Moody And The Beast (Shadowvale #4) - Kristen Painter Page 0,2

air with your own words.

That was another of her mother’s lessons. Listen to learn. Not to reply. Those words suited Theo just fine. She wasn’t much of a talker. Never had been.

Talking could get you into trouble. Being quiet rarely did.

The road wound through a forest that was darker than the sky above because the trees were too close to let the light of the moon and stars through.

Didn’t matter. Her eyes were sharp. She could see as well in the dark as she could in bright sun. Better, possibly. That was one of the gifts of being a changeling, the rare offspring of a goblin and fairy union. Typically, the children of a goblin-fairy marriage favored one kind over the other. But once in a purple moon, a changeling was born.

Her mother had known right away what her daughter was and instructed Theo all her life to hide her truth. Caralynne knew all about hiding truths. Out of necessity, she’d hidden the fact that she was a fairy. Limbo was the goblin kingdom, and Livion was the kingdom of the fairies, the fae major. Not to be confused with the insect-sized fae minor who lived in most forests.

The two kingdoms had been at odds for ages. So when Caralynne had married Welten, she’d kept her heritage a secret. A family secret, she’d liked to say.

The truth would have meant the end of her job as a royal pastry chef. And a much harder life for all of them. At least until Queen Vesta, a fairy herself, had united the two kingdoms by marrying the King of Limbo. Traitor that he was.

But old habits died hard, and even after the merge, Theo continued to hide her fairy blood as a way of keeping her connection with her mother alive. Besides, if people knew her truth, they’d like her even less. The fae, major and minor, could sometimes be sly and conniving. Of course, goblins had their faults, too.

Theo wouldn’t have changed who she was for the world, though. Being a changeling meant she had the benefits of many of her forms, even when she wasn’t in them. Ordinary goblins, like her father, had better-than-human senses. But hers were even better than that.

She thanked her fairy mother daily for those gifts. Theo thought about how her parents had met in the woods surrounding the kingdoms. He’d been fishing. She’d been hunting berries. Her mother had always said she’d fallen for Welten because he’d made her laugh.

Theo could believe that. Everyone liked Welten. He was a charmer. That’s how he’d gotten away with being in debt to nearly everyone he knew for so long.

But even the congeniality of friendship thinned when an imbalance existed. His illness had bought him a little more leniency, but as the illness became more serious, her father’s friends were starting to realize their hopes of being repaid would die with him.

She swallowed at the knot in her throat. She didn’t want to lose her father, but every day brought the inevitable closer. She was terrified to lose him. Not just because she would be alone in the world then, but because she was afraid of what that would do to her.

How much angrier would it make her? How much more would people avoid her? She had a reputation, after all. Of being moody and sour and therefore unpleasant to be around. Could it get worse?

She didn’t want to learn the answers to those questions. Not now that she was going to be away from him for a year. And there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing she could do but serve that year and get back to him.

So yes, she’d do the allotted time. But she wasn’t going to be happy about it.

If His Former Royal Highness thought he was getting a little ray of sunshine to do his bidding, he had another think coming.

* * *

Robin Gallow stood on the balcony of his quarters, watching the lightning bugs zip through the dark and dangerous forest surrounding his home. The red streaks of light they left behind were as beautiful as they were deadly.

Those lightning bugs were his only real subjects now. Not that he wanted any.

Despite the way he’d lost the throne, he didn’t miss being king that much. He certainly didn’t miss the complexities of royal life. Or the need to act a certain way around certain people, all in the name of diplomacy.

And he absolutely didn’t miss his treacherous ex-wife. May that