Page 50

But then why is my heart beating so fast at the thought of it?

And why would I give anything for him to come over to this bed and finish what he started in the ballroom last night?

Ugh!

Gritting my teeth, I change the subject. “If Lux really cared about me, then he would’ve been honest from the start.”

Honest about everything.

“My sister is married to a demon. I wouldn’t have cared if the two of you were half-faeries… Well, maybe I would’ve been surprised, but I wouldn’t have hated you both for it.” I force myself to take a breath. “Instead, you hid all this from me and now you’re telling me that I’m already ‘bonded’ to Lux or whatever that means… when I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to marry him anymore.”

Castor’s eyes narrow. “You don’t want to marry him?”

“No, I… That’s not important!” I shake my head.

“I think it is.” He stands up and paces towards me. “If the woman my brother is obsessed with is not just as obsessed with him, then that sounds like a very big problem.” Looming over me, he presses his fists either side of my hips. “Do you love my brother, Eden?”

“I-I don’t even know who your brother is.”

Castor’s jaw tenses. “Ask then.”

“What?” The word is tiny.

“Ask me about Lux.” With a smirk, he pulls away to return to his chair. “As you said yourself, you cannot run away from us anymore, so who’ve you got to tell?”

I watch him carefully, a lump stuck in my throat. I’m still going to run away, but it can’t hurt to learn a little about my situation first. “And you’ll be honest with me?”

“Mostly.” He grins.

That’ll have to do. “Fine. Tell me what it means to be a half-faerie.”

Castor stretches his arms. “Same sort of thing it means to be half-human, I suppose. One of our parents was a human and the other was a faerie.”

“But you have different parents, don’t you?”

“Behold this historic day when Princess Eden learns that there can be more than one set of interracial parents in our realm,” he deadpans.

I glare at him. “So you each have one human parent and one faerie?”

“Yes.” He leans against the chair’s backrest. “My father is a faerie and my mother was a human, while Lux’s mother was a faerie and his father was human.”

“And your father and Lux’s mother are married?” I recall.

“Were.” He shrugs. “Then again, I suppose even death wouldn’t be enough to break a relationship like that.”

“Lux’s mother is dead?” I gasp as Castor stiffens. Lux said that he didn’t know who his father was. But his mother…

Castor’s voice turns cold. “Do not speak of this to Lux. He doesn’t like to talk about his mother. You’d be wise to forget that I mentioned her.”

“Oh…”

With eleven motherless sisters, I know better than most the damage that an absent parent can do. I’ve spent far too many nights curled up with Liliana and Kalimeris, even Fern, explaining to them that not having a mother doesn’t make us any less worthy of love.

We’re just lucky we have each other, and Father too obviously. Even if our relationship isn’t as good as it once was, I’ll never forget the private parties he used to throw for us. The picnics in our palace grounds. The gorgeous presents he’d buy us for Winterfeast.

Father loves us in his own way. An odd way. But it’s still love, I suppose.

Swallowing, I glance at Castor. “So if you’re half faerie, why do you look so human?”