by D. D. Miers
Gray kissed my forehead, but I knew he was still taking heat for all the Fae I had brought with me to the pack territory. “You’re good for them, Morgan. They need someone to keep them in line.”
“How’s the pack taking the extra bodies?”
“About as well as they’re taking us getting back together. Some love it, some hate it, and both sides are happy to share their opinions. I’m the alpha, and I welcomed them, that’s all you need to worry about.”
I jerked on his shoulders to bring him to my level and kissed him soundly. “I missed you.”
"Love you. Be careful out there. The kids aren't scared of a boogeyman for nothing. The new King committed patricide to take the throne. What are the chances he won’t come after you just for the hell of it?”
I was more worried about the females of the pack than I was the Unseelie king, but I wasn't going to admit that to Gray. Not because he wasn't far deadlier, but because I could protect myself against him, set up wards to warn me of that kind of magic invading my home. Orson wasn't kidding about how readily the shifters share their opinions. It wasn't a normal week if there wasn't a fight or two spilling into the halls. No magic I had could be fine-tuned enough to protect me, without lighting the place up every time someone's beast got out of hand.
Niall tucked Akane, under his arm. “I’m taking Littlebit with me. We built a castle for her while you were gone, and she needs more playtime.” He was out the door without a backward glance before I could say goodbye, and Gray followed close behind him.
I called Orson as I pulled my jacket over my arms. “Hey, Boss. I’m back in town and heading over to check in on my accounts and make sure you didn’t give away my desk.”
“Don’t bother coming in, Lassie. I gave Pen your personal stuff on Friday. You should call her.”
My mouth hung open as I struggled to find my breath. “I’m fucking fired? You fired me while I was on official Fae business?”
He made a rude noise as I sputtered. "Of course not, Morgan. I thought Pen had already told you. Hell, I thought your father might have mentioned it since it was his liaison who appeared outside the shop last week."
I forced my mouth shut with a snap and stared wide-eyed across the room at Pippi, who had stopped watching her magic broom sweep up fox fur to listen to my end of the phone call. “My father told you to fire me?”
“Your father invited me to court, provided that I did not have encumberments here.”
My head began to ache with a very human, very old-fashioned beginnings of a tension headache. “My father told you to close up shop and move back to Fairy, just as the Unseelie court encountered a change of leadership.”
It was brilliant, really. I couldn’t fault the king for bringing home all the Fae who’d had their powers returned to them. Orson had never deserved his exile. Returning him to Fairy was still less than he should’ve received for the humiliation and pain of being torn away from the wild magic that sustained his kind.
“I’m happy for you, Orson, but I confess to selfish feelings as well. Will you still be my friend when I return to my father’s kingdom?”
He scoffed at me again. “I know I’m only asked to return in the even that Stormkeeper needs my sword to protect the Light Court. But it is you I raise my sword for, not that lot of traitorous windbags.”
“What about us, and Tell’s Bonds?”
“Oh, for that, you’ll have to talk to Pen and Julian. I sold it to them for a dollar to keep Tryst’s greedy mitts off the majority stake in the company. But a princess shouldn’t have a boss, Morgana Silk, daughter of the Storm King. I told Pen you’d be going freelance and she can count on you whenever she needs you.”
"You sold your company, transferred your bonds to Penelope, fired me, and decided I get to be a freelance bounty hunter…all without saying a word to me." I made it a statement, not a question, and in the silence that followed, I could almost see his shrug of indifference.
Orson was a powerful Fae, and I’d managed to accidentally, but thankfully, return much of his power to him as I struggled to find my place among the Fae. But working as a freelancer meant that getting paid was no longer a certainty…with the influx of Fae to Gray’s pack, I needed to find a better place to keep my people, before the friction between shifters and Fae tore my little family apart.
Four
“He sold the place to Penelope and that…that cowardly lion, and you don’t care?” Tryst paced the length of his gaudy office, pounding on the white marble desktop each time he passed it. “How are you so calm, when he upended your life without a thought to your feelings?”
His face flushed with anger, so I knew it wasn’t on my behalf, or at least not only for me that he was so pissed at Orson. “You know that his choice was the most logical for us all.”
“He could’ve sold his share of the business to me, Morgan. Where in this did he think of me?” he asked. It was as close to true whining as I’d heard from him. But if he was looking for sympathy, he’d picked the wrong princess.
I stared at him without speaking until he stopped pacing and glowered back at me. “Are you quite finished with your temper tantrum, Master Trystan?” My voice dripped with sarcasm as I braced for another verbal assault. Tryst had made it clear to me that he valued me more as a way back to Fairy than a friend, and I knew Orson’s return before he was permitted had to rub
Orson wasn’t high Fae, Tryst was. To have a lesser Fae welcomed to my father’s court before him had to chaff his ego. But it wasn’t just Orson leaving him behind, even if he wouldn’t admit it. He’d helped me regain my position in Fairy, and instead of getting the reward he thought I owed him, he was being left behind by those he thought were less than him.
