Crown of Shadows (Court of Midnight and Deception Book 1)

by K. M. Shea

  “Traditionally it takes a minimum of two night mares to select the next monarch.” The Paragon smiled kindly at me, instantly putting me on my guard. “It’s fairly common for three night mares to choose—which they do by congregating around the chosen fae, who is then anointed and sworn in as the official monarch. However, the night mares also have the power of King Makers.”

  I don’t like the sound of that.

  I glanced at my fae horses. “And what does that mean?”

  “It means six or more night mares have to mark you.” He tapped his forehead. “With their essences. They’re creatures that are made of magic; it’s a simple matter of shedding some of themselves on you—as I can see they have on your forehead.”

  I touched my forehead, recalling the way each horse brushed my temple when they arrived. Feeling oddly betrayed, I swung around to stare at the fae horses.

  They avoided looking at me.

  “And besides—you had six of them bind you. As soon as the sixth one marked you, their essence became strong enough to bind you to the Court—a process that would normally happen as part of a monarch’s official crowning.”

  “And binding me to the Court means?”

  “That you are already Queen of the Night Court.” He gestured to the other fae. “They cannot harm you, and if you have 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, Leila,” the Paragon gently said. “They bound you as ruler of the Night Court. It cannot be undone.”

  I shook my head, unable to accept it. I’d worked endlessly for the future I wanted—for a magic-less life!

  And now, I was suddenly the Queen of the Night Court?

  It would be a disaster! I didn’t know the first thing about running a Court—I just wanted to be normal!

  Plus, the fae would hate me for my blood—probably hate that I hadn’t even been raised as a fae—and that didn’t even touch the general mess of regular politics!

  Dimly, I knew there was a chance I would be killed because of this.

  Hazel took my hand and squeezed it, but I stared unseeingly at the leaf pattern in the Paragon’s robes.

  “I understand,” my mother said, shocking me.

  “Mom—we can’t accept this!” I started.

  She ignored me and fixed the Paragon with a steely gaze I’d only seen her wear half a dozen times. It was her grimmest expression—the one she wore whenever things were bad and she knew we were in real trouble.

  “But I want you to swear that you will help my daughter—that you’ll show her how to be safe, and you’ll teach her all she needs to know to survive and be happy—as long as she feels she needs your help,” she said.

  The barnyard was silent.

  That was a pretty weighty promise—and fae don’t take things like promises and contracts lightly. It’s a part of their culture—like the whole guest thing.

  Plus, Mom’s demand was iron clad. It wouldn’t allow him to conveniently “forget” to tell me anything, and it would tie him to me until I was satisfied.

  There’s no way he’ll agree to it, but how did Mom even know how to phrase that?

  Lady Demetria puffed up like a roosting chicken. “How dare you make such demands of the Paragon—human! He—”

  “I’ll do my best,” the Paragon said.

  My mom narrowed
her eyes. “Make it a contract,” she said in a cold, clear voice that shocked me almost as much as her demand.

  I stared at her, stunned. This wasn’t my mom who made me cookies when I got home from school as a kid. This woman was a warrior. And—human or not—she was going to fight for me.

  Suits and Lady Demetria were practically shaking with anger.

  The Paragon, however, glanced at the night mares. He studied them for several long moments, then swung his gaze back to my mom. “I swear I’ll show Leila how to be safe, and I will teach her all she needs to know to survive and be happy as the Queen of the Night Court, as long as she feels she needs my help.”

  He had fitted a bit of a loophole in there—he’d said he’d help me as Queen of the Night Court, not myself. But I was still just shocked he’d made the promise.

  Mom nodded, and the edge that had sharpened her disappeared as her eyes turned glassy with tears and Dad put his arm around her.

  The Paragon awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “Arrangements will have to be made for you to move to the mansion that belongs to the ruler of the Night Court. I imagine there is much you don’t know. We had best start immediately—”

  “A week,” I blurted out. “Give me one week here at home, first.”

