The tremor stopped.
I promptly hunched over and threw up all over the floor.
Father sidestepped quickly from the trajectory of my vomit, and then gently pulled my hair back from my face and rubbed my back in soothing circles.
Over my coughing, he stated, “That explains that.”
King Athon muttered in cruel disgust, “I implore you to teach your heir how to keep it down, King Traevon, because that is astonishingly revolting.”
I turned my head to the side and spat in his direction, glaring up at him from my hunched over pained form.
Father snorted. “I think she can handle herself fine.”
The shifter king’s straight nose scrunched in loathing, holding my gaze. “Does it smell good down there, Princess Trixie? Because it fucking reeks up here.”
I spat once more onto the floor below me and straightened up, hiding any lingering pain I felt. “My simple elven nose can handle the stench, apparently—unlike yours, Your Royal Highness. Thank the Fae I’m not a shifter.”
King Traevon’s lips twitched, even though the other king didn’t notice, seeing as he was busy glaring daggers at me. My father wrapped his right arm around my waist and led me away from the mess on the floor. “I must introduce my daughter to the others before the meeting begins. We’ll see you in there, King Athon.”
“Have your guard clean this disgusting mess up, King Traevon,” King Athon barked a clear command behind us. “If I have to smell this the entire time, I will not sign off on your next bill—no matter what it is.”
Father waved his free hand in the air. “I’ll have it taken care of.”
“This is fucking gross,” King Athon continued to mumble under his breath, his words getting fainter the closer we got to the door to the main room. Then louder, he called, “Princess Trixie?”
I ground my teeth together, before glancing over my shoulder. “Yes, Your Royal Highness?”
One side of his lush mouth curved up into a wicked smile. “You’ll want to brush those teeth before you go out there. This is your first impression, after all.”
Father instantly pivoted, tightening his arm around me to keep me moving with him, and started walking back toward the other king—to the royal bedchambers. “I have a toothbrush in my room, my heir. We need to make it quick, though.”
King Athon chuckled quietly as we passed by him.
* * *
“Queen Mikko, this is my heir, Princess Trixie Towers. My daughter will be attending the royal summits from now on,” King Traevon stated, his chin high with pride. “Trixie, this is Queen Mikko Boone, Queen of Casters.”
I lowered myself into a perfect curtsey, staring at the white marble once more. I breathed evenly as a rush of lust swamped my entire being, almost making me fall in its intensity. The lone shining point since Father and I strolled back into the main greeting area was that King Athon still wasn’t in here.
With sugar dripping from my words, I said sweetly, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Queen Mikko.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, too, Princess Trixie,” the queen stated quietly, a small voice for a pint-sized woman. A caster’s accent easily tickled the senses with their luxuriated vowels and short consonants. She tapped the crown of my head softly. “You may rise.”
I lifted and stared down my nose at her. That couldn’t be helped with my current state of yearning. Otherwise, I would positively be a puddle on the floor.
Queen Mikko stood at four feet tall, with chestnut brown, tree bark hair. It scraped over her shoulders as her head tipped back to look up at me. The brown mist of her eyes swayed calmly while she studied me with that alligator-like scrutiny. Her skin the color of an onyx sky ate all the light that poured down on her, seemingly casting her in shadows. Her outfit was just as menacing, with the twigs on her black collar sticking out far enough to cut anyone and the flowing dress of yellow moss that had sharp red thorns sticking out of it.
The woman could cast a deadly spell on me.
Or an equally lovely one.
It simply depended on what mood struck her.
Queen Mikko stated pleasantly, “You look much like your mother, Princess Trixie.”
My jaw began to drop, but I quickly snapped it shut. Without thought, I mumbled the first thing that came to mind, “Most people think I look like my father, Your Royal Highness.”
She smiled, flashing her pretty, blunt white teeth. It didn’t help to dispel the alligator image that kept flashing in my mind. The queen replied, “I’m sure they do. But if they’d only look past your coloring, they would see your mother’s face.”
