Page 85 of Knowing Trust

Her eyes flashed shock. “You don’t believe him?”

I sighed. Heavily. “I don’t not believe him but—this world is magic. I’ve reminded people of that repeatedly and to not be so easily fooled by things. I’d be quite the hypocrite if I didn’t listen to that and not blindly believe someone who has my eyes. Yes, we are related. I felt that magic zip thing saying we’re family.”

She frowned. “You act as if you’ve never felt that before. You would have the moment you first met your dad, right?”

I shook my head. “It only is between fairies from what I know.”

She winced. “I apologize. I only have fairy family.”

I guess that made sense then, but I doubted that. Probably only that she knew of or acknowledged. Then again, I wasn’t sure if that was really how it worked but maybe not with a demigod?

Yeah, everything was a confusing hot mess.

But at least the interview went well.

The only question she really asked that surprised me was if I had informed Neldor about all of this before the public.

I frowned at her. “Yes, he was the first person I told.” I frowned deeper when she couldn’t hide her shock. “He’s my right hand and the only other royal alive in Faerie. Plus, he knew my mother and—he was alive for the war. I thought—I honestly hoped he might have answers. Maybe a rumor of something or another that my father doesn’t pay attention to.”

But I had a feeling she was reading something more into it all. Either way, I let it go and the interview went well. One of the commanders promised to go over the final cut of what could be released to Earth supes and then I was out of there.

I was thrilled to find out that we had every fairy accounted for from Artemis’s campus. They were all awake and fine, confirming everyone had been retrieved.

And apparently, Lageos was there putting more power into the wards so not even one of the gods could try to take them over again without his approval. Oh boy. He was super pissed.

I knew I should talk to the guys or do any list of a million things, but I had too much in my head and just too much noise.

So I was a complete fucking idiot and went off on my own to work on that magic my dad had taught me to find animals. Except I went to Earth and looked for fae dogs, hobgoblins, and unicorns all over Australia.

I found four solo fae dogs hiding where no one would look and we hadn’t been near. They were all in rough shape and just so beaten down that one even snapped at me.

It hurt me to see even as it gave me hope we were still making good progress to bring them to the sanctuary to get the help they needed.

“Are you out of your fucking mind going off alone?” Neldor seethed as he caught me there after I dropped off the last one. “Do you have a death wish or what?”

I opened my mouth to ask him what his problem was but then slowly closed it, frowning. “Sorry, I wasn’t even thinking. I just…” I met his pretty green eyes that were losing their anger and not just confused. “I have an uncle, Nel. My mom had an older brother that my grandma ditched? Like what the fuck, man? Seriously, just what the fuck?”

“Shock. She’s in shock,” a deep voice said from behind me.

I realized he was right and I gave a slow nod. “I just needed to keep moving.”

“You also need to refuel, agra,” a different voice said gently. “What are you in the mood for?”

“I’m not hungry.” I wasn’t, but when he named a few things, comfort food sounded good. I wasn’t always a mac and cheese fan, but right then the loaded kind sounded nice and cheese always helped.

So that’s what we did. They took care of me and got me comfort food while making a few comments that apparently one of them always needed to be tethered to me.

That didn’t sound so bad.

23

Things got crazy too fast and in a way I couldn’t have seen coming. Too many supes from Earth immediately jumped onto this idea that there could be any other option to be in charge of fairies besides me.

Especially male.

Older.

Hated me.

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