The goblet of fruity punch in my hand spilled all over the table. Stars, why was I so clumsy?
I grabbed a napkin and wiped it up, praying the queen didn’t throw me in her dungeon for making a mess, but she took no notice. Instead, she slanted one last smoldering look at Farris before sashaying away.
“Did you find Kai?” I prayed Kenji had so we could go rescue my mate and leave this awful place.
“I did, but the sea witch was there, so I didn’t linger.”
“Oh my goddess, was she hurting him? We have to go get him out!”
“Not yet, little mate,” my bear interjected, having heard my conversation with Kenji.
“The bear’s right,”Rasmus agreed. “We’ll leave once the orgy begins.”
“ORGY?!”
Everyone standing nearby turned to stare at me, and I flushed bright red with embarrassment.
“Why did none of you mention this?” I hissed, plucking at the skirt of my dress and wishing it didn’t expose quite so much skin.
“We thought you’d be fine with an orgy, pet,” Zane admitted. I guess he had a point, given I’d witnessed one at the club in Thornville.
“I’m not fine with an orgy if we’re expected to, um, participate!”
“You won’t be,” Farris assured me. “The queen doesn’t require her guests to join in, but you will be expected to watch. At least until everyone is too drunk on lust and liquor to care about your presence.”
“Do you normally…join in?” I asked the fae, my lip curling in faint disgust at the very idea. I liked to think I was a sex-positive witch these days, but the idea of the fae getting naked made me deeply uncomfortable. He was attractive, I supposed, just not to me.
I thought back to my bestie.
Glynda had definitely noticed the fae. Had she found him attractive? Something told me that yes, she had.
“I do, yes.” The fae smirked. “But I won’t be this time.” That surprised me. The queen had made it more than clear she expected him tocatch uplater.
“Not in the mood for some fish treats, Farris?” Zane’s crude question had us all glowering at him, but he grinned, completely unrepentant.
“Not today, no.” The fae brushed Zane off with a breezy smile, but there was a hint of something in his usually pink aura that caught my attention. Something sad.
But it was none of my business. I didn’t care about the fae asshole. Not after he’d tricked me into two unfair fae bargains.
The music had become less upbeat and more sultry over the last hour. The queen and her two consorts sat to the left of us, on a platform that overlooked the vast room, while guests trickled up and down to simper at the feet of her Royal Highness.
The mer queen was shameless. She lapped up the attention like a sponge. The more I watched her, the harder it was to rationalize her role as Kai’s mother. Birth mother anyway. No actual mother would subject her son to such diabolical acts as the mer queen had done to Kai.
The longer we sat in these horribly uncomfortable chairs watching mermen and mermaids dance, flirt, and act like they didn’t have a care in the world, the more anxious I became.
Which was a problem.
My magic didn’t respond well when my emotions were all over the place, and I was already a mess thanks to Maverick’s revelation about my potential pregnancy.
“Your boobs will get much bigger,” Zane announced, apropos of nothing. He’d been reading the book he downloaded all evening. It was kind of concerning how excited he was about something that might not even happen.
Hopefully.
“You can barely take care of yourself,”Kenji said from his spot under the table, where he was grazing on a tray of non-fish snacks stolen from the buffet station.“I’m not sure any offspring will survive.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say!”
“Page two, paragraph nine, sub-section three of the Kitsune-Witch Relations handbook states:‘A kitsune must always strive to be honest and truthful when conversing with his or her witch; lying, even toprotect the mental health of one’s witch, is a potentially punishable offense.’”
