“We were the talk of leprechaun society because if our houses merged, the empire we could create would be unprecedented. The Fausts rule transportation in Devashire, and we have manufacturing and adult entertainment. You can imagine the opportunities. It was my father’s wet dream. He would have married her himself if she would have had him.”
“Sounds like you had other plans.”
“I wasn’t interested. Not only was I not attracted to her, the idea of marrying someone only for the potential they offered to increase my wealth and power made my skin crawl. It’s not who I am. I didn’t love her. The more I got to know her, the less I even liked her. She’s shrewd and completely focused on growing her empire. When I told her I would never marry her, she threatened to increase our shipping costs by sixty percent.”
“She tried to extort marriage out of you? Psycho!”
He nods. “I told her she could do that, but then I’d be forced to go to theHatterand reveal that she’d bought herself the diamond on her finger and that I’d never proposed. She decided to let it go.”
“Fuck, that’s messed up! Wait, but I saw you talking to her after graduation. It looked friendly.”
“She wanted to know why I was there. Edmund was graduating, but I didn’t have a child in the ceremony.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That as a member of the school board, I like to attend to wish the best to the new class. It’s not unheard of for me to be there.”
“That’s right. I forgot you did that.”
“Still, she saw me sitting near you and speaking with you. I have a hard time believing that Edmund is an apple that has rolled far enough from the tree to be interested in Arden without any other ulterior motives.”
I release a heavy sigh. Itissuspect. “But Edmund doesn’t know what she is. He doesn’t know she’s your daughter. What could he be using her for?” I shrug. “As far as he knows, she’s a half-human pixie hybrid and a shopkeeper’s granddaughter.”
Seven scratches the side of his jaw and snorts. “She suspects I love you. We talked about it back then, when you were gone. Maybe not directly. I mean, I didn’t share intimate details with her, but I talked about you. You came up in conversation. She suspects. And after the kiss and the job at the casino, I’m sure she’s speculating that I still have feelings for you. She doesn’t know that Arden is my daughter, thank the gods, but that doesn’t matter. Getting close to Arden gets her close to you, and if she can get dirt on you, she can manipulate me.”
“That’s devious. She’d actually use her own son for something like that?”
“Most certainly.”
I sit up and cross my legs in front of me, trying to center myself. Everything I’ve ever done, since the moment I found out I was pregnant with her, has been for Arden’s benefit. I left Devashire to protect her from a society who would have pressured me to abort her. I stayed in America so she could have a normal human childhood. I came back to Devashire to protect her from the consequences when I was arrested. I would do anything for Arden, but she’s not a baby anymore, and to keep doing things for our children that they can do for themselves is dysfunctional. My job as a parent is to make sure she can fly, to prepare her for leaving the nest, not to make her dependent on it.
“Arden is a smart girl. As clever as any teenager I’ve ever known. And she’s strong and experienced in ways that most kids never have to be because they weren’t raised surviving in a world where their very existence is against the law. She can handle herself with Edmund.”
Seven works his jaw back and forth. “He’s a leprechaun, Sophia. Enough luck can make her feel like she’s in love.”
“Yep. But you’ve taught her what luck can do. She knows what it feels like.”
“What if he tries to manipulate her? What if he uses her?”
“She’ll figure it out. And when she does, we’ll be there to help her negotiate the fallout.”
“We have to warn her.” He rubs his palms on his thighs.
“We will. We absolutely will. But only as a side conversation, not like we’re forbidding her or telling her what to do. The fact is, when we go public, when we tell people she’s ours, she’ll have to deal with the fallout on her own. We’ll have each other to lean on, but we won’t be able to protect her from it. Not completely. We have to start trusting that she’s not a baby. We can help her, we can be there for her, we can try to show her the truth, but we can’t make her choices for her.”
He nods slowly. “I hate it, but I think you’re right.” He crawls across the bed to me and kneels in front of my crossed legs. “But if he hurts her, I’m going to cause every capillary in his body to rupture simultaneously. I won’t kill him, but I will make sure he suffers.” There is nothing flippant about his tone.
I grin. “Agreed. We’ll take the little pissant out if he hurts her.”
He kisses me soundly.
“When do you want to leave for Ashgate to interrogate your father?”
He stares down at me. “When you talked to Chance, did you think he gave you anything of value?”
“No. The riddle he spewed hasn’t helped us at all. I think the torture he endured at Godmother’s hand and the isolation has damaged his mind. Plus he asked to see you, made me promise to request that you go. Knowing Chance, that means he hoped for an opportunity to get his hooks into you. He tried to kill you before. Who’s to say he’d be honest with you now?”
“I agree. So what if there was a way to deliver what Rayrcore wants and get Saul back without talking to him?” Seven has an idea, and the twinkle in his eye tells me it’s going to be good.