My smile turned genuine, even as perspiration-filled desire coated the back of my neck. “Thank you, Your Royal Highness. My mother is stunning. If she passed any of her beautiful genes on to me, I would be grateful.”
I most assuredly did not get her curvy frame, but I’d take whatever I could get from her looks. My father was a fortunate man.
Queen Mikko didn’t stop smiling with that hungry look about her. “Did you know that she once gifted me with the most beautiful painting? It was of a crystal blue waterfall, surrounded by a rocky enclosure, with a young child that had the palest skin swimming in its crystal waters. I wonder if that child was you.”
Memories of the waterfall in question flittered through my mind, my grin only lifting further. “Yes, I believe that was me. Father and Mother would often take me there as a child.”
“I bet it was wonderful.” She dipped her head to me. “King Elon is headed this way, so I will leave you now. I am glad you are here, Princess Trixie.”
“Thank you, Your Royal Highness.” My Fae, she was nice.
Father glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as she walked away to speak to her one personal guard. Father turned so that no others could see his mouth, and whispered sharply, “Wipe that look from your face, my heir. Did you not listen to what I said about her?”
“Yes, she has a tender heart.” I quirked a red brow, speaking just as softly to allow our conversation to remain hidden with so many ears around us. “That much was obvious just now.”
Father sighed under his breath. “She is also a genius. The queen knows how to get to someone. Do not be fooled by her.”
My blink was slow, and my smile fell from my lips. “Are you saying that I don’t look like Mother?”
“No, of course, you do. But she used the obvious to make you pliable. She pulled on your loving heartstrings. Don’t ever forget how smart she is. Understand?”
I straightened my back and lifted my chin…and pinched my legs together when my clit began to throb. “Do not make friends with her. Understood.”
“Alliance? Yes, most assuredly.” My father turned back around and brushed his hands over his black silk tunic where it had wrinkled. “Friends? No, that’s a death wish.”
I hummed in agreement.
King Traevon slicked a fake as sin smile on his face when the remaining king finally stopped in front of us. He announced with much cheer, “King Elon, allow me to introduce my daughter, Princess Trixie Towers, heir to the Elf Kingdom. Trixie, this is King Elon Haxx, King of Gorgons.”
I dipped into another immaculate curtsey. The white marble is unnaturally clean, I marveled as I eyed it. It was such a shame that I was growing even hornier through all of this tediousness.
I murmured demurely, “King Elon, it is so wonderful to meet you.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you, too, Princess Trixie.” His accent circled my toes—not in a good way—any of the S’s in my name hissed. There was a quick rap given on the crown of my head, none too gently. “You may rise.”
What a Fae shit prick. That had hurt.
I did as he ordered and lifted to my full height, which was nothing compared to his. King Elon stood at seven feet tall. The sides of his handsome face had hard green scales, the color of his skin a pale blush of silver. His molten green eyes had a vertical red slit, like a reptile’s, that stared directly at my fat
her—not me. The king’s striking statue-like frame sported shamrock green, thick braids dropping down to his waist.
Each of those braids would become a snake if he wished.
It was always better to stare at a gorgon’s nose than into their eyes—unless you wanted to take a chance with your life and become stone. If they wanted you dead, it was best to kill them first. Much less hassle that way.
If anything should have lowered my desire, it would be standing in front of this man, and yet, I was only getting hotter. I discreetly wiped my brow, and then stood politely to listen to them speak.
King Elon’s flowing white silk tunic shifted when he shuffled his feet from annoyance, the material so long it brushed his silver sandals. He hissed, “What is she doing here? She is far too young for our business.”
He sounded like a Fae damned snake. It was disturbing.
Father did not flinch from his glare, bravely staring him in those gorgon eyes. “My heir will be accompanying me from now on to all royal summits. With what is happening, I thought it best to start training her here. Wouldn’t you agree?”
