“Can you tell me about your parents?”
“What about them?”
“Did they have any Dark Fae heritage?” I wondered out loud, trying to solve the mystery of her creation. Because these talents couldn’t have come from Shade. He was one hundred percent Death Blood. “You’re displaying Quandary Blood gifts, and I have no idea how that’s possible.”
“Quandary Blood?” she repeated, frowning.
“The sixth line,” I explained, ignoring my twinge of annoyance at her not thoroughly having researched our kind. Every fae kingdom treated politics differently. And she was right about her upbringing being vastly different from mine. I grew up with parents. She grew up fighting for her existence against some unknown plague that later turned out to be abomination related.
How ironic, given her situation.
“My parents were Earth Fae,” she said slowly. “Not Midnight Fae.”
“Either that’s not true”—which was my suspicion—“or Shade’s bite somehow infected you with the rarest gifts amongour kind. Quandary Bloods haven’t existed in over a thousand years.”
“What happened to them?”
I wasn’t going to lie to her. “We killed them all.”
Her eyebrows shot upward. “What? Why?”
“Because Quandary Bloods, when they existed, could manipulate energy in a way no one else has ever been able to do, including turning off any link they desired and leaving the fae powerless. The web you mentioned is your connection to the spell. And?—”
“I can undo it and piece it back together,” she finished for me, her body tensing beside mine. “That’s not normal.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Shade can’t do that?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” I replied. “It’s not a Death Blood function.” But I had to wonder if he somehow knew or sensed this gift inside Aflora. Maybe that was why he picked her as a mate—to wreak havoc on our kingdom.
“My family fell into power because of a Quandary Blood,” I continued, thinking about the history my father once told me. “There was an uprising that ended in the overthrowing of a Death Blood from rule—Shade’s ancestor, actually—and a Quandary Blood transferred the source connection from the fallen royal to my grandfather.” Which initiated a millennium of animosity between our families.
“And then you killed all the Quandary Bloods?”
I frowned, considering. “I didn’t, but the Midnight Fae did.”
“Why? If they helped, then why would you kill them all?”
“Because they were dangerous. As I said, they could dismantle a Midnight Fae’s power and render him no better than human.”
“Did they do that?” she asked.
“Yes. The Death Bloods used them to try to regain power about a thousand years ago. The Quandary Bloods were dismantled and exterminated in response, serving as a warning to keep the Death Bloods in line.”
“Sounds like a rather murderous approach,” she replied, her displeasure written into her features. “Maybe some of them were innocent.”
“Like you?” I suggested, arching a brow. “Are you innocent, Aflora?” I gave in to the impulse to press her back into the bed, my thigh sliding between hers as I moved over her, our lips still dangerously close. “Because I think you’re a lot more experienced than you let on.”
The double entendre was intentional. It applied to both her magical skills and sexual talents. Because the way she’d used that spell on me without even blushing told me a lot about her confidence in the bedroom. Which only made me want to explore her more.
“I don’t even know how to use this power,” she whispered, her big blue eyes guilelessly gazing up at me. I almost wanted to call it an act, but I sensed her sincerity in those words. “I have no idea where it came from or why.”
“Your parents, most likely,” I replied, resting my elbows against the pillows on either side of her head. “Now the question becomes, what should I do with you?”
Kill her was the obvious choice.
But if Shade somehow knew about her bloodline, that implied a much deeper motive at play than him just wanting to avoid his mating duties.
