Page 84 of Destined for the Fae King

“Oh. Oh!” Grace bounces on the bed and looks like she’s about to combust with the need to say something more.

I grimace. “Yeah, so maybe don’t tell anyone?”

“You keep our secrets, and we’ll keep yours,” Alex promises.

“But oh my God, we have to talk about this!” Grace grabs my arm and gives it a little shake, her whole body still vibrating with excitement. “I mean, he is always around you, but I thought that maybe he didn’t trust you after that whole thing at the induction ceremony.” She leans in closer. “Does he like you? Is it one-sided?”

“Uh…” I lean back, trying to put some much needed space between us.

“When did all of this start?” Grace presses. “Does he know?”

The panic welling up in me must be written on my face because Alex gently tugs Grace off me and pulls her off the bed and toward the door.

“Settle down now, kitten,” Alex says.

“But I— We—” She gestures between herself and me.

“Later.” She urges her toward the door. “Good night, Mira,” she says to me.

“Good night.” I give a little wave.And thank you a million for making this discussion stop.

Grace sighs. “But you have to tell me more sometime. Okay?”

A brittle smile twitches at the corner of my lips. “Um, okay.”

“Out.” Alex gives her a gentle shove toward the door, and then finally they’re gone.

But the minute the door closes behind them and silence settles over the room once more, it doesn’t take long for the horrors of the day to slink back through the shadows to haunt me.

Chapter 33

The move to anew city is oddly simple and seamless. Given the fae ability to shift, there’s no real travel involved. One moment, we’re in the capital, and then after a dizzying and stomach-dropping moment, we’re not.

The rooms we’re assigned here are a little smaller but even more ostentatious, with thick rugs, beds with lush canopies, and furniture could have been plucked straight from the palace at Versailles. Tapestries and glass sculptures make the room more a museum than anything I’d ever call comfortable. Sneezing feels like it could be a dangerous activity here.

Apparently, the city of Calida was once a regular getaway for the royals and upper nobility of the court, and these rooms were decorated to reflect that. Their positioning is strange too, with all of the rooms on one side of a large, circular hallway like spokes on a bicycle tire. Each has a back door leading out into a large courtyard that all the rooms can access.

It seems like a huge security risk, but we’ve been assured there’s no safer place in the city, as the section is heavily warded and no one save the king himself can shift into any of the rooms orthe courtyard. Plus, the guards can easily ring in the area to keep Unseelie—or anyone else—from slipping by unnoticed.

Fia is already in my room when I get there, organizing the last of my clothes into a wardrobe taller than her. My dressing table already contains an artful display of her cosmetics, and my desk has been setup just like my old one, right down to the pens I received from Lysandir displayed in their case. For me, it’s like I snapped my fingers and my old room appeared here, but I know that’s far from the case.

“Did you sleep at all?” I ask Fia.

“A little.” She closes the wardrobe. The door gives a soft click. “But don’t worry about me.”

It’s hard not to. I worry about all of us, especially this close to Unseelie territory, and if the king is as mad as they say? It’ll be war. Bloody, terrible, and deadly.

Whatever talent I may have had for hiding my thoughts and emotions seems to have been lost in the wreckage of the last few days, because it’s almost like Fia can read my mind. She stops just in front of me and cups my cheek. The oddly intimate touch makes my chest swell.

“It may be wrong to say, but I’m glad it was not you.” She drops her hand. “Not just because I hope you’ll win, but I would be heartbroken if anything happened to you.”

My face is still puffy from the tears that accompanied me to sleep. I thought I’d exhausted them all, but somehow, more sting at the corners of my eyes. “You too. I worry that you, that all of us, have been dragged into danger.”

On account of me. Because I’m fated for the king, but he wanted another.

I gasp as she wraps me in a hug. When she releases me, she says, “We’ll get through this. All of us together.”

I so hope she’s right.

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