CHAPTER SIX
Resolve of a princess:
To have one’s breath stolen... I never expected that.
It is a mystery I don’t particularly wish to unfold, but I don’t have the luxury to look away. When you are a royal, unknowns shouldn’t be left in the dark. A kingdom’s death blow hurts just the same from the shadows...
I will strive to accept this curiosity, the cause sure to be laid bare.
The Elf Kingdom’s fate may depend on it.
THIS CASTER WASnever going to shut up. I couldn’t be rude to her, either, since she was Queen Mikko’s sister. Father was right about the ever jabbering woman—she has a tiny brain and a huge mouth.
There had to be a way to escape this tiresome twit.
“Did you know that your chickens are far too small for trade, Your Highness?” Kera Boone mumbled around a mouthful of food, a small dot of raspberry sauce marring the top of her mouth. While she licked greedily at her lips, she placed the rest of her bite down on the tiny, circular china dish she held in her dainty hands. The grey mist of her eyes twirled…so fucking slowly, it was hardly noticeable—not much going on inside that mind of hers. “There is hardly any meat for them to be tasty. It is why your kingdom has a hard time trading them. You should switch up your feed if you wish to produce healthy fowl.” She popped the rest of the bite into her mouth, exuberantly waving her left arm high in the air at a server for another.
My blink was gradual, my tone drier than the sand in the Gorgon Kingdom. “Small or not, you seem to be enjoying our chicken well enough. Perhaps you should rethink your opinions on fowl if you find ours as delicious as you do.” All right. I couldn’t handle being polite any longer after all of the insults she had flung in the last ten minutes. Tact could go to Fairy where this idiot was concerned. “If you’ll excuse me, I see someone I must speak to.”
I left the bitch sputtering at my back.
A sense of relief fell on my shoulders to be rid of her.
I smiled to myself as I walked through the crowd, despite the obvious individuals trying to get close to me, enough to blatantly sniff at my head in hopes that an urge would take us into carnal bliss.I am so sorry, my people. But the urge will never pull me under again.Even more distressing, the heat I had yet to experience was now reserved for one Fae damned shifter—the only stretches where I could become pregnant. Fucking jest there.
Or maybe not… Time would tell.
I did not believe King Athon had been entirely truthful recently. He hadwillinglygiven information about his private SEED OF CREATION book, stating there wasnoactual information about a seed in it. That was bullshit of the highest order—and totally in line with his secretive nature. Not to mention, he had executed his naïve act so beautifully with Ruiuen—and the flower. He had assured I would look and then take it, using my own curiosity and stubbornness against me.
I side-eyed him from across the room.
I hadn’t known it then. But I most definitely knew it now.
A better adversary had played me.
I could own up to that.
The shifter had swindled an elf.Gallingly so.
It was unfortunate for him that his own beastly nature today had helped to expose his deceit. But I would take it any way I could get it—because the bloom that should have been long dead was still alive. Or it would be for a short time.
And it was mine.
If he wanted to keep secrets, so could I.
My smirk grew as I lifted a wine glass from a tray.
Payback was a bitch.Properly so.
But…why did he keep looking at me?
I peered over my wine flute, his gaze on me once more.
Unease flittered over my thoughts, wariness entering my veins not for the first time tonight—and it had nothing to do with meeting my people this time.
Did the King of Shifters know I was hiding something?
My brows puckered as I drained half of my glass.
