I glanced at Aengus, who glowered at his father. My insides roiled with anger at his lack of regard for someone he hadn’t seen in a millennium. The Dagda seemed little better than Queen Melusina, who used the children she didn’t eat as sacrifices and as bodies for her generals. Stepping back, I asked, “Can I bring Aengus?”
“My worthless son can tend to his own needs,” he drawled.
Aengus flicked his head toward the Dagda, indicating that I should go with his father.
“Alright,” I said. “But—”
The Dagda scooped me into his arms and cradled me to his chest, engulfing me in the scent of ripe apples and sweat. “It has been decades since a high faerie visited my realm.”
“They’re all under a curse,” I muttered.
“How fortunate it is for me that there are no worthy males to hold the attention of such a beauty.” He swung me around and carried me through the crowd of dancers and around the back of the head table.
The Dagda’s throne was twice the size of mine and made of the same kind of ancient, carved wood as the columns. At both sides of him sat an assortment of males and females of different faerie races, some high fae with pointed ears, others winged Nimfeach aer like Rosalind, tall sprites and beauties whose species I couldn’t guess on sight. Each stared up at me with bored eyes and continued dining.
He positioned me onto his lap and murmured into my ear, “You favor my mother.”
I squirmed onto the arm of his throne. “You remind me of my father.”
The Dagda threw his head back and laughed with a deep resonant sound that came deep from his belly.
“He must have been a great man.”
“A druid,” I murmured.
His thick brows rose. “Then we are brothers of a sort. My mother is Dana.”
My gaze flicked to his twinkling, gold eyes. Aengus should have told me his father was a demi-god. The Dagda waved for the females on his left to scoot down and make me some space. I scrambled off his throne and sat at his side, my muscles unfurling with relief.
“How do I address you?” I asked.
“My Lord seems a little lofty for a female of your rank.” He beckoned to one of the servants, who rushed toward a huge cauldron and extracted an entire meal served on a round leaf. “I’ll call you by your given name, and you will call me Dag.”
“Thank you.” I nodded my thanks at the servant, who presented me with a roasted leg of pheasant served with mushrooms the size of my palm. “I’m Neara.”
He nodded, as though he already knew. “What do you think of my home?”
I swept my gaze across the room, surveying the seemingly endless sons and daughters of the Dagda, the servers milling in and out through the arches, and the chefs cutting strips of pork from a pig that never seemed to run out of meat.
On my right and far left, the females at his table of lovers and the assorted males at the end leaned forward, pausing their conversation to hear my answer.
“It’s beautiful, richer and more lively than any other I’ve seen,” I said.
He sat back and grinned. “Eat, drink, stay as long as you wish. There is no darkness or hunger or pain in my realm. My cauldron is never empty and provides delights to satisfy even a queen.”
“How can you protect yourself from the curse over the Summer Court?” I picked up the leg of pheasant and took a delicate bite.
“My wards are older and stronger than anything Fomorian or fae,” he replied with a grin.
As the Dagda entertained me with tales of the magical artifacts he amassed over the years, I glanced around the tables, looking for signs of Aengus among a sea of blondes. The fiddlers played a merry tune on their instruments and blond-haired males and females danced with an assortment of high and low faeries.
The Dagda also boasted about having banished his wife, the Morrígan, to the Otherworld, allowing him the freedom to consort with as many females as he desired.
He placed his massive hand over mine. “Will you stay the night, dear girl? I will allow you to bed any number of my sons or lovers or myself if that is what you desire.”
I gulped and forced myself not to pull away my hand. “No, thank you. I have a mate waiting for me in the orchard. He’s been cursed—”
“It is bad manners to lie about having a mate,” he said, his face clouding. “And I find your transparent rejection of my hospitality unforgivable.”
The music and chatter died across the room, replaced by an eerie silence filled by the pounding of my heart and the crackling of the pig on the spit. I glanced around, looking at everything but the furious demigod seething at my side. What was so terrible about telling him the truth?
Aengus pushed his way through the crowd of dancers, his hands raised. “Father, Queen Neara does have a mate. I met King Drayce—”
“Silence,” the Dagda roared.
My heart leaped into the back of my throat, and I resisted the urge to clutch at my chest. The Dagda stared down at me, his eyes blazing hotter than the flaming torches.
“Explain yourself,” he snarled with barely restrained fury.
I told him everything, from how Father had inadvertently freed Queen Melusina from the mist with his blood, the nature of my birth and his escape to the human realm, and how he had conspired with a young Drayce to train me to defeat Queen Melusina when I came of age.
The Dagda stroked his thumb down his beard as he listened to my story, and his breaths quickened when I told him how I broke Drayce’s curse and our later confrontation with Queen Melusina and the Court of Shadows.
When I told him about Drayce falling to a curse the Fear Dorcha meant for me, his eyes softened. “King Drayce is not your mate,” he
