She smiled at me, her eyes rounding. “You look beautiful as one of us, my dear.”
“Thank you. I feel kind of cool.”
I looked over to Yosef, hoping he liked my look as well. He looked so elegant all the time. His clothes were well-tailored, and he was always groomed. His confidence and command melted me. I felt like a teenager with a swirl of emotions when it came to him. I didn’t need his approval, but I desired it. Ugh, I was a mess being here.
Yosef cut into his eggs, not looking particularly upset. “Good morning, Lila. How was your outing yesterday? You were out late.”
I twisted my lips, annoyed. Really? Was he not going to say anything about my look? I didn’t want to beg for a compliment, but I wanted one, damn it.
He raised his head, looking me over, a slight smile on his lips. “You look absolutely ravishing. I knew that you would. I specifically told Melina to compliment your beauty. You are already perfection to me. Now, you’re just fae perfection.”
A warmth spread in my stomach. The man knew how to lay on a delayed compliment. I gave him a curtsey before sitting down at the table. “Thank you.”
“But you didn’t answer my question.”
I bit into my pastry, wondering if I should lead with the truth or feel it out to see how much he already knew. Why was I so scared? He wasn’t my parent. He wouldn’t ground me. “Yesterday was fun. I saw the town. Went shopping. Then we kinda sorta got into a fight and almost killed a guy, then came home, the end.”
Yosef put his utensils down, and I heard Zelda mutter something unintelligible but probably not good. He did not look surprised. More so, tired. “Xander should have known better. The idea was to get you changed but keep you under the radar. He should have never taken you to that pub, and getting into a fight drew too much attention. People will wonder now what kind of woman you are that Xander would almost kill a man and would also listen to your advice, good advice, with barely an argument.”
“So, he told you everything?”
He leaned back in his seat, golden eyes darkening. He was not happy. “He didn’t have to. I got contacted before you even left the bar. Xander confirmed everything with me when you fell asleep last night.”
“So, what’s the damage control?”
“People will want to look into it. Xander has never fought over a woman. Luckily our town is fairly large, so you suddenly appearing here won’t be the odd part. You not having a history anyone can trace will be. They will want to know where you live and work. If they find you here, then they will think you are special to me. If they think you’re special to me, the court will eventually want to meet you.”
I picked up my teacup, feeling a bit queasy. He’d talked up this court as being human unfriendly for so long that now I was a little nervous. What if they could see through my glamour? “So, what’s the plan?”
“The plan is to tell them as few lies as possible. I will say you are a fae from the human realm. We have tribes there. I’ll say we met you when we were there and over time, grew close. You eventually expressed interest in living in our realm for a while to see if you wanted to move here. We’re always looking to get all fae to our realm, that’s not a secret. Therefore, my court wouldn’t be opposed to your presence. Everything else can stay the same. You run a bakery. You were put in foster care after losing your family and disconnecting with your tribe. That’s happened.”
That sounded like a good plan, actually, and while I was posing as a fae, I could figure out a way to return home. Maybe even get access to the portal. “Wait a minute, can I go home now, then?”
He cut his eyes at me. Perhaps I looked a little too excited about the prospect. We’d built a connection, and leaving would be painful but I could never forget that this wasn’t home. “For you to get access to the portal, you’d have to be approved. Comings and goings are monitored. I still have to work out a way to explain you being here if anyone checks up on our story. They won’t see anything in our systems about you entering. Therefore, this whole story is our last resort. The hope is that no one digs too deep. But I am working on getting an ally to add you to our system.”
“Then when that happens, I can go home?”
Yosef rubbed his forehead, clearly bothered by my desire to leave him. I didn’t want to seem like an asshole. I wasn’t thrilled about leaving that second. I liked his cocky ass as well. Still, it would be nice to have the option now to go instead of being stuck.
Zelda stepped forward, patting me on the shoulder. “Even assuming your banishment won’t keep you trapped here, the court approves who goes through the portal.”
I sighed. Now I got the problem. “So, I’d have to tell them why I’m here. They’d have to check it, and if I’m not in the system, instant suspicion. And that’s all assuming they can’t see through this glamour because I’m assuming whoever checks on people is pretty powerful.”
Zelda dropped her shoulders, giving me a sympathetic look. “Right, my dear. And in addition, the court is rarely keen on losing fae. So, they would not be so inclined to let you return home, fae or not.”
I rubbed my chin, frowning. Well, this was a no-win situation. “So had this story been true, and I was a real fae, I could have been stuck anyway. Yosef, would you have lied to a human realm fae about just coming here for a visit?”
Yosef side-eyed me, disapproving of my question, which I took comfort in. He really wasn’t a jerk. “Of course not. But others have done it. Quite often.”
“There are fae here who are trapped?”
He nodded, eyes softening. “I am sorry. It simply is no easy task to get you home. You have a few obstacles to overcome.”
I was beginning to realize that, and it hit me like a sledgehammer. No matter what I did, if I couldn’t find the asshole who sent me here, nothing would matter. The city was cool as hell, but I missed home. My friends, my shop. Traveling. Eating food I loved. The food here was pretty good, but they didn’t have pizza and wings! Hell, I had TV shows I was binging. Would everything I’d known be gone forever? I’d kept hope up this long, I couldn’t let it go, but the longer I stayed here, the more scared I got that I was lost to the human world forever. I patted my stomach, no longer hungry for breakfast. “So, what happens now?”
Yosef picked up his teacup. “Now, you stay inside until we figure out our next moves.”
“Wait, you’re saying I can’t go back to town?”
