Crown of Moonlight (Court of Midnight and Deception #2) - K.M. Shea Page 0,113

nose and staggered backwards a few steps as Birch roared and tried to shake the determined queen off.

“Then you shouldn’t have been weak—urk!” He yelped in pain when Verdant grabbed a lock of his hair and ripped it out of his scalp.

Rime, of all people, gripped the front of Fell’s tunic, and the pair was growling at each other like territorial dogs.

“You dropped an undefeatable monster into another Court’s territory!” Rime snarled.

“It was just the Night Court—I didn’t know she had a hydra under her sway!” Fell tried to brush her off, but Rime just grabbed him by his gaudy pauldrons instead.

“You could have wiped a whole Court out!”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Call the Curia Cloisters for help!” Rime said.

“And let them trash my realm? Besides—why are you upset? I just used the Night Court.”

“Because you obviously are willing to do it to any of our Courts, which means you’re a liability!” Rime snapped.

Fell scoffed, and glanced at Solis, who had recovered enough from the elbow to the face to stand upright again. “Solis, back me up—it was within my right to act as I did.”

“No.” Solis shook his head. “I agree with Queen Rime. That you were willing to sacrifice an entire realm because you refused to call for help signals you are not of sound mind. What would you have done if Leila hadn’t defeated it?”

“Last I checked you were well below me on the power structure.” Fell turned away from Rime and poked a finger in Solis’s direction. “Don’t forget to whom you speak.”

Solis caught Fell’s wrist. “Of course I know whom I’m talking to—you’re a puppy that’s constantly yapping.” He shoved Fell’s arm away with enough force to make the Autumn King stagger.

“What?” Fell snarled.

I stared at the scuffle in a mixture of awe and shock. I figured the other monarchs hid themselves behind their fancy costumes and pointless ceremonies like all the other fae, but I never suspected that when it was stripped away I’d get to see how emotional they really were.

Huh. This is educational.

I watched Birch fall to his knees then keel over backwards, crushing Verdant underneath him. “Well,” I said. “There goes my big entrance.”

“This is an unusual situation,” Indigo agreed.

“Congratulations,” Rigel told me. “You are so heretical, you are able to get the most powerful fae in the Midwest to brawl like drunks in a bar.”

“Hey, I wasn’t even here when they started this,” I said.

“Indeed,” Skye agreed. “But how are you going to use it?”

I hesitated, and looked back at the fighting monarchs. “Rigel, could you get their attention?”

I don’t know how he did it—I didn’t even see him pull his daggers from his bracers. He just casually flicked his hands and threw one dagger between Fell and Solis, and another that almost nicked Verdant on the arm.

Verdant let go of Birch and scrambled to her feet, and Solis, Fell, and Rime all turned in our direction.

“It seems like we have some repressed feelings,” I said as Birch’s color slowly returned to normal. “We should talk about it and get them out in the open.”

“What’s there to talk about—why are we even having this meeting?” Birch asked.

“Because.” I tried to sound as nice and sincere as possible, even though I really just wanted to punch Fell—I still hadn’t gotten over him dropping the monster in my realm, so it did my heart good to see Rime and Solis take him to task. “I’m formally requesting that the Fae Ring make me the fae representative on the Regional Committee of Magic next year.”

Verdant frowned a little. “Why would you want that?”

“The Autumn Court objects!” Fell announced.

“As does the Summer Court,” Birch added.

Of course the two bozos would. I glanced at Rime—she was the one I was most interested in hearing from, given that I suspected she would be the tie breaker.

Rime straightened her grayish blue dress and cleared her throat—putting her figurative mask back on. “I would also like to hear why you wish for such a position.”

I sucked in a breath and tried to steel myself—because here was where it got scary.

When I first made the Night Court truly recognize me as queen, I’d used a combination of intimidation tactics, cleverness, and brute force.

That wasn’t going to work with these guys.

They were fellow monarchs and had their own Courts. I couldn’t dominate them, and I didn’t want to become a regional tyrant. Not to mention trying to scare them into following me would only make these stupid political games