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“Most of us do,” one of the girls I only vaguely recognized called out, from a few people away.
“Some of us are horny bitches,” Blue agreed.
I lifted an eyebrow. “I thought you were only offering cake.”
She flashed me a grin. “Gotta start somewhere, right?”
My gaze flicked to Ervo, whose expression was neutral. I could’ve sworn there was an ember of amusement in those dark eyes, though.
“We’ve started grudgingly accepting that we have to work with the bastards,” Ana admitted. “Some of them, at least.”
The dirty look she shot to the trees told me there was at least one in particular that she wasn’t interested in working with.
“We heard you were giving Druze a run for his money,” I told her, curiosity taking hold of me as I struggled to get through the motions. Ervo had stopped correcting me, but I think he realized that I was too interested in the gossip to focus at the moment.
She scowled. “Not gonna talk about that.”
“He thinks they’re true mates,” the woman on her left offered. I recognized Rosalie, with her dark brown skin and white-blonde hair. She and I had been at the Stronghold together for three years, so we knew each other well too. She and Ana had always been really close, which was one of the reasons Ana had gotten more bitter and anxious to leave the Stronghold through the last year she spent there.
“What?” I gaped.
“You look like a damn fish,” Ana grumbled at me, a lazy attempt to change the subject.
“You know how the unseelie are, though,” Rosalie reminded me.
I didn’t really know, but nodded anyway.
And luckily for me, she explained what she meant.
“They’re only looking for the power boost that comes with taking a mate. They can use Vevol’s magic easier after mating, and impact nature much stronger than they can when they’re single.” She rolled her eyes. “As if that’s a good reason to tell a woman she’ll be in your bed tomorrow.”
Something told me that very specific situation had happened to her.
“Ever since they learned about sex, they’ve been unrelenting. Trying to schedule visits. Offering to train us. Actually putting in effort to talk to us,” Ana grumbled. “I blame January.”
A snort escaped me. “Itiskind of her fault.”
“I heard that,” January yelled back from the front of the group. “And the consequence is growing in my uterus right now, making me puke way too often, so fuck off.”
Laughter rang out through the group.
“What else are the unseelies fighting about?”
“The control the council and Aev have maintained, and the fact that they acted like they knew everything when they didn’t realize something as big as sex existed.” Blue said with a shrug. “Which encompasses their whole way of life. A third of their people have already peeled away and joined the seelies—including the generals, who are their best fighters and the heads of their army.”
Hot damn.
I glanced at Ervo, who lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug.
I guess he’d been too distracted worrying about protecting my ass to pay attention to the unseelies.
“The way the king handled things with Naomi was the real reason for most of us,” one of the men walking through the group said. “He had two decades to convince her he was worthy of her trust, and yet failed to do so. And when he discovered that the seelie king had earned his female’s trust so quickly, learning about sex in the process, the councilrequiredNaomi to mate herself completely with the king, or they’d declare war. It was a violation of the trust of every female under our protection—and every male who would treasure a mate.”
Damn.
I’d felt terrible for the woman when January explained to all of us what had happened, but when he put it like that…
It was even worse.
