“You’re not just a shape shifter,” he said with a tsk as he realized she’d been lying to them.
“How do you mean?”
“Shifters can’t duplicate unicorns. Not without telltale signs that betray them, such as two horns instead of one. It was a curse placed upon their blood long ago by the great Queen Amandine. Only a unicorn can be a unicorn. The rest are just cheap copies that are easily identified… Is Meara really your mother?”
She turned back into her human body and quickly picked up her cloak to shield her nudity. The shock on her face further proved his point. A born shape shifter knew they couldn’t mimic unicorns, and they would never have attempted such. Never mind claim it as the first choice of form.
No, she was a unicorn by birth. And she could take other forms.
“Is Meara your mother?” he asked again, giving her his back so that she could redress in her clothes. Now, it was imperative that he know the answer.
“Yes.”
Xaydin cursed. If that was true, then he knew Gisela’s father, and it explained so much about why Meara hated unicorns as much as she did. Especially given Gisela’s age.
This woman was King Dash’s sister.
9
Xaydin was still reeling from his newfound discovery. “You’re a daughter of Cratus.”
Fuck me.He didn’t want to believe it, but…
“You can turn around now. I’m dressed.”
She still hadn’t answered his question and he had to know. “How long have you known?”
“Most of my life. My mother accidentally confessed it one night when she was in the midst of a tirade.”
“And you never thought to reach out to your brothers or sister?”
She scoffed at his question. “You think they’d believe me?”
“Again, only a unicorn can be a unicorn. The moment they saw you, they’d have known the truth.” And now that he knew who she was, it was obvious how much she favored her father. And brother. She was definitely the feminine version of Dash. How he’d missed it, he had no idea. “They wouldn’t have questioned it.”
Gisela let those words sink in. Her mother had convinced her that they would have all killed her. Her father for tying him to her mother.
Her brother because she could have contested his inheritance.
And her other siblings just for spite.
The last thing that bastard wants is anyone knowing how intimate we were. You are my guarantee that the unicorns won’t dare invade. The daughter of two equine races, you are the rightful heir to their throne!
She’d always wondered what had made her mother so positive they’d know her.
Now she understood. It was the alternate form her mother had forbidden her from taking. Her mother must have known that only unicorns could be unicorns.
You are centaur! Damn you for not showingmyblood!
When Gisela had been born as a unicorn, her mother had slaughtered everyone who had witnessed her birth.
Everyone. All to safeguard her mother’s illicit secret that she’d slept with King Cratus of Licordia.
Gisela had been born in blood, and but for her mother’s politics that wanted to use her, she’d have been slaughtered, too. As it was, she’d been kept completely sequestered until she’d been able to turn human.
Released only so long as she swore to her mother that she’d never turn into her birth form.
Never be the unicorn she’d been born to be.
