yours to know, judge, or be apart of as you want. I’m not yours. So deal with that or fuck off. There’s the door, and best of luck to you, mate.”
“You cannot be serious,” he whispered.
“As a fucking heart attack,” I chuckled darkly. “You’re an asshole who hasn’t even told me about my father yet, wants me under his thumb, and to be the big boss. Yeah, not happening. Accept that, and that I’m only willing to work with you for survival and to help our people, our world, or sod off and get out.”
“Well said, love,” Julian praised.
I think Neldor finally comprehended we weren’t going to put up with him just because he was a prince, or we needed help, or he was a fairy, or any other reason he might be thinking. We would absolutely toss his ass out the door and carry on as we had.
He cleared his throat and reached for some of the muffins the hobgoblins had warmed up and set out. “I don’t know who your father is. Queen Meira did mate, but most did not even know that until right before the war and she was already pregnant with you. I do not know why it was kept quiet. My mother believed it was proof Queen Meira murdered my father and knew to hide her own mate.”
I nodded, not really caring about the people who’d sold me, hadn’t taken better care of me when leaving me in another world, and clearly just saw me as a tool to come back and save all fairies later… But, it was smarter to have the answers.
We continued where we’d left off, telling him about my start at Artemis, and especially the pills to counter the human vaccines. I don’t know why I bothered to justify myself to him, but he seemed rather disappointed in my magic, or that I’d been hurt awakening him. From everything I’d read, I was well beyond what most fairies could do at twenty.
Well, now I knew why that was.
I wish I didn’t know why that was.
We kept going, telling him everything we needed to, but leaving out most of the personal stuff. I did most of the talking, but the others helped where they could, and I was grateful because I found it hard to do.
And his gaze unnerving.
I got up to get something more to drink while he was listening to Katrina and finally had a moment to simply look at him. Neldor was handsome. No one could deny that. Besides those amazing green eyes, he had jet black hair that looked longer than shoulder length pulled back in a ponytail.
His face was perfectly symmetrical— high cheek bones, proud nose, but not too much. He looked almost airbrushed, from the impeccable eyebrows to the full lips most human women got injections for.
In my head, I guess I had imagined a bunch of Orlando Blooms from the Lord of the Rings movie, even if they had been elves. He wasn’t all that far off, but with the dark hair instead of light. He had that build, that sleek, probably sculpted body with broader shoulders. Thinking about when he had been standing by me, he wasn’t much taller than I was, right at about six feet.
Again, too bad he was a dick.
Lucca moved in my line of sight and gave me a worried look.
I snapped out of it and shot him the best smile I could before offering him some of my infusion tea with fae fruit juice.
Our early dinner—or second lunch even—arrived, and we took a break to dig in. Neldor moaned at the taste of the huge tacos, and Mel shot me a look that I knew, as she wanted me to listen in. I flipped on my telepathy and almost spit out my bite all over.
“Something has finally made him happy. He finally approves of something you’ve done. It might just be your taste in food, and he won’t admit it, but he approves of something. I’m going to fucking faint. What a fucking dick.”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
Luckily, Darby always ordered more than I asked for and did double that for Neldor as well. The two of us kept going long after everyone else was done, but it finally seemed there was one thing he wouldn’t judge.
Though he did shoot me a few glances as if he wanted to say something about my table manners, or maybe that I didn’t eat my huge ass tacos with my pinky