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“I have received a summons from the king,” I said.
“You’ll need another dress,” Sera said, as if dresses were the priority not the fact that some old dude had summoned me like I was his subject.
“That’s what you got out of this?” I met Sera’s gaze.
“Maybe we should get a couple of them.”
“Or not,” Jesse muttered.
“She cannot go before the king ofElphamein jeans.” Sera gave us all a look, one that meant she was debating smacking one of us upside our heads. “Which holiday did he invite you for?”
“Theholiday, as if there is only one.” I was starting a list of grievances against the faery king—starting with the fact that he insisted on referring to me as “death” or “death maiden” and rolling right up to the moment. Honestly, the only thing I liked about him was his nephew, Eli.
Sera sighed.
In a game of chess, she’d be the king—maybe the queen. It varied. Christy was a bishop, influential and strong. She was impervious to Sera’s quelling look and spoke her mind. Jesse was the Rook, the castle. He washome. Steady in whatever way we needed. And I was either a knight or a pawn, depending on the moment. I’d like to be a knight, but lately I felt like I was being played.
I just couldn’t decide whether the player was someone I knew already or not.
I looked up and met Eli’s gaze. If you asked him, he’d claim that he wasn’t on the chess board at all. I had trouble believing that a faery prince was so innocent--and Eli wasthefaery prince, as a matter of fact. He failed to share that tidbit with me at first. Right up to the point where he’d spirited me away to his homeland to save my life, I thought he was just a guy: a very hot, infuriating, loyal, fae guy. So, maybe I was still pissy over the whole my friend is an exiled faery prince thing.
Now that we were accidentally engaged because of it, I was starting to think that he was the hand in the sky. Was Eli the chess player toying with my life? Had he always planned to trap me?
But based on the way my life had gone of late, he was far from the only one moving pieces. His uncle, the king I might have to wear a dress to meet again, and the dead lady I thought might be an ancestor or mine . . . and some unknown figure who hired ahumanto murder me a few months ago. The shooting at Cormier’s raising was weird, too. The police had no answers, and all three of the men were suddenly dead. Too many people were trying to play with my life, and I was fed up.
I couldn’t do anything about that murder-attempts thing, but I could handle the holidays. I was still me: half-witch, half-draugr.I wasn’t a fae princess, no matter what the King ofElphamethought, and I wasn’t pleased to be summoned as if his laws applied to me.
“Which holiday doyouwant us to celebrate?” I asked my friends. “Cocktails. Friends. Maybe we can do a formal meal. You want dresses, Sera? Fuck it. We do dresses.”
Jesse and Christy both looked at me like I’d suggested we knock over a bank or gnaw on a witch’s house.
“Gen, you can’t just ignore the king,” Jesse said. “You’re engaged to--”
“Not on purpose! For an honorary brother, you’re awfully calm. Eli is trying tomarry me.Besmirch me.” My voice was loud enough that several people looked our way.
“You like besmirching,” Jesse said. Then he met my gaze and added, “And you’re obviously notbesmirchedyet because you’re surlier than usual lately.”
I shot a glare at Eli. It took effort to glare at him, though. Logic meant I was still angry that he wouldn’t free me from our engagement, but logic was a weak defense against him. I wanted Eli the way witches crave nature, the way the starving crave food.
And I was in definite need of being besmirched, preferably by Eli. Repeatedly. I’d been ready to ignore the risk to our friendship, tired of resisting our chemistry, over all of the very sound reasons not to lock the doors and get gloriously naked with Eli.
But then someone tried to kill me.
And Eli had to save me.
And in the mess that followed we ended up accidentally betrothed—which meant no sex for me. Fae rules of love and matrimony meant that if I banged him while we experienced true love, we werede factomarried.
“Both holidays,” I said, louder than necessary. “We’ll celebrate twice. Fuck him.”
“Oh, I do wish you would,” Sera muttered.
Christy snorted.
Sera squeezed my hand fondly. “Eli is not without his charms. You’re engaged—and please don’t take this wrong, sweetie—but you need to burn up some sheets or something. You’re on edge.”
“Understatement,” Jesse said with a shrug.
When I made a crude gesture at my friends, Sera held up her hands. “Fine. Eli is hotter than Satan’s knickers are in the summer, and Geneviève is as tense as a kitten in a room of rocking chairs and Rottweilers.” She took a long drink of her bourbon, and then she added, “The point, Gen, is that youlikehim, and he obviously loves you. Why not give it a go?”
