Page 62 of Knowing Trust

It was fair when she broke down laughing this time, but… Who didn’t like to be spoiled? Seriously?

17

I soaked up my spoiling like a fucking sponge. I enjoyed every damn minute of it and ate it up in huge heaping spoonfuls. I didn’t egg them into it. I didn’t poke… I simply enjoyed it with a big grin.

And ignored the pouts and frowns Neldor kept giving me.

Hey, it wasn’t my fault he had to be excluded, and I certainly wasn’t rubbing it in his face. But he was very clearly counting down the seconds until we were allowed to stop having our wings out and got the all clear to behave normally.

Which absolutely meant having sex again to him.

He was in for a shock on that, but that would be funny too.

“I don’t care, Iolas,” Morgan snapped as he tore off his jacket. “I’m sorry for the damn mess, but the collective IQ of this world has drastically taken a nosedive while we’ve been gone. I thought—I did my best. There is no saving—fuck it. I’m tying one off, so clean it up or let it implode. I’m done.”

My mouth was hanging open, and I knew I wasn’t the only one watching the fairy throw his tie and jacket against the wall and storm off. Commander Morgan was one of the most patient and calm people I’d ever met.

“What the hell? For real?” I whispered as I glanced over at Iolas. Then it hit me. “He had the interview with the—” I glanced over at Izzy. “What do they call themselves?”

She rolled her eyes so hard it had to strain them. “The fab five making a play on the fab four of the Beetles but they’re stupid because there is a fab five. It’s a basketball thing.” She frowned. “I think they took bribes or something.” She waved it off. “Whatever, they say it doesn’t count because they’re humans, but the Beetles were human. It’s all—”

“Not the point,” Stefanie muttered, moving us along. “Morgan lost his cool at the interview with those fools?”

Iolas let out a long breath. “And it was all live.” He nodded when several of us winced. “That was the only way we agreed to have one of ours go on there, remember? We didn’t trust that they wouldn’t cut clips and splice things together to make us look bad and spin things into complete lies.”

“Oh, I’m getting the popcorn,” Izzy purred.

I went to tease her but then looked at my watch. “We need something more than that for lunch.”

“You’re both incorrigible,” Stefanie chastised.

“You’re just as curious and giddy,” Izzy accused.

Stefanie couldn’t even deny it.

“We do need to decide how to handle this because it’s blowing up,” Iolas warned me as people scrambled to get us food.

I nodded, annoyed that we had all planned to watch it live but a few things had blown up and we’d been pulled away. One of which was the packaging machine at the sorbet factory breaking. All of it was big things including not enough places to put fairies after another big awakening of them yesterday. Now I was doing even more and… We had overflowing plates.

Neldor wasn’t even here to watch the start of it with us.

A laugh boomed through the dark fairy hotel we were at and I glanced around to find the source. Onas was leaning into a few captains who were falling into each other as well and looking at a tablet.

Oh boy, this had to be a doozy then.

We loaded it up before food started really coming in, someone having recorded the live broadcast for us. We did the intro and everything at double speed, though listening to Morgan’s full resume was impressive.

“We were shocked you offered to come on,” the lead guy of the five hosts said.

Morgan dipped his head to the man. “Your show seemed to have a lot of unanswered questions even after everything Commander Shael and Commander Stefanie have put out. We kept waiting for requests for more information or follow-ups as we have received from other media outlets. When I learned we still hadn’t received any, I thought to ask.”

I smiled. That was about the most backhanded way to say they were idiots and so he decided to educate them.

“I had questions about this whole rumor that she can become queen at twenty-five,” the third—and dumbest—woman of the group interjected, clearly wanting to get right to the meat.

Morgan focused on her. “That wasn’t an actual question though. Are you asking if it’s true? Yes, that is one of three main requirements of an heir being eligible to become queen. They must be over twenty-five, have their wings fully developed, and have finished their schooling. There are other—”

“I don’t understand that. That’s not acceptable,” she argued.

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