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“You are holding yourselves to the standards of merelyhigher-tier supernaturalsinstead of something more, which is what you are,” Tarragon explained. “Biologically speaking, you are the sum of your parents genes. Magically speaking, however, you two are much bigger ‘tanks’ to fill with magic. A powerful pure-blood’s tank might be large and may hold more than the rabble, but yours is twice that, maybe triple.
“You are not like them,” he said casually, reaching for another apple. “You are bigger and better.”
Sariel and I glanced at each other.
“We can discuss this in detail after you have heard our offer. Perhaps we may even offer our knowledge on half-bloods and hybrids,” he continued, peeling the entire apple before handing it to Blossom. She didn’t bat an eye to fit the entire thing into her mouth, her jaw unhinging, the skin of her cheeks cracking and peeling as she chewed.
Tarragon reached for the piece of peeling skin and gently peeled it the rest of the way off.
Hemlock and Foxglove tensed at the action. Oleander glanced away, back to the people having sex in the background.
“What is your offer?” I managed to croak out, disturbed.
“We’re not too different from you two,” Blossom began. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that Tarragon and I are together. We’ve been in love since our parents were rulers of the Seelie and Unseelie courts. Unfortunately, we’d taken over the mantle while they were still alive, and were forced to pretend to hate each other for over two hundred years. Eventually, Tarragon’s father had to be killed so that we could live our lives in peace.”
Tarragon, who had moved on to the oranges, glanced at her with such unbridled love, I would have been moved under different circumstances.
“We were happy, and though it took us around a century to get our people to stop hating each other, it was a struggle I do not regret going through,” Tarragon picked up, handing Blossom the orange he’d just peeled. “Our only regret is the number of youths that fell victim to the selfish closed-mindedness of our people’s ignorance. Blossom’s people were particularly savage—something you should know about people from the Unseelie court is that they can be a little aggressive and they are easily misguided. Some of them had preferred to sacrifice themselves and their families than support our joining of the courts and our decree to stop the war between us.”
I sucked in a harsh breath, and Sariel reached across to cup the back of my neck in an almost identical way to how Tarragon reached up to cup Blossom’s face in his hand.
“We are doing better now, and we see to the fae young personally until they can be integrated into the world with the rest of our kind,” Blossom explained, one of her semi-skeletal hands wrapping around Tarragon’s wrists. “Children are aplenty around us, unlike after all that bloodshed before.”
I could hear the happiness in her tone. The way her grip tightened as she spoke bordered on obsessive.
“The problem,” Tarragon started, turning his gaze towards us, “is that we can’t reproduce ourselves. No matter what we try, we cannot create our own offspring.”
The dread I’d been ignoring resurfaced violently. Sariel squeezed the back of my neck in an attempt to comfort me, but even he had tensed.
“We want our own offspring,” Blossom picked up, “and we want your help with that.”
“You are the first pair of fated mates we’ve seen in a long time,” Tarragon added. “Your offspring would be strong enough to pass as fae, and we could cast simple spells to make itlooklike they were fae.”
Sariel’s body was thrumming with violence. “What exactly are you suggesting?” he asked, his tone a mask of control. The kind of control I knew he was steadily losing his grip on.
“In exchange for our protection and knowledge, we want you to give us your firstborn child so we may raise it as our own.”
I stopped breathing. My wolf lashed out, and only Sariel’s death grip on the back of my neck stopped me from launching myself across the table to knock that satisfied gleam in Tarragon’s smile.
A deathly silence filled the room—or maybe it was just in my head. Maybe the people around us were saying things, but I was too busy spiraling in the abyss to hear a single word being uttered.
All I could think of was how horribly Sariel had jinxed us.
