“And how will I do that? The second I step into the Elders’ home, Indra is always all over me.”
Elle paced the room. “We get the crystals today, and then, when you place them at the tree, you ask to see your auntmom.”
I rolled my eyes. “Auntmom?”
She shrugged. “What are we calling her?”
I had no fucking clue, and I didn’t have a therapist on speed dial, so I needed to not think about this too deeply. “Queen Dahlia?”
“Right,” Elle continued. “You ask to see the queen and take one of her hairs. That way, we can see what really happened.”
As much as I dreaded that, I really did need to know what had happened when I was born. I nodded. “Okay. And what do we do about Indra?”
Elle whistled low through her teeth. Again, she looked at the journal. “Kill her. Bitch needs to die.”
I rubbed my temples. “It’s not that easy.”
Elle looked disappointed, but I didn’t want to just cut Indra’s head off right away. “Fine,” she said. “But I think we should be very wary that she doesn’t mind control us or whatever that crap is, and after we wake the queen, we show her your mom’s journal. Then she can deal with it.”
Yeah, good idea. Make it someone else’s problem.
“Okay,” I said. “Crystals first. Everything else later.”
“Yes, my liege.” She bowed, and I reached behind me and chucked a pillow at her face.
“If you don’t stop, I’ll tell Cam how badly you want him.”
The color drained from her face. “What? I don’t—” She was doing a horrible job at faking it.
I rolled my eyes. “Elle, please. The sexual tension is thick.”
She shrugged. “He’s hot. Whatever.”
“And funny.” A grin pulled at my lips. I was glad to be focusing on someone else’s problems.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” she scoffed.
“Look.” I grabbed her hand. “This is the new Faerie. All of us together. No one being excluded because they aren’t pure-blooded or from a certain court. It’s time to drop those biases and just let yourself have whatever feelings you’re going to have.”
Elle swallowed hard. “When did you get so mature?”
I wrapped my arm around her, squeezing her tightly. “Must be the royal blood,” I said with a wink.
We laughed, but it was cut off by a knock at the door.
“Er, come in?” It wasn’t really my room, so I wasn’t sure what else to say.
Liam appeared, wearing a goofy grin. “She’s better.”
I squealed and gave a whoop before running into his arms. That was the best news I’d had in a long time, and I knew how much it would mean to this family.
“And the guys are showing up, so it’s showtime.”
I pulled away and nodded. Time to convince seventy halflings who’d been taught to hate me that they should follow me into a deadly battle, and then into a new world.
No big deal.
After Liam showered and we both scarfed down breakfast, he told his little brothers to stay inside, and we made our way to his barn.
Over twenty cars and motorcycles were pulled up in the driveway and on the lawn of the small farm. I could see a bunch of fae milling around the opening of the barn. Black wings, horns, pale skin—they all looked up as we approached, and Liam slipped his hand into mine. Leaning into my ear, he whispered, “I don’t fully trust all of them, so let’s keep your lineage a secret for now.”
I gulped. Fine with me. I was hoping to keep my lineage a secret forever and never have to deal with it. Maybe the queen could have another child, and they could take over the throne.
“One more thing.” He stopped walking and looked over at the guys watching us as Cam and Elle approached. “I was, uh…” He nervously ran his fingers through his hair. “I was going to introduce you as…my girlfriend. I mean, because I want them to know we’re united and…well, is that okay?”
A grin tugged at my lips. I’d never seen Liam nervous before. It was adorable. My voice cracked as I said, “Yeah, totally.”
Girlfriend? We were fucking soulmates. I was going to marry this guy and have his babies one day, so girlfriend–boyfriend was a good place to start.
He let out a deep breath that he must have been holding. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
As we approached the men, their eyes went from my wings to Liam, to our interlocked fingers. I was surprised by the age range. Some of them were little more than fifteen years old, while others were Liam’s age and up. One thing they all had in common, though, was that they looked rugged, like soldiers. Cold stares and myriad scars hardened their faces.
“Thank you for coming!” Liam jumped up onto an overturned milk crate, and let I my hand fall to my side.
The men nodded, and then one of them glared at Elle and me. “What’s with the fae chicks?”
Elle’s hand went to her throwing knife, but Cam smacked it away, shaking his head.
Liam pointed to me. “This is my girlfriend, Lily, a Seeker of the Spring Court, and her best friend, Elle, a warrior.”
Everyone quieted, and I heard a few of them bemusedly mumble Seeker and girlfriend. “Sleeping with the enemy!” one of them shouted.
Liam growled, his wings snapping up and smoking at the tips. “They’re not our enemies anymore. We have one common goal now: get all the crystals and live life without sickness or resort to…sinister measures.”
The men shuffled their feet. “She’s going to get us more crystals?” one asked. “Why?”
Liam shook his head. “No. We are going to get her the remaining crystals, and she will give us land in Faerie. A place to call our own. A place we can live permanently with the magic of the crystals recharging us as we sleep and go about our daily lives.”
There was an absolute uproar. They screamed, raised their fists in the air, and pushed closer. I hadn’t
