“Shit,” I hissed and shook my head hard. Then I blinked slowly, understanding the exact position I was now in. I sniffed at my armpit, smelling the utterlyfoulstench of myself. “Shit.”
Blindside of an Elf:
Can a Fae come and talk to me real quick?
Perhaps just a few seconds?
Only long enough…
For me to jab my motherfucking dagger in their throat.
I’ll send them back in smaller pieces.
Promise.
Dropping my bag of crumpets on my dining room table, I reread the missive from my uncle, the king.
King Traevon hadn’t minced words.
My cousin, Princess Trixie, had been kidnapped into Fairy, and my king was on a mission to retrieve her. I was now charged with watching over the castle grounds—mainly to spy on my father, Marlon, to ensure he didn’t overstep his duties in the king’s stead.
This was nothing new.
While Marlon was a wonderful father, he was not my true kin. Nor was he King Traevon’s true kin. It was the greatest coup upon the elven populace in history, only told between a select few.
But we were a family.
Atwistedfamily—there was no doubt.
But the love was whole underneath it all.
If only my cousin knew. It was a battle I fought now that she had reached her majority and was old enough and responsible enough to know the truth; it was also a battle that remained overpowered.
My king said it wasn’t the right time.
With the weirdness about the lands, as earthquakes tortured the realm and the royals constantly vanished on missions, I loathed to push the point too hard. King Traevon could have the right of it, especially with Princess Trixie’s unexpected, illegal soul-mating to King Athon.
It…may be too much for her.
Princess Trixie was a mere thirty years old, while my own five hundred years of life lay heavily on my shoulders with knowledge and trepidation—the more you experienced, the more you understood you knew only a fraction of what life held. But I did believe she was ready to know the whole truth of our found family. My cousin was spirited and brave and extremely intelligent, the perfect heir to the Elf Kingdom, willing to sacrificeallfor her people. She would handle the news with her normal regal bearing and mesh it into her new secretive reality.
She was already excellent with secrets.
This would just be another layer.
So in time, she would know.Eventually.
I started to open the bag of crumpets, done rereading the missive, needing to eat and change my clothing before leaving for the castle, but a hardbangingon my wooden front door jerked me to a stop. My white brows furrowed at the harshness of the knocking, my visitor declaring loudly they wouldn’t be ignored—quite rudely, really.
Shoving my brunch aside, I tossed the covert letter in the trash bin and marched straight to my front door, my boots thumping loudly on the large square tiles.
But when I threw the door open…
No one stood outside my knoll home.
“Hello?” I said carefully, running my eyes from left to right across the tall wildflowers, my back straightening to high alert at this oddity. I tipped slightly outside my home and stated coolly, “Don’t be shy now. You’ve got my attention.”
A deep, soft chuckle came from straight ahead, many feet in front of me, my dark blue eyes homing directly in on the disturbance.
