I stared at him flatly. “Yes. Love is a great start. You don’t love me. I don’t love you. The end.”
“And you, Rowan?” My father said, “Would you want to carry Evie off and make her your Lady?”
Rowan grinned. “Evie is a catch for whoever finally manages to tame her. I would gladly accept Evie if she wanted to come, but I cannot guarantee a mating. Our magic is too similar, and I wonder if even I would find Evie difficult to handle.”
“Ass,” I muttered.
Rowan winked at me.
“But you like her,” Cernunnos pushed.
“Of course.”
“And you find her attractive?”
“I’d have to be dead not to,” Rowan said.
A hysterical laugh bubbled from me.
“And you would stand idly by while someone else tried to win your woman?” he asked Caelan.
“Never,” Caelan said. “If Evie wished to leave me, I would let her go. But if someone tried to take her, I would raze their world to the ground.”
I reached over and interlocked our fingers. Caelan had changed. In a fundamental way. And he’d done it because he loved me. My throat thickened with tears, and I blinked them away, refusing to cry in front of these damned Lords.
Cernunnos inclined his head in approval. “Most of you assume you know who Evie is. You think she’s a simple Floromancer, powerful, yes, but nothing you can’t overcome if you all work together. Would you say this is correct?”
He’d directed his words toward Ethan who merely shrugged.
Soren had remained deathly quiet the entire time, and I’d almost forgotten he was standing there. “I’ve seen Evie in action. She’s unpredictable, which always makes for a difficult battle. I would not idly take her on without backup.”
“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I said.
Soren shrugged. “Don’t get used to it.”
There he was. He might be pretty, but I still couldn’t see what Moira saw in him.
“Even so, you believe you can actually force her to do something she doesn’t want to do, yes?”
No one dared agree to that statement. The room fell into a tense silence.
Where was my father going with this?
“Why are you so concerned with her?” Ethan asked. “She’s a citizen of the Lords.”
Cernunnos smiled, and it was terrifying. He lifted a finger and gestured toward me. A soft gust of wind and an emerald and gold wash of magic flowed over me. I knew what he’d done even before the gasps of shock in the room.
“Evangeline is a citizen of Faerie. She is also a princess of our realm and is to be respected in all your dealings with her.Furthermore,” he emphasized, when Ethan opened his mouth to object or say something stupid. Who knew with him?
“She is my daughter, and she will marry whomever she chooses, whenever she chooses, without interference from you or any of the other Lords.”
I lifted my hand and felt the edges of the fae crown on my head. That was Cernunnos. Things were secret until he didn’t want them to be anymore.
“Your daughter,” Ethan said weakly.
I wiggled my fingers at him in a wave.
Soren let out a vicious curse. Thorvin stared at me owl-eyed, and Rowan, that smug sonofabitch, was still grinning from ear to ear.
