enough resolve, you can control them.”
“As you already have—when you stopped the guard,” Suits “helpfully” piped in.
Mom and Dad came around the corner of the house in time to hear the Paragon’s explanation, both of them looking a lot more worried and much less confused than I thought they’d be.
“Paragon.” Mom bowed her head in respect.
Dad was a second behind in copying her, but I was mostly shocked that Mom knew who the Paragon was.
I didn’t think they paid much attention to the supernatural community. I mean, I did. But that’s because my general wellbeing depended a lot on who was in power. Unpledged fae like me typically don’t last long. Usually a fae has to swear to a Court because otherwise they’re easy pickings for any supernatural. When you belong to a Court, messing with a fae means you’re involving their Court. Us Unpledged don’t have that protection.
I’m pretty sure I survived only as long as I did because I lived next to the Drakes.
“Hello, and who might you be?” The Paragon smiled warmly at my parents.
“We’re Leila’s parents,” Dad said.
The Paragon blinked as he studied my clearly human parents. “Aha. Is that so?”
“She’s my daughter from a previous marriage,” Mom said.
Lady Demetria sniffed. “And her father?”
“I’m her father. I adopted her.” Dad’s usual easy, warm smile was gone. Instead the slight downturn of his lips and his lowered, thick eyebrows gave him a watchful look as he moved closer to me.
He stopped to pet one of the fae horses or…night mares or whatever.
This elicited a mewl of alarm from Suits, but Comet—the night mare he was stroking—didn’t even twitch a nostril.
“I see!” The Paragon’s cheer was back. “What a quaint childhood here on a farm.” He gestured to a few of my mom’s black and white speckled chickens that had wandered over and were roosting on the lowest bar of the wooden fence. “Very idyllic, I’m sure.”
“Who fathered her?” Lady Demetria interrupted, her chest puffed with self-importance.
Mom and Dad exchanged glances, and Mom’s cheek twitched.
It struck me as a little weird—she hadn’t ever given me the impression she hated my bio father, even though I wasn’t shy about saying I did.
“He was a Night Court fae,” I said. “What’s it to you?”
Lady Demetria lifted her head. “If you have proper parentage then—”
“My parentage doesn’t matter because I refuse the position of queen,” I said. “Have a great afternoon, I could have gone without meeting all of you—except for you, Sir, er, Paragon—but such is life. Have a safe drive home, goodbye.”
“Leila…” my mom said.
“I’m afraid it’s not a position you can refuse,” the Paragon said.
“Of course it is.” I tried to keep the veneer of good manners—it wouldn’t do to anger the Paragon when he was my best bet at surviving this. “You can’t make someone become a ruler.”
“Except you already are Queen of the Night Court,” the Paragon said. “As I said, you’ve already been bound to the Court, and they are bound to your will.”
No…no! I shook my head, unable to accept it. They’ve overlooked me this long. This can’t be happening!
Naturally, the superiority-complex fae would say that means I only have half of the power of a fae because my blood is “sullied” or something stupid like that. But really what it meant was a lot of the fae limitations didn’t apply to me.
I could totally lie—unlike all full fae—I was only half as rotten tempered, and I didn’t need to visit the fae realm to stay healthy.
That was probably the most dangerous fae limitation, actually—in order to replenish their life force, fae had to visit the fae realm, which was a toxic soup of deadly magic except in the lands owned by the Courts—who kept the dark magic at bay.
It was why fae had to pledge themselves to a Court—to get access to the fae realm.
But I didn’t need to visit it, and between squatting at the edge of the Drakes’ property for safety and being only half fae, I was pretty safe.
My human blood has protected me for this long…
Eclipse bumped her head into my shoulder, using me as a scratching post.
I absently patted her neck and turned to my parents. “Mom, I…”
I trailed off, because Mom was crying.
There was a hopelessness in her eyes. She didn’t think we could fight this.
“Then the night mares chose wrong.” I turned back to the Paragon, losing my forced politeness. “It’s just because I give them food and carrots—I’m not—”
“It doesn’t matter why they chose you,