Hell, the doll I made for him hangs out of his back pocket when he should have left it behind…or left it with me. It holds his scent, and I will need the reminder while I’m nursing my broken heart. As his lips claim mine in a deeper kiss, I know I must ask my father to marry me to the next proposal—as soon as possible—for I’ll never love like this again. It hurts too much. Tears burn behind my eyelids.
“What’s this?” He shoves a piece of wood into my hands. The cylinder is the length of my index finger with a sphere…and horns. “A doll! Did you carve a hubull doll for me? When every speck of wood dust meant expressing yourself, you used this much to make a gift for me? It’s the best gift I’ve ever received,” I say, allowing the tears to spill down my cheeks.
“I can’t run,” he whispers. The gravel tone, rasping and wheezing, tells me how much the confession costs him.
“If you don’t, we still won’t be together. They will hang you.”
“Back to the dungeon.”
“I’m still helping you. I’ll lead you wherever you want to go: the dungeon, the portals, or into the village?—”
There’s banging on my bedroom door, so violent it splinters the frame. He sweeps me behind him, crushing me between his back and the armoire. I need him to move so that I can open the doors. My instincts are screaming at me to climb inside the cabinet. Fear beats on the inside of my skull, threatening to tear me apart. Franklin’s toneless growl intensifies my terror.
“Lilyfair!” Ohhellno. His voice clears the fear from my mind. Fury takes its place.
“Snapdragon,” I say with a glare. When I step around Franklin to confront him and his two lieutenants, my hubull flips the bottom of the bedsheet over my shoulders to shield my arms from the captain’s greedy gaze. “How dare you enter my rooms unannounced!”
“The guards hunt a missing prisoner. I have every right to sweep your rooms for the dangerous criminal, and I’m glad I did?—”
“Well, call off your manhunt,” I reply with a dismissive wave. “He never left. He’s been here all night.” Only after my ego pushes the words out of my mouth do I recognize the error in what I’ve said. While I want to throw Snapdragon off the notion of marrying me, I’ve just given him the ammunition to ruin me for marrying anyone else.
“You little harlot! You finally decide to grow up and fulfill your purpose as a woman with him? He’s a beast! An ugly, mute, brainless ox that will never be accepted as the next Fae king is your choice?! Did you fuck him on purpose—to make me jealous?” Snapdragon’s dark eyes bulge in his angular face, making him look more like a ghoul than a Fae. What does he think he can do? He takes a step toward us with his sword drawn.
“Snaps, stop,” Rosemary shouts from the bathroom’s entrance.
“Mother, stay out of this,” he sneers. “She’s about to ruin everything we planned. There’s no way I’ll plow my dick into her now, not after it’s been stretched and filled with filth. Her womb could be contaminated with a little hybrid bastard as we speak.”
Mother? The blood drains from my face. Rosemary has been my companion and confidant since I was a child. Memories of all the times I complained about Snapdragon’s affections swirl in my head. When he asked for my father’s blessing to propose, I cried ugly tears on her skirts. All the horrid things I said abouthim—about her son—flood my ears. How could she keep such a secret? What had they planned?
“You will do what needs to be done to rule the kingdom. I didn’t coddle this sniveling brat for half my life for you to turn your nose up at her in the final year! She’s not sprouting wings. If he broke her marriage barrier, she would have stumps on her back.”
“A female Fae gets her wings when chosen and mated by a Fae. We don’t know what happens when a whore takes her beast!"
“Maybe not everything’s ruined,” she says, rushing to his side and wrapping her arms around his elbow. How did I miss their similarities? The small eyes, high cheekbones, and unusually long torso are exactly the same. Her coloring is more plain, but their bone structure is identical. “There are six people in this room, and those two don’t count.”
I want to growl when she points at Franklin and me. I’m ready to pounce on her and claw her eyes out when my father steps over the threshold.
“Seven, but I would hope my vote counts as two,” he declares.
Everyone else drops to a knee with their head bowed.
“Lilyfair, are you under duress?” He asks in a softer voice that he only uses with me.
“Only distressed that Franklin thinks he must return to his cell,” I say, rising to my feet. “We have bonded, Father?—”
“Lilyfair! I taught you better than to address King Marigold as Father!” Rosemary must have risen since my father entered, because she’s free to advance on me.
“Keep her away from me,” I snap, but I don’t know whom I’m addressing. Father’s eyebrows disappear under his golden wreath crown. “What I was taught was a lie. Did you know she’s Snapdragon’s mother? His proposals weren’t for love. They had a plan?—”
“I know,” he says, stepping between Rosemary and me. “That’s why I never gave my blessing. You didn’t need to use Franklin and soil your reputation to expose their plot.”
“My involvement with Franklin has nothing to do with my reputation, does it, Father? I wear his seed, just as I wore the seed of the hubull we held in captivity before him. His only crime is providing the remedy to my disease?—”
“Until he implanted a hybrid in your belly! Poplar, Clove, arrest the beast. You can take him back to the dungeon until I decide what to do with him,” Snapdragon shouts.
“Don’t you dare!” I yell, extending my arms to block the guards. My bedsheet falls until it’s hanging from patches where Franklin’s seed has adhered the fabric to me. It protects my modesty from their leers, my body from my disease, and my heart by reminding me he would attack if I gave the word…but he waits for me to handle this first.
“Stop!” My father’s voice freezes them in their tracks. “Snapdragon, you may take the guards and head back to the dungeon. Cancel the alarms?—”
