Page 52 of King’s Kismet

“She’s going to kill him,” Stone whispered.

York snorted. “He won’t stay dead.”

“Still hurts,” Briggs rumbled, shoveling a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

“I can not believe this is how my afternoon is going.” Sloane huffed at the mage. “If you were so bored, I could have given you a whole list of shit to do.”

“I wasn’t bored.”

“Then what is the fucking problem?”

I scratched at my jaw, glancing between them before settling on Lo. “You were being too quiet.”

“I was fucking reading,” she snapped, then grimaced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“Just the dense bastard who stole your book.” I nodded. “It’s probably in his car.”

“Fuck you,” Palmer mumbled.

I shrugged, pegging him with an exhausted look. “She spent all day reading. Let her finish.”

“Are you getting in this now?” he countered.

“Someone has to be the buffer,” Novak told him. “Or she’s going to stab you.”

Briggs snorted. “Stab him.”

“Don’t instigate,” I admonished the wolf. “That’s not your job.”

“It would be funny, and you know it,” he drawled.

Sloane grinned at the idea…

And Palmer smirked at her as a strait-jacket appeared over her shirt, wrapping her arms around her chest.

Stone whistled low, standing and taking three steps up the stairs to get away from them. The demon was our instigator.

“I’m definitely going to stab you for this,” Sloane acknowledged matter-of-factly as she studied the dingy white fabric.

Palmer tucked his hands in his pockets. “Well, if you wanna act—”

“Do not finish that,” she cut in sweetly.

“Crazy,” the mage said with a grin. “Then you’ll get treated as—”

Palmer sucked in a sharp breath as he glanced downward.

Lo rolled her shoulders back and snapped her arms outward, ripping the seams of the strait-jacket. Then it was her turn to smirk at him.

“Don’t play with me, Palmer.”

She dangled a tiny set of keys in front of his face. As he reached for them, they vanished.

Novak cackled. “You didn’t…”

“You can call him Chastity,” she said with a sardonic smile. “And me, Queen of the Cage.”

Briggs sighed at the mage. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to poke the dragon?”