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“It’s definitely possible,” I admitted. All eyes turned to me; even Aria lifted her head from my shoulder to look at me. “At the welcome party, this elderly woman tried to warn me that it wasn’t safe here.”
“And you didn’t think this was information you needed to pass on to the rest of us?” Aria growled. “You just let us be blindsided? Seriously, Sariel?”
I clamped my jaw shut at the accusation in her tone. It grated on my nerves.
All of a sudden, I was overwhelmed by self-loathing. I should have been better prepared. I let myself get too comfortable, and now my mate was distressed and glaring at me.
“What are we going to do?” Mikey asked, interrupting whatever inanity I was about to spew to get that look off Aria’s face and get her to lean into me and take comfort in me again. “Because you’re not… I mean, you’re not considering….”
“We’re going to fake it,” I said. “We’ll pretend to—”
“And what if they try other ways to ensure you’re not just faking it?” He interjected. “We know the Queen produces those pheromones! So how do we know that they won’t try something more potent? What if they put it in your food?”
My blood iced over in my veins. Aria and I locked eyes.
“Is there anything you can do to prevent anything like that, Marilyn? A spell or something?” I asked.
Marilyn shook her head. “My magic has been finicky ever since I got here. It’s no match for fae magic, anyway. You might not sense how strong they are because you’re presumably around the same power threshold, but being in the same room as the King and Queen feels like being an ant watching the boot that’s about to crush my anthill.”
She finished, and we stared at her. Neo raised a brow when Aria and I exchanged confused looks.
“You don’t feel it?” he asked, incredulous. “You don’t feel like you want to crawl out of your skin when you’re in the room with them?”
“Somewhat, but the Queen’s skin is literally peeling off her body… that would unsettle anyone, right?” Aria questioned.
Reese gaped at her. “Aria, it literally feels like I’m suffocating whenever I’m near her. We don't even have to be in the same room. She just has to benearby, and I feel like the air gets sucked out of the environment.”
Neo’s gaze had settled on her while she spoke. “You never told me that,” he quietly said.
Reese flushed. “Of course not. You already think I’m this fragile, helpless person. I mean, Iamcompared to you, but I hate feeling like a liability.”
Aria frowned. “We did manage to bargain for something that might help with that.”
I nodded. “We’re joining their training regime, and Aria and I are going to learn as much as we can from their scholars about our bond.”
“That’s short-term,” Mikey mused. “What about a long-term plan? They’ll figure out you’re faking at some point. We need to be out of here by then.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Johnny answered. “If we suddenly start acting apprehensive and asking too many questions, we run the risk of giving away that we’re planning to escape or something.”
“He’s right,” I said to Mikey. “I know that this makes you nervous. This is the last thing I expected, too.”
I wasn’t going to think about how I’d jinxed us.
“This is… The fae are an unknown enemy. The best thing we can do is integrate ourselves, use their resources to learn what we can from them, get them to trust us and be comfortable with us….”
“We don’t really have that much time, though, do we?” Mikey interrupted again. “Excuse me for asking, Aria, but when was your last heat?”
My angel didn’t like that Mikey felt comfortable enough to ask such a personal question of our mate. His annoyance seeped out in a barely restrained growl.
I moved between the two of them before I could stop myself. Logically, I was aware that this person was my little brother, but instinct demanded that he know his place, which was not high enough to speak to my mate.
Aria tried to coax me out of the way as I glowered at my brother. “It’s fine, Sariel.”
“No, it’s not,” I stressed. “It’s not his business. It’s notanyone’sbusiness. I don’t give a fuck how frustrated any of you are, that is not a question any of you can ask her.Not ever.”
I could feel the familiar heat of the change as it started in the pit of my stomach, then began to spread outward. I was tempted to let my angel out—maybehecould get across just how serious I was.
“Sariel, please.”