  Lady Demetria huffed. “You are our queen! It is your duty to take up your position!”

  “I’m certain this has been a surprise,” the Paragon said. “We can give Queen Leila a week.”

  “But, Paragon!” Lady Demetria scowled at me. “Our Court is already in such a dire condition! We need our queen—”

  “It’s been months since Nyte died, and you survived this long,” the Paragon said. “You can survive another week. She deserves a chance to prepare herself.”

  He glanced pityingly at Mom and Dad.

  I, however, stared at the line of gun wielding vampires lining my driveway, the wheels in my mind turning.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said.

  I wasn’t going to take a week to mope around the house. Heck no, I was going to use that week to learn to defend myself. Hopefully by begging some of the sharpshooting Drake vampires to give me a refresher course on handguns. (They had insisted I learn how to use a handgun when I first started training their dogs, but my skills had probably atrophied since they started teaching me.)

  “This will also give the Court a chance to prepare a welcome for you.” The Paragon tried to scratch his chin, but his fingers got tangled in his long mustache, and he grunted in pain when he tried to pull his hands free and instead yanked his head forward.

  “I’m sure they’ll welcome her with open arms,” Killian said in a voice sharp enough to cut through cement as he stared Suits and Lady Demetria down.

  That suitably cowed the pair, and brought another sort of stillness to the pasture.

  “Right,” the Paragon said. “Well, then, Killian—what say we retire and each get a pint?”

  Killian pointedly glanced at the sky—which was still cloudy, but showed patches of bright blue. “I did not peg you as a day drinker.”

  “You thought I was referring to alcohol? Gross—no.” The Paragon shivered in revulsion. “I meant ice cream! We can go to my private study—I have a pint of Sinfully Dark Chocolate and Caramel Peanut Cluster. Hazel, if you like I can have Aphrodite pick out a tea for you.”

  “No thank you,” Hazel firmly said.

  The Paragon jutted his lower lip out in a pout. “You never let me serve you tea anymore.”

  “That’s because you drugged me the last time I did!” Hazel said.

  Suits turned to the night mares. “Shall we attempt to bring them back—”

  The closest horse—Nebula—trumpeted her glass-shattering scream at him and reared up. I swear the red hairs mixed in her black coat glowed as she tossed her head.

  “It seems the night mares shall remain with the queen.” Suits rapidly backed up, stopping only when his back hit the fence. “We shall leave and begin preparations.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Hazel scoffed. She peered up at me, concern darkening her usually bright face. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I admitted as the Paragon continued to bicker with Killian, and the other fae cleared out. “But I’ll have to be. Before these guys showed up, I had a face off with another fae.”

  “What?”

  I tightened my ponytail, just to give my hands something to do. “Yeah, he tried to kill me, but magic seemed to stop him. I’d assume that’s probably the magic that keeps a fae from harming their monarch, right? And now that I think of it, when my first night mare showed up that was when the giant spider spawned in the pasture. Do you think that was a coincidence, or could it have been someone trying to kill me?”

  Hazel stared up at me, her face white. “Killian!”

  Killian and the Paragon had me recite the scenes in excruciating detail—the fae hung around in the background, openly eavesdropping. They did, however, make a lot of squawking noises when I described the fae, weirdly enough.

  In the end, Killian (read: Hazel) decided I needed guards, and they were going to include my parents’ property in the vampires’ patrols—even after I left. Just in case the fae decided to get creative.

  I honestly wasn’t as bothered by it as I should have been. But with all of these very sudden and unexpected swerves—which were going to take me the opposite direction from what I had planned all my life—I was having a little bit of a difficult time coping with it all.

  “If you need anything, just call me,” Hazel said, once I’d been thoroughly cross examined.

  “Thanks. Actually, I do want to ask you about getting a sidearm refresher from the Drakes, but that can wait until tomorrow.” It was hard to swallow when I looked away from Hazel and glanced at my parents.

