Lady Demetria lifted her head. “If you have proper parentage then—”
“My parentage doesn’t matter because I refuse the position of queen,” I said. “Have a great afternoon, I could have gone without meeting all of you—except for you, Sir, er, Paragon—but such is life. Have a safe drive home, goodbye.”
“Leila…” my mom said.
“I’m afraid it’s not a position you can refuse,” the Paragon said.
“Of course it is.” I tried to keep the veneer of good manners—it wouldn’t do to anger the Paragon when he was my best bet at surviving this. “You can’tmakesomeone become a ruler.”
“Except you alreadyareQueen of the Night Court,” the Paragon said. “As I said, you’ve already been bound to the Court, and they are bound to your will.”
No…no!I shook my head, unable to accept it.They’ve overlooked me this long. This can’t be happening!
Naturally, the superiority-complex fae would say that means I only have half of the power of a fae because my blood is “sullied” or something stupid like that. But really what it meant was a lot of the fae limitations didn’t apply to me.
I could totally lie—unlike all full fae—I was only half as rotten tempered, and I didn’t need to visit the fae realm to stay healthy.
That was probably the most dangerous fae limitation, actually—in order to replenish their life force, fae had to visit the fae realm, which was a toxic soup of deadly magicexceptin the lands owned by the Courts—who kept the dark magic at bay.
It was why fae had to pledge themselves to a Court—to get access to the fae realm.
But I didn’t need to visit it, and between squatting at the edge of the Drakes’ property for safety and being only half fae, I was pretty safe.
My human blood has protected me for this long…
Eclipse bumped her head into my shoulder, using me as a scratching post.
I absently patted her neck and turned to my parents. “Mom, I…”
I trailed off, because Mom was crying.
There was a hopelessness in her eyes. She didn’t think we could fight this.
“Then the night mares chose wrong.” I turned back to the Paragon, losing my forced politeness. “It’s just because I give them food and carrots—I’m not—”
“It doesn’t matterwhythey chose you, Leila,” the Paragon gently said. “They bound you as ruler of the Night Court. It cannot be undone.”
I shook my head, unable to accept it. I’d worked endlessly for the future I wanted—for amagic-lesslife!
And now, I was suddenly the Queen of the Night Court?
It would be a disaster! I didn’t know the first thing about running a Court—I just wanted to benormal!
Plus, the fae would hate me for my blood—probably hate that I hadn’t even been raised as a fae—and that didn’t even touch the general mess of regular politics!
Dimly, I knew there was a chance I would be killed because of this.
Hazel took my hand and squeezed it, but I stared unseeingly at the leaf pattern in the Paragon’s robes.
“I understand,” my mother said, shocking me.
“Mom—we can’t accept this!” I started.
She ignored me and fixed the Paragon with a steely gaze I’d only seen her wear half a dozen times. It was her grimmest expression—the one she wore whenever things were bad and she knew we were in real trouble.
“But I want you toswearthat you will help my daughter—that you’ll show her how to be safe, and you’ll teach her all she needs to know to survive and be happy—as long as she feels she needs your help,” she said.
The barnyard was silent.