“I suppose you don’t care what happens to me, do you? You have your alpha, your crown, what do you need me for?” He came to me, sliding his fingers down my arms and catching my wrists as I fought to slow my racing pulse. “We could be good together, but you always choose someone else.” He came in close enough that I could smell his subtle cologne, something spicy and expensive. “How have I ever wronged you?”
The question was just what I needed to shake off the glamor he was weaving over me. “You mean other than siding with my enemies on multiple occasions and waiting to see if they killed me before choosing to help me? Or how about when you tried to manipulate me into giving you my power so you could trick the wild magic and sneak into Fairy?” I jerked out of his grip. “I came to offer you a crown, and you tried to glamor me into submission, you gigantic asshole!”
He stepped back and glanced toward the door. “Not now, Geallta, the princess and I are having a private conversation.”
“I know,” she answered, her voice its usual almost-whisper. “I felt your power, and then I felt her get mad. You shouldn’t glamor the princess. She’s too strong for you.”
Tryst flinched, and his shoulders stiffened. "She's too strong for almost anyone."
His half-sister nodded. "I know." She glided into the room and rested her head on my shoulder like a child looking for comfort. She'd been getting better, showing more confidence among the club's dancers, venturing out in public with either Niall or me when Tryst was too busy to take her out, but any sign of conflict and she reverted to her childlike state, and I was the mother-figure she'd chosen.
“We’re okay, Gee,” I murmured, stroking her feather-soft hair. “We wouldn’t be us if we didn’t argue.”
“But he used his power. I was afraid you’d kill him for that.” She wasn’t wrong. I’d killed Fae in the past for trying to use their power to control me. But this was Tryst. If he stopped trying to get the upper hand, I’d know he was up to something truly terrible.
"She won't kill me for being me, Geallta," Tryst answered for me. I cocked an eyebrow at him, but he grinned at me. "In her own way, Morgan knows she loves me, and I love her. She knows what I am."
A sigh escaped my lips. “He’s right. Besides, I knew he’d be upset when I got her
e. I was just waiting for him to finally run out of complaints so I could tell him the good news.”
That perked his interest, and he scurried to sit behind his desk, hands clasped with his fingers supporting his chin. “Oh, do go on, I’m all ears.”
I laughed and hugged the Fae clinging to me. “How would you like a crown of your own, Tryst?” I finally said when he showed the first twitches of impatience. “How would you like to have your own court of High Fae and monsters at your command?”
“Is it not the dream of every exiled Fae to become the king?” He rubbed his chin with his steepled fingers. “So, do you want me to kill your father for you? Or is this the marriage proposal I’ve been waiting for?”
A grunt from the door followed by the unmistakable stench of goblin announced the presence of Komodor, king of the goblins and indentured servant of the deceased King Darkweaver. “That wouldn’t fulfill your promise to me, princess. If you’re offering marriage and a crown, you must consider me, as well.”
I looked at the squat, knobby skinned goblin king. “I’m not offering anyone marriage at this time, King Komodor, but if I were, I would include you in the negotiations, as promised in our contract of alliance.” I only had access to his army for a few more moons according to that contract, and if I hadn’t found a way to ensure his people’s freedom, his next alliance might have been much less beneficial, and more dangerous, to me and mine.
"Well, what are we doing today, then, Morgana?" Tryst used my proper name on purpose, knowing I hated it. "Are we finally running away and starting our own Fairy realm? Are you that powerful now?" Anger tinged his words, and pressed to my side, Geallta cringed and tightened her grip around my waist as though she would hide me behind her.
“You are so damned impatient, Tryst. Whenever you have something to tell me, you make me drag it out of you, but I finally have something really good, and you won’t even let me build a little suspense.” I kept my tone light, but my eyes held a warning.
Tryst had been on thin ice with me for a while, after his latest gambit of playing both sides against the middle. The ‘sides had been Gray and me, and a group of dark wizards who wanted me dead. Gray wanted him out of San Francisco completely, but he had more friends in the city council than we did, and the suggestion that he was misusing magic had cost us more than it had him.
“My apologies, Mo,” he forced the impatience out of his tone. “What good news do you bring to the king of the goblins and the exile?”
Komodor already knew my plans. I'd contacted him before Tryst, precisely because I needed him on my side before I proposed anything to ‘the exile.' Drama Sidhe. I pushed down my mounting irritation.
Tryst had been a Seelie hero, once. Tossed aside by the Fae because some influential nobleman was envious of his charm and pale beauty, he’d been forced to do whatever he could to survive in the human world, just like the kids of the underground.
Now, he was powerful in his own right, respected by humans and witches and shifters alike. The only thing that could tempt him to give it all up was a crown of his very own. But what I was about to offer him came with a high risk, whether we succeeded or failed.
I forced a grin onto my face and took a deep breath, faking confidence I didn’t feel and trying to slow the pounding of my heart. “You’re going to be the next Unseelie king, right after you kill Lothar…with my help, of course.”
Five
Tryst had kicked me out of the club, presumably so he could berate Komodor for supporting me, without embarrassing the goblin in front of me. I wasn’t worried about his protests though. I’d seen his eyes light up the instant I told him I’d help him kill Lothar.
