Lord Linus took the opportunity to neatly send Lord Argyos on his way.
“You? The father of our queen?” Lord Argyos snorted. “We really are all doomed if she’s at all like you.”
“I assure you we’re nothing alike,” Lord Linus said. “But I never liked you to begin with, so I’m still wishful that you take yourself and your minions elsewhere—someplace we are not.”
Lord Argyos’s cronies were murmuring between themselves—probably trying to decide if this obviously crazy guy really was my father.
It had to be a lie. He must be using a loophole so he could say it. There was no way he could abandon my mother years ago, only to pop up once he found out I was queen.
“Go on. Shoo!” Lord Linus flapped his hands at Lord Argyos and his cronies. They retreated about halfway down the hallway, stopping frequently to look back at us.
“Now, as for you, my darling daughter…” Lord Linus turned around and flung his arms wide. “Why don’t you greet me, your father who has missed you all these years, with all love and joy—”
For the first time in my entire life, I saw red.
I’d never been this furious before.
I’d always hated my biological father, but in this moment Idespisedhim. How dare he sweep in as if I’d been anxiously waiting for him—as ifhewasn’t the reason that I’d never seen him—and, most maddening of all, as if he was my dad, and not Paul.
WHAM!
With instincts I didn’t know I possessed, I grabbed a massive beeswax candle off a wooden stand on a side board and slammed it upside Lord Linus’s head.
The cylindrical candle snapped in half, and Lord Linus made a pained gurgle and staggered a few steps.
“Daughter?” he tried once he could finally speak again.
I dropped the bottom half of the candle, and it took several long moments before I was able to unclench my hands from the fists they’d curled into. “Nevercall me that again.” I stormed off before he could answer.
Lord Linus waited for a moment, then trotted after Indigo and me. “But that’s what you are—my daughter.”
I pulled my phone out, found my mom’s number on my speed dial list, and called her.
“Leila—don’t you want a tearfully fond reunion?” Lord Linus asked as he trailed behind.
I ignored him and listened impatiently to the ringing of my phone. I scowled at Lord Argyos when I passed him and his friends in the hallway.
They were all watching the unfolding drama with unabashed glee, snickering and laughing with one another.
Finally, Mom picked up. “Hello! You’re calling me early today,” she said with her usual sunshine.
“Mom, what’s the name of the fae you married?”
“You’re referring to your biological father?”
I barely held in a growl. “Yes.”
“Linus. Actually, Lord Linus. Did he come visit you? He said he was going to.”
“You’vespokento him?” I asked, incredulous.
“Well, yes. I thought he should know you’d been chosen as the new Queen of the Night Court since itishis people you’re ruling,” Mom said with a rare bit of wryness.
“You’ve been in contact with him? Why?”
“While I gave you the option of pursuing a relationship with him, he still wanted to know how you were. He is your father—”
“No, he isnot,” I stressed. “Paul is my dad. He’s my only dad. This kook here is in no way a father to me. He’s…” I turned around, and when Lord Linus smiled at me, it physically hurt to recognize that I did look a lot like him.
