Desecrated Beauty (Twisted Fairy Tales #1) by Kyleigh Castronaro Page A

armoury. She couldn’t imagine he would dispose of any weapons that his guards took off of people who entered the property. They were too valuable and it would be a waste to not keep them, just in case.
    But then, if she did find it and took something from it, he would know she had snooped. He would know she had something dangerous to defend herself with. No, she wanted something he didn’t know about, just in case. Something no one knew about and then maybe she could take back a little bit of the control that she felt slip through her fingers the longer she stayed here with him.
    Grabbing the mattress she hauled it up and pushed it aside, revealing the slats of the bed underneath. Prying one out of its holder she quickly replaced the mattress so no one had any reason to suspect. Sitting down on the bed she turned the slat piece over and over her hands, considering how she was going to carve a stake without a knife or anything.
    Balancing the two sides of the slat in between her hands she pressed them in toward each other. The wood they’d used for the bed was flimsy and flexible, it caved under the pressure she exerted and after a few tries snapped in satisfaction. One piece was more pointed than the other so she discarded the piece she had on the bed, moving into the bathroom to look around for anything sharp enough to carve the stake.
    Nero had been true to his word, ensuring there was enough to keep her comfortable - including a razor. He must’ve deemed the item safe. She grinned to herself and filled the tub up with warm water, pushing the wood underneath and watching it swell. When it was soft enough she pulled it back out and sitting on the closed toilet she worked the razor’s edge slowly along the point.
    It was slow, tiresome work, but she soon had managed to fashion the wood into a decent enough point. The razor hadn’t fared as well. Dropping the useless beauty tool into the bin she grabbed the stake and brought it back into the bedroom.
    She set it on the windowsill to dry before sitting on the bed again. She didn’t feel any safer with the stake when the only thing she knew that guaranteed real safety was knowledge. She needed the truth from Nero about why she was here without the facades and masks he used with ease. If she was going to accept being here with him, she needed to know everything.
    Her hands were shaking with nerves as she walked through the second floor looking for his room. She suspected his room was the one guarded by two surly looking vampires eying her with suspicion as she approached them.
    “You can’t go in there.” The one to the right spoke first, angling his body so he loomed in front of the door but also over her. Pulling herself together, calling on the cool, steely killer that lived under the surface she rose to her full height, letting him know he didn’t scare her.
    “Nero asked me to wait for him in his bedroom.” Righty looked at Lefty for confirmation before looking back at her.
    “He didn’t mention anything to us.”
    This was the moment she suspected she would have to reveal her cards to the guards. Slowly unwrapping the robe from around her waist she let the silk kimono hang at her sides. Underneath she wore an intricate piece of lingerie: black bands of material wrapping along her chest in a very revealing bra that held her cleavage up on display while the bottom half was manufactured carefully to hide the important bits but be just as enticing as the top half.
    She knew it was working by the way the eyes of the guards swept over her body appreciatively, working their way from the curve of her breasts down the hard toning of her stomach from years of rigorous training down to her thick, curved thighs.
    “Are you going to make him wait when he comes home and finds you didn’t let me in?” she asked in a curt tone, snapping both guards out of their appreciative gaze.
    “No. Just - turn around and let us make sure you have no weapons behind you.” She swept