King Elon glanced at me. “What do you feel when the earth shakes, Princess Trixie?”
Not so brave as my father, I stared at his nose. “Like I’m going to be sick, Your Royal Highness.”
“Yes.” King Elon nodded gradually, turning his attention back to Father. “I suppose with how often all the other rulers end up dead, it is wise right now for you to begin training your heir.”
King Traevon’s tone was bored. “Thank you for your support, King Elon.”
“Well, you do have it on this topic,” King Elon sneered. “But don’t think we are starting the meeting without Queen Alora just because your heir is here. We will wait until her arrival.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” King Traevon dipped his head respectfully.
The gorgon king snorted. “You are always such an ass.”
My lips curved up at the edges in a harsh smile. “Perhaps, you bring out the best in him, Your Royal Highness.”
King Elon glanced between the two of us, back and forth. Back and forth. He muttered quietly, “The Fae bless us all, there are two of you now.”
“Indeed.” Father grinned.
“Hmm.” King Elon whipped around and strode with giant strides to the caster queen. He systematically dismissed us and ignored us, as he spoke with her, not glancing back once at us.
“Is your head all right?” Father asked softly.
“Damned asshole,” I grumbled.
King Elon did peer over his shoulder then, pegging me with a sharp gaze.
I had not been quiet. I hadn’t meant to be.
I smiled sweetly and dipped my head respectfully.
The gorgon snorted and turned back to his conversation.
King Traevon chuckled softly. “Well played.”
“Thank you, Father.”
A shifter stormed through the door to the bathrooms and royal bedchambers, wearing the royal colors of his kind. Bold orange. He stalked right to us and glowered. “There is still stinking vomit on the floor.”
Father snapped his fingers together. “Oh, yes. I must have forgotten about that, Bishop. However could that have slipped my mind, I wonder?”
I pinched my left eye when a drop of sweat rolled down into it. I quickly flicked it away, praying to Fairy that I didn’t look a mess. The urge was still easy to deal with, but it was getting worse.
Bishop lifted to his seven feet seven inches frame up to full advantage. “My king would like it cleaned up immediately.”
This was no normal personal guard.
He certainly didn’t act like it, talking to Father this way.
King Traevon sighed and glanced at one of our guards. “Go and clean it up before King Athon starts breaking things.”
The personal guard he had assigned to me earlier bowed and left the room to clean my mess up for the testy shifter king.
The shifter eyeballed me, his gaze narrowing. “Who is this?”
King Traevon ground his teeth together. “Bishop, this is my heir, Princess Trixie Towers. Trixie, this is Bishop Marzel, personal assistant and personal guard to King Athon.”
I raised my head and stared down the tip of my nose at him.
I waited. This shifter would bow down to me.
“Curious.” Bishop’s eyes now gleamed with too keen interest. “Is the rumor true that you helped kill the shifters whose bones hang from the king’s gates, Princess Trixie?”
I hadn’t known they were still there.
I did not reply and merely lifted one red brow.
I waited.
Bishop’s short obsidian black hair was tied back in a low ponytail with gorilla teeth sporadically placed throughout, a symbol of his respect for his shifter kind. His solid honey brown eyes narrowed when I didn’t answer him, and his massive shifter frame stiffened at the insult. His sand-colored fingers twitched as he tried to wait for me to falter.
He would be standing there forever to see me do as such.
“You trained her well, King Traevon,” Bishop eventually stated. With his black brows raised high in a pure mocking fashion, he gallantly bowed low to the ground. “Princess Trixie, it is an honor to meet you.”
“It is an honor to meet you, too, Bishop,” I responded evenly.
He lifted to his gigantic height. “So are the rumors true, Your Highness?”
“You would have to ask my king. He would know the truth.”
Bishop cocked his head and stared me dead in the eye. “I have. King Traevon once told me to ask you.”
“It is positively a conundrum then.” I smiled, showing my fangs. “But I am sure whoever killed them made them burn really well. It’s a shame they had to trespass where they weren’t allowed.”
