land far to the south and were famous for their pleasure enhancing qualities as well as their narcotic effects. The Duke and everyone else in that bed, was in a dreamberry induced fugue.
    This might just tip the scales in my favor.
    Camford was sitting up completely now, albeit unsteadily, his vice-bloated body rocking from side to side as he tried to focus on Kel. “That one is not for sale.”
    “Everything’s got a price, yer Grace. Name hers.”
    “She can make me immortal, fool! Of course she’s not for sale!” Camford waved his arms in irritation and the remaining slaves retreated, vanishing through a barely noticeable doorway. “Now get out before I call my guards. If they get you out of here quickly I might forgive them for letting you in here at all!”
    “She says she can’t,” Kel gave him a lopsided grin as if imparting the punch line of a wonderful joke. “Says her powers don’t work that way. Now do you want to sell her?”
    “She lies!” Camford snarled and flapped his pudgy hands again, making the multitude of rings he wore gleam and flicker in the lamplight. “I’ve researched it thoroughly. She can make me immortal, or near enough to make no difference. Now I have her, I can finally take the throne.”
    Kel hid his surprise at that wild statement and staggered in closer, his voice lowering to a drunken rumble. “There’s already a king in Wulfshaven, yer Grace. With young Prince Jorn preparing to take the crown in his time.”
    Camford shrugged, setting his flesh rippling in obscene patterns. “Accidents happen. Especially to young men eager to prove themselves.”
    “You’d do away with the princeling?” Kel buried his feelings deep and tried to appear as if he were intrigued by the idea.
    “I wasn’t sure about you, mercenary,” Camford informed him as if he hadn’t heard Kel’s question. “Not until you took the pretty little fae to your bed. I knew