“I would agree,” Father stated coldly. “Get off her.”
King Athon’s features blanked as if he hadn’t realized we had an audience. He was truly problematic in the morning. He would need to be more careful. In a blink, his features flashed to annoyed, and he flipped his hair out of his face and slightly leaned back from me, glaring to our right.
He complained, “Your Fae damned heir has slowed us down for three days. I am not exactly thrilled with this, King Traevon. If she continues to be a burden, we are leaving her behind.”
“You most certainly are not,” I grumbled. I squirmed under my blanket, attempting to shove his arm off me. “We mustalltouch the artifact at the same time to leave this dreaded place. That is what the Misfits said.”
The entire tent went quiet from my words.
I closed my eyes and shook my head in exasperation. “With much respect, you may be the rulers, but you need to listen better. I don’t think Louie said that with a loophole in mind. He doesn’t seem the creative sort.”
Father’s red brows lowered over his eyes. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“That means no killing unless someone wants to drag a body behind them,” I griped and kept squirming. The shifter king’s arm weighed a ton. “Everyone needs to stay alive.”
King Elon hummed deep in his throat. “Maybe that is why the Misfits believed you should be here, Princess Trixie. Otherwise, someone may have died, and we’d all be stuck here.”
I glanced at my father.
He lifted a single eyebrow. He’d been right.
King Elon had planned to kill him inside the Blood Forest when my father was no longer more powerful than him.
I’d planned to make them suffer in the cold nights, but killing was not an option. We needed to be together and live so that we might all eventually leave this place.”
I kept struggling with the shifter king’s body parts.
Father grabbed King Athon’s wrist and tossed his arm off my person. “For the love of Fae, quit torturing my daughter. She couldn’t help that she is young, and the effect hit her harder.”
King Athon snorted in cruel amusement, teasing to annoy, “She is warm, too.”
“And she is most certainly not a body warmer. We are all freezing. Get used to it.” Father sniffed and shoved the shifter king’s leg off mine. “She is the heir to the Elf Kingdom. Treat her as such.”
King Athon chuckled darkly, not commenting further.
It was most certain he hadnotforgotten who I was…
The eventual downfall of his kingdom.
He had to have a plan rolling around in that kingly head of his to save his people, such as finding a shifter as powerful as the royal power. There were a few in our land that came close to us, my cousin, Caspian, being one of them, but it had never happened before—someone ruling without the royal power of our kinds. Throughout history, the rulers had beenincredibly carefulnot to assassinate a ruler without a direct heir. It was the only thing they agreed on every single time.
No matter what, the Shifter Kingdom would be considered weaker in the other rulers’ eyes without the royal power backing it—unless, perhaps, there was a show of power. I wouldn’t put it past the shifter king to have that in the back of his mind for after his eventual demise. He would have a plan in place; I didn’t doubt that.
Father smirked down at me. “You are free, my daughter. You may do your business.”
“Thank you, Father.” I could breathe now without all that added weight. I stretched my body underneath my blanket as much as I could still crammed between Father and King Athon. My back popped horribly loud, and my legs trembled from disuse. “Where is the designated area?”
“For the women, it’s behind the tree on the right.” Queen Alora coughed hard and shuffled around where she lay. “I will go with you. Queen Mikko, are you coming?”
“I suppose I will. I must get up, anyway,” Queen Mikko groaned. “It is still damned cold, though.”
I pulled my fur blanket down and sat up.
My head swam with dizziness, coiling andtwirling.
I promptly fell back where I had been. “Ow!”
King Athon stared at the tent’s roof with his hands behind his head and chuckled evilly into the shocked quiet. “Your heir is a Fae damned menace, King Traevon. The Fae are watching this right now and laughing their asses off.”