Only an elven king or the heir had the royal firepower, and since he was the shifter king’s personal assistant, he would know the real reason why they were killed. He may even have been the one to plan the way my grandmother died.
I wanted him to know a royal was involved in their deaths.
Bishop’s solid honey brown eyes roamed my face, not showing an ounce of what he was deliberating inside his mind, and then he struck my father with a hard look. “She is definitely your daughter.”
King Traevon stated coolly, “Yes, she is.”
Another round of lust-fogged need battered my body.
Would this blasted Fae urge ever go away?
I wiped at my forehead again. It really needed to stop.
The main entrance door banged open.
“I am here. So sorry to keep you waiting, but the ocean currents were strong today, and High Pointe is so much farther for me to travel.” Queen Alora’s voice scratched like glass over coral, ringing in my ears loud enough to upset. “Oh my Fae. Who is this new creature in our sanctuary?”
Father turned me to fully face the queen, where she stood in a caster-spelled dress made of tiny pink and yellow shells—barely covering areas that desperately needed to be covered for decorum’s sake. With a warning edging his tone, King Traevon explained, “Queen Alora, this is my heir, Princess Trixie Towers. She will be joining us today for our meeting. Trixie, this is Queen Alora Kaiz, Queen of Merfolk.”
King Athon entered the room silently. He rested back against a wall covered in paintings, somehow managing not to bump them off, crossing his arms to silently watch everyone. His bold features were entirely blank, even when Bishop walked over to whisper in his ear.
It appeared he had his royal game face on.
I turned my body a little more so I wouldn’t have to see him.
Queen Alora sauntered in all her magnificence toward us. Her high ponytail of lush waves, bright hues of pink, purple, blue, yellow, and green, swished back and forth with her overly fancy stride. Seven feet tall of luscious curves and glimmering bronze skin, and the queen knew how to work a room. Her solid sky blue eyes with white sparkles throughout were homed on me, the gills she had now clos
ed on land hid behind her pointed ears.
Father nudged my back unobtrusively.
Oh, yes. I must do this again.
I swept myself down into the most perfect curtsey, wishing like bloody Fairy that I could grab a new pair of underwear somewhere. I was definitely wet, annoyingly so.
I stated clearly, “Queen Alora, you are as beautiful as the songs that are written about you.”
“Well, isn’t she a charmer, King Traevon,” Queen Alora said on a high-pitched laugh. I wanted to cut my ears off. She tapped the crown of my head with the simple brush of one finger. “You may rise.”
I lifted and stretched my back covertly. All I craved to do was lie down, spread my legs, and have a quick fuck. And that was the absolute last thing that I should do. Because no one else was going to be able to quench this urge but an illegal shifter king.
Death this way comes…
My thoughts were utter trash right now.
This was what the Fae damned urge did to you.
The white sparkles in the queen’s solid blue gaze danced frantically in her eyes, perfectly showing she was not as calm as she appeared to be. She asked, “Do you believe you are ready for the royal summits, Princess Trixie.”
“King Traevon believes I am, Your Royal Highness.”
“But what about you?”
“I think it is still too early for me, but I will try my hardest to do right by my king and my people,” I answered honestly. “If King Traevon says I should be here, then here I shall be.”
She lifted an arched eyebrow. “You are very blunt.”
I chuckled softly in her face, my smile a little forbidding. “And you are not the first person to say that, Your Royal Highness. I think it adds a unique flair to my personality. It is something you will get used to, even if it is unusual for you.” Because I would not change for a vain and egotistical twat.
Queen Alora switched her regard to my father. “I’m not positive I like this change, King Traevon. I think you should have discussed it with us first.”
Father stared. “Why would I do that? She is my heir, no one else’s. She will one day be the Queen of Elves. What I choose to teach her, and when I choose to teach her, is solely up to me, Queen Alora. You are severely overstepping your boundaries if you think to make her leave.”
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