Crown of Moonlight (Court of Midnight and Deception #2) - K.M. Shea Page 0,1
every problem—my getting picked and forced to become the Night Queen, the fact that I can’t abdicate, and getting married to a freakin’ assassin—is all the original king’s fault, because he made all those stupid laws when he ruled. The creep.”
“Hey, you only have yourself to blame for getting hitched to an assassin,” Indigo said. “Skye went through all the half decent candidates with you, but you had to go for the bad boy.”
“Because he doesn’t have any political connections,” I protested.
Skye had regained some of her spirit—or at least she stopped crunching antacids. “The first king made those laws as a way to limit the power of the Night Court because he saw—in his immense wisdom—that as the sole Night Court in North America, it would have too much power.”
“And because the Night Court and Day Court are inescapably linked given that they rule day and night together, the limitations on the Night Court would force limitations on the Day Court even if their monarchs did nothing,” I recited. “I know, I know—you’ve spent a lot of time tutoring me on history, and because I’m highly motivated to move on to new subjects I’m not going to forget it all.”
“Don’t worry, Skye,” Indigo assured her. “It’s not that she doesn’t listen to your lessons—our queen is too diligent for that. It’s merely that she’s a heretic.”
Skye looked contemplatively at the mint tin in her hand, the golden skin of her forehead puckered with thin wrinkles.
I vaguely noted that even when in distress, Skye still looked gorgeous and graceful—and far more queen-like than me.
Sure, my fae blood made me pretty enough for a human. It was also responsible for the unusual purple-ish-blue shade of my eyes, and I’d inherited my height from my fae biological father. But while I was prone to flashing my emotions across my face, Skye was far more controlled and better at hiding her expressions. Or she usually was, unless she was getting out her antacids because of something I did or said.
But that might have had something to do with our upbringing.
Skye grew up among the fae, living with her fae mother’s family. I lived with my human mom and dad—or step-dad, really, but he practically raised me. To me he would always be Dad.
Fae are pretty vicious supernaturals. They play all sorts of games—mental and political. And even though they can use magic and have certain limitations that you think would improve their personalities—like the inability to lie—they’re all about power. Both obtaining and keeping it.
“You can’t tease Skye like that,” I told Indigo. “You’ll give her ulcers.”
Indigo kept scratching Whiskers’ chin, eliciting a deep purr from him. “I wasn’t teasing.”
I made a noise of dissatisfaction. “I see how it is around here. There’s no respect!”
“Probably because you’re the most disrespectful person I know,” Indigo said.
A brownie, Indigo was short and bird-like with her thin legs and arms. Her hair was a wild mess of the most glorious russet red color I’d seen—though today she wore it shoved up in a ponytail.
She wrinkled her slightly up-turned nose as Whiskers rubbed his head on her shoulder. “Stop it,” she fussed. “You’re going to get black hair all over this shirt.”
Today’s t-shirt was bright white and spattered with several superhero insignias. Indigo was something of a closet nerd. She’d applied for her role as my companion—which was basically a fancy title the fae used for personal assistant—because she wanted the hefty salary to buy more movie, book, and TV show merch.
“We may as well get this over with…” I trailed off and curiously peered around the expansive, half-dead gardens when I heard heavy footfalls.
Kevin, his shoulder pushed against my hips, lifted his head and scented the air. He didn’t seem worried, and neither did Whiskers—who was half draped over Indigo by now—so I didn’t think whatever was approaching me was bad.
But I didn’t expect the creature that trundled around a corner of the castle and marched straight toward us.
Even though I’d never seen one before, I knew what it was on sight because of all its heads. It was a hydra.
With four wedge shaped heads sitting on four arched necks and a thick, sturdy body, the hydra was a mixture of a flightless dragon and a water serpent.
This one was a little bigger than my truck. Its plated scales were a dark blue mottled with watery gray—I had a feeling it could effortlessly blend in with water or rock, its primary territories.