  Hazel stood on her tip toes to hug me. “I understand. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  She was gone before I even thought to hug her back, vampires flanking her as she marched up to the waiting SUV.

  Killian followed her, and the Paragon trailed after him.

  My unwanted fae invaders seemed inclined to hang around, until they realized that none of the vampires had left with Killian, and all of them were stationed in the driveway, bearing weapons of different sorts.

  That got the fae piled into their cars awfully quickly, and as soon as they disappeared down the driveway and hit the road, the vampires bowed to me and then streaked off, returning to their land and leaving me, Mom, and Dad alone.

  It had taken seconds to change my life forever. It seemed weird that “normal” could return so quickly…even if it was only temporarily.

  “Oh, sweetie,” Mom said, her voice crackling.

  She and Dad swept me up in a hug, as if they could hold me together while my world fell apart.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” I whispered. “Can I run?”

  “You’re the queen; they’ll find you wherever you go,” Mom sighed.

  “You’ll make it, Leila,” Dad said with a confidence I wished I felt. “The Night Court has no idea what it’s in for with you as its ruler!”

  Mom agreed, but my mind screamed the truth.

  Being queen? It was going to get me killed.

  Chapter Six

  Leila

  A week later, the Paragon came to pick me up.

  It surprised me enough that he came himself—even if he had to keep his promise to Mom, he was the most powerful fae in America, and delegating was a thing. But after his phone call telling me he was on the way, I half expected he was going to bum a ride from the Drake vampires again. Instead, he showed up in a gleaming Porsche with a naiad chauffeur.

  He helped me arm wrestle my giant blue suitcase and the two duffle bags I was taking into the trunk.

  I gestured to the night mares who were standing with Bagel in the pasture. “I thought you’d bring a trailer to drive them back.”

  “Oh, they’ll come back when they wish it.” The Paragon opened the car door for me. “T
hey’ll probably show up when they work out that you’ve moved into the mansion.” He hopped in the car after me, shut the door, and off we went, speeding in the direction of Magiford.

  “Thank you for picking me up,” I said after a few tense moments of silence.

  “Of course.” The Paragon casually straightened his thumb ring, which was topped with a huge sapphire that matched his purple-y robes.

  I saw a wave of magic halo the ring, then expand, filling the back of the Porsche and creating a glittering bubble around us.

  The magic felt whispery and soft, with a sort of sticky after-feeling, confirming it was fae magic.

  Wizards, fae, and the other lesser known supernaturals that use magic can all sense magic.

  Most frequently, you can taste or feel the differences in it—because each race uses magic differently.

  I don’t know how it is for most fae, but I can sense magic by the different sensations it gives me.

  Fae magic is whispery with a slightly sticky residue—like a spider web. Wizard magic is a funny, tingling feeling—similar to the numbing sensation you get when you smack your elbow hard. I only encountered dragon shifter magic when I went to Tutu’s Crypta & Custodia, which was basically the local bank/vault system for supernaturals and was owned and run by a dragon shifter. The magic there felt excessively warm with a dry heat—almost like a sauna.

  “I apologize,” the Paragon said. “I should have warned you first, but I activated a ward that will keep all sound within this bubble, and ruin any listening spells or devices that may have been planted in the car.”

  I glanced at the driver—who was outside the magic bubble. “I take it that means we have important stuff to talk about?”

  “Precisely. I’ll give it to you straight, kiddo. Showing my support for you—by picking you up like this—is about all I can do for you politically speaking. As the Paragon I can’t be too obvious in my favoritism, or it will start a war,” he grimly said.

  I leaned back in my seat. “Why does that not surprise me?”

  Fae, such competitive, pushy things.

  “What do you know about fae politics?”

  “Not enough to be comfortable going into this,” I said. “And I know almost nothing about the politics of the individual Courts—I keep a closer eye on the supernatural community and the Midwest Regional Committee of Magic, though.”