Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 139662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
I swallow hard. “Thank you. You too, Tynan.” Tynan’s the quietest one of the bunch, and I always liked him. He and Pretha are both Wild Fae, but Pretha married into the Unseelie Court, whereas Tynan had no connections to the shadow court other than his friendship with Finn. Now that I’ve met Misha, I have to wonder if Tynan’s purpose was less about helping Finn and more about being an intermediary between Finn and the Wild Fae king.
Of course, Misha says in my mind. I trust Finn, but I’m not naïve enough to think he wouldn’t wreck all my plans for the sake of his own court. We all have our priorities, Princess.
I shoot Misha a glare for poking around in my mind, and he winks at me.
Look at how jealous he is. If you’d like to make him absolutely mad with jealousy, I’d be happy to help.
Don’t hold your breath. I give him a pointed look to drive the thought home, and Misha grins.
Beside me, Finn growls and sends a glare of his own in Misha’s direction. “If you two are done, I’d like to return to the subject at hand.”
Misha shifts his smile to Finn, not intimidated in the slightest by the shadow prince. “Perhaps we should bring the princess up to speed.”
Pretha folds her arms on the table and leans forward, looking past Finn to meet my eyes. “We have teams working in the Seelie Court to dismantle the queen’s camps and get the Unseelie refugees to safety, but the last dozen we’ve found were already handled before we reached them.”
Sebastian. I hold back my smile, but the warmth in my chest is real.
“And before you think that the queen dismantled them out of the goodness of her black little heart, we should be clear that they weren’t just disbanded,” Jalek says, narrowing his eyes at me. This one has never trusted me, not completely, though he was certainly nicer after I rescued him from the golden queen’s dungeon. “These camps were brought under siege. Bodies of golden guard members litter the sites.”
“Sounds like someone was trying to help,” I say innocently. “Do you know who?”
You were behind this? Misha asks in my mind. I should’ve known, but look at you, keeping secrets.
“Sebastian, much to our surprise,” Finn says, and shakes his head. “Before he arrived at the Unseelie palace, he managed to assemble a contingent of the Golden Military that pledged their loyalty to him. He’s dismissing anyone who won’t act against the queen’s camps. Rumor has it that he’s sent so many teams to free the prisoners in the Court of the Sun, he’s down to a bare-bones army in the shadow court.”
He’s left himself vulnerable for the sake of the refugees. I swallow hard. Sebastian has betrayed me more than once, but it’s a relief to know that on some level, he’s still the male I believed him to be. Still the male I loved. “You know he never liked those camps.”
“Yes,” Finn says, his eyes narrowing as he studies me. “And now he’s proved it. And he’s winning loyalties as he does it. He has Unseelie joining the ranks at the palace now.”
Pretha says, “Sebastian is likely hoping his actions will prove that he can be the king they’ve needed for so long.”
Is that why you did it? Misha asks in my mind. To help him gain favor with the court his mother promised him?
I shake my head. “He can’t be king. The throne rejected him.”
“Mordeus managed to rule without a throne or a crown,” Finn says. “But pledging our allegiance to my uncle was never an option.”
“Neither is allying ourselves with the golden prince,” Jalek snaps. His jaw is hard as he meets Finn’s gaze. “Trusting him is no smarter than trusting that bitch queen. I won’t do it.”
“And that’s just how Queen Arya wants it,” Amira says, leaning back in her chair. She’s been so quiet, I almost forgot she was here. I wonder how much she learns simply because others forget she’s present.
Pretha settles her hands on the table in front of her and keeps her focus there instead of turning to Amira. “Jalek’s not wrong to be cautious,” she says. “Sebastian may be dismantling camps, but we have no reason to believe that when push comes to shove, he wouldn’t choose his mother over the Court of the Moon. We don’t know his true motivations.”
Amira nods in my direction. “Abriella might know some-thing.”
All eyes at the table turn to me, and I shake my head. “She raised Sebastian to believe he could unite the courts and rule them both. Because he is of both courts, he believes he can save thousands from dying in another war.”
“He thinks he’s the promised child,” Kane growls.
“She raised him on lies and pretty stories,” Jalek says. “Even if the courts could be ruled as one—which is another issue altogether—letting him rule both would mean she had to hand over her power. We all know she’s not going to do that.”