AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Full fae?”Enough to survive a mad king’s attack?
“No.The few remaining full-blooded fae are ancient.Mom was a quarter fae?Maybe less?Her people put a high value on hybrids.Not like witches.”
He wouldn’t get into a political debate over the differing species.“What happened before your mother told you to run?You said you both took off in the middle of the night?Why?”
“My uncle—my dad’s brother, he came to my mom and told her that my father had run out of royals to kill.”
“Because of the religious cult thing you mentioned?”
“Not a cult.My father sacrificed royals, bled them to appease whatever gods he prayed to.He thought it’d end the famine.”
“Killing off his subjects because of a bad crop?”Had her dad been a psychotic zealot or a power-hungry king out to eliminate the competition?The last theory made more sense.“Why didn’t your father go after your uncle?He would’ve been a goblin royal.”
“Maybe because gold blood is rarer.Blood matters in our realm.A true gold traditionally sits on the throne.”
“Which is why you’d be next in line?”
She nodded.“My uncle had both silver and gold, putting him third.”
“Giving him motive to want you out of the way?”
“But he warned my mom that my father would be coming for me next so she could get me out of the realm, so I could escape.”
“Or to scare you both into running?Especially if he told her in front of you.”
“He didn’t know I was there.I’ve always been an expert at hiding.”
With her dad, he guessed she’d had to be.“So you came to the human realm.”He left out her mother’s possible murder.“Would your mom have been a threat to the throne?As queen consort?”
“No.She could be consort, but never queen.Our law only gave her the same worthless protection all of us had—no royal can be harmed except by another royal.A lot of good that did any of us when the king went mad.”
“Your uncle forced you to flee the only world you’d ever known for an entirely new realm?To be a kid separated from her mother?To give up your childhood in an instant?”As he had when his parents had left.
She curled her lip.“I never had a childhood.My father ordered me to witness executions, attend the sacrifices.Hell, he wanted me to kill, to go berserker so I could be just like him.”
What a vicious man.Perry had represented cruel child abusers in criminal court, and it’d been the hardest part of his job.But none had been so evil as her father.Yet Vori had brought him here to this bookshop, had wanted him to speak with his father, had put him and his pain first at the price of exposing her own.“You can’t let him win.If he’s still ruling the realm…”
“I told you I don’t want the throne.It comes with a literal mountain of responsibility and an extra shot of homicidal maniac.No way am I becoming my father.”
“The crazy doesn’t pass down with the crown.”
“Did you miss the part about it being thewickedcrown?”
“A destroyed one with scattered jewels across the human realm.Speaking of which, why does Baba Yaga want the amethysts?”
“I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say.”She clipped the words.
“Maybe she wanted to help you take over your home.You could go back and—”
She interrupted him.“Not all of us are power hungry enough to join the mother of demons.Have you always been so greedy, or did the amethyst change you?”She flicked a glance at the box by his feet.
The accusation hurt.“Right, we have a killer to stop, more amethysts for you to collect, and a realm of monsters to visit.”She winced at the last, and he forced himself not to care.He needed to remember he was an expendable part of her plan—with so many ways he could wind up dead.Whatever connection he’d imagined had only been that.“Sounds like my father is coming.We can stay and let you get your answers.Or go.We have what we came for.”
She stared up at him with those wounded eyes but spoke to his father.“Did you find anything else about my mother?”
Mitch missed a step, the tea cup he held rattling in its saucer.“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes.”Vori lifted her chin, a queen in the way she carried herself whether she ditched her birthright or not.Except she couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice.