He wanted to be a king, and he wouldn’t have a chance at a crown without both me and the goblins…and perhaps a handful of shifters to help him. Which meant he had no chance in hell at the throne of the Light Court or my father’s crown. Or mine, for that matter. Gods. I haven’t even got my crown yet, and he’s drooling over it.
But he had to make a point of dismissing my idea so we could sweeten the deal and talk him into it. If Komodor hadn’t been involved, it would’ve cost me a fair amount of my magic, or worse, my body, to make him agree to take on Lothar.
Back at home, I called “Thank the Goddess Komodor doesn’t have a daughter. I think at this point Tryst would marry any princess, even one with four legs and warts on all her extremities, just to put a crown on his head.” I glanced at Gray when he didn’t answer me, expecting him to have his nose buried in his paperwork, as usual.
Instead, he was staring at me. “Goblin females have four legs and warts all over them?” The horror on his face was plain.
“Well, you’ve seen the males, did you think human women were sleeping with them?” The truth was that some unlucky Sidhe women had given birth to half-goblin babies during the Fae-goblin wars…those babies tended not to live very long, at least not among the Fae. From time to time I’d see a goblin with Sidhe eyes, or fair, clear skin, and I knew I was seeing a baby whose mother had refused to let them die, sneaking them over the border to the Unseelie lands for the dark court to raise.
“But will he agree, without trying to bind you to him some way? He may finally understand he can’t have your body, but will he attempt to force some ridiculous contract of loyalty on you, like the one the goblins are held to by the Unseelie king?”
It was a possibility Komodor and I had already discussed at length. “He could try, but my alliance with the goblins precludes any other alliance outside my pack, which I was smart enough to ensure before I let him take my blood oath.”
“Thank the gods.”
"You can thank my aunt, who taught me that I can't trust anyone among the Fae or the witches when power is on the line." I thought for a moment. "In fact, I can count the people I trust on the one hand, and you and Niall are two of them. What does that mean for my circle of friends?"
“If the others are Pen, Orson, and Pippi, I think it just means you’re a great judge of character.”
I slid my arms around his waist and forced him to look down into my face. “You don’t even sound surprised.”
“I don’t have a whole lot more people on my side than you do, and my entire world revolves around people bound to me by my power and the laws of the pack. They literally can be killed for disobeying or betraying me, and I still don’t trust most of them.”
Pippi cleared her throat. "Supper is ready if you're hungry." She was quieter than usual, and I realized she'd heard more of our conversation than was appropriate.
"I'm sorry, Pippi. Thank you for cooking, I didn't expect it since I just got back and hadn't warned you." Guilt made the aromas from the kitchen less appetizing. I'd gotten used to her glamor, the way she could make herself melt into the background and magically tidy the apartment or disappear completely when she was uncomfortable or afraid. I had begun to forget she was there at times, much like I hated the High Fae nobles for doing to the wee folk back in Fairy.
She squeezed my arm and smiled up at me like she’d read my mind. “I did hear what you and Master Grayson were saying. I’m glad you know I’m on your side. I know I don’t look like I can fight, but my knife is yours.”
Supper was one of my favorites, and because I liked it so much, Pippi made it often. I flashed her a grin of thanks and sat, taking cheese and dried fruit from the platter in the center of the table without waiting for Gray to join me. The amazing smells were coming from the gnocchi in marinara and basil leaves. I dished out a heaping serving and sprinkled freshly grated parmesan over it.
The High Fae were stuck on the stereotypical meals of either medieval gluttony or ‘ambrosia’ the nectar of Fae flowers that wouldn’t sustain a gnat. The ambrosia, admittedly, tasted like the most wonderful meal on earth, unique every time you ingested it.
The light, airy texture of the nectar stayed constant whether it was served in liquid or solid form, and some Fae had managed to even turn it into a heavenly cloud that melted to your tong
ue with sweetness. However, only the immortals could subsist on it. A human eating nothing but ambrosia would starve in a few weeks.
I'd tired of it after a couple of days, and never tested my ability to subsist on the food of the Fae and survive, though several nobles had suggested it was as good a litmus test of my worthiness as the princess as any duel.
"What's on your mind, Mo?" Gray asked between bites, bringing my attention back to the table full of all my comfort foods, from the cheese plate to Italian pasta, to fried chicken on a tray in one corner.
"I was just thinking that no matter where I go, my worth is in question. I'm not Fae enough for the light court, not human enough for the witches, not shifter enough for the pack… Yet here I am, trying to bring them all together."
He scoffed and tossed a picked-clean chicken bone on the side of his plate. “None of them deserve how hard you’re working, and any of them would be lucky to have you at their head.”
“Would you answer to me if I somehow managed to be alpha?” I laughed as I asked it, trying unsuccessfully to imagine myself in the pack throne.
Gray just blinked at me for a few seconds. “And what would that change from now, besides you being a great choice as the pack’s first female alpha?”
I knew he supported me, but I hadn’t thought he would go so far as to admit I’d be good at his own job. “I thought some packs were led by female shifters?”
He shook his head and finished his bite before answering. “They are few and far between, and only in a few remote packs. Too many of the strongest shifters gravitate to large packs like ours. No woman wants to fight their way through the males.”
