I shoved away from the counter and stormed off to my bedroom so I could close a door between myself and everyone begging me to ruin my own life. They weren’t thinking about me at all. They made requests. They had plans for me. Not a single one of them considered me.
Dropping to my knees, I let out a silent scream. My arcana unfurled and spread throughout the room. Plants burst in every corner. Vines climbed the walls. Flowers sprouted and bloomed in the blink of an eye. It was like a floral explosion.
When it was all over, when the fury inside me was smoldering instead of a wildfire, I bent and pressed my forehead to the floor. I wouldn’t cry, not for them.
The door behind me creaked as someone opened it. What could I say? Go away?
No one was listening to me as it was.
“Get out,” I grumbled.
The floor rolled and tossed the visitor back through the door. Everything around me had come to life with my arcana. I spared a glance back to see Rhoan on his ass outside my door. Tiny white flowers sprouted between us as he stared me down with shocked awe on his face.
A thought hit me, and I gave in to it. A wall of thorned vines rose between us. It covered the open door like a curtain. I could hear the men on the other side, whispering to each other.
“Your princess is a feisty one,” the fae man laughed.
Rhoan growled. I heard the drag of his heavy boots on the wood floor as he picked himself up. “She’s a damn witch. A right pain in my ass.”
“Would you put anyone else up against the nightmare that is Unseelie Queen Beryl? I wouldn’t. If fate thought to put a soft little princess in front of Beryl, your fight would have been lost from the start. Beryl would devour the little sugar plum. This one, though. She would give Beryl the worst indigestion.” The fae man laughed.
His laughter faded as if he were vanishing.
“Damn twink is right,” Rhoan grumbled outside my door. “She’s a damn pain in the ass, but at least I know that means she’ll give Beryl a run for her money.”
I sat upright. “I can hear you!”
Just leave me alone, already. I don’t want this.
Feri chewed through the bottom of my vine wall and barged inside, much to my annoyance. I needed to get him a cage. He started in on how I needed to move quickly. We’d been given an opening, and I would be a fool to ignore it.
The rodent went on about all the allegiances I would have to make. There were allies of the old Seelie court lying in wait for my return. If I showed them that I was here, then they would be forced to offer their aid.
How did I convince them that I wasn’t a princess? The vision showed me that I definitely had royal blood, but that wasn’t enough to make me the person they needed. I was a barista with a dream, not a princess sworn to take vengeance for her family. I couldn’t even remember the people I was supposed to be fighting for.
“Go on, have your tantrum,” Rhoan said outside the green curtain. “I’m going to get me a drink.”
7
CERRI
Iwasn’t going to lie. I was pretty annoyed that Rhoan had taken off on me again. For a drink, no less. The man couldn’t bear being away from it for more than a few hours at a time. Maybe that should have told me more about his past than about the man himself, but I wasn’t in a mood to be understanding.
It was difficult when everyone else was so dead set on misunderstanding me. I didn’t want fate-defying adventures. Trials were for those who hadn’t already been put through the wringer. If Rhoan and Feri thought they were going to get a champion out of me, then they were horribly mistaken.
There was only one way to get out of this, and that was to make a deal with the devil—or, more accurately, Queen Beryl. I had a plan in place. If I carefully picked my words, then the balance of power in Lakesedge would be safe, and I would be free to do whatever I pleased.
Beryl was a massive pain in the ass, but she was also a responsible leader here. She’d helped Ryder overthrow the serial killer Pack Alpha, Alvin Combs…though she’d done it rather cruelly. Still, Beryl had the community’s best intentions at heart.
Right?
I pulled out my phone and called Vi because I wasn’t going into this alone. She was a literal firecracker, but she would walk into Hell with me so long as she wasn’t cavorting around with Morgan. When my call when to voicemail, I figured she and Morgan were busy.
As I walked through town, I called Addie. She and I had fought off Beryl together once before. Together, we could be a terrifying force. I could still remember the bone dragon bound with vines as sinew. That’d been the first time that I realized I wasn’t exactly who I thought I was. Beryl had taken one look at me and seethed.
But it seemed that Addie was busy, too. Her voicemail informed me that she was out on an assignment with Maddox. They were hunting murderers somewhere. I couldn’t interrupt their important work with my silly needs.
That left Ness, but I couldn’t ask her to walk into Beryl’s den with me. Ness and Beryl had already had a number of bad interactions after Beryl tried to take Ryder as her own. The fae queen had gotten Ryder addicted to fae food in order to make him her puppet.