Page 37 of Royal Ransom

“Do it right, Morgan,” she said, trying to sound haughty and failing miserably. “If you’re dragging me into this, you better not get me killed. That would be just too embarrassing for words.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. Too embarrassing for words, indeed.

The party was in full swing when we entered the courtyard of Priss’s castle. The fountain’s streams of sparkling water reached new heights, splashing us with twinkling liquid whenever we got near it.

That everyone was drunk as hell was probably why they were still going. The evergreen wine flowed freely, allowing the flawless Fae creatures to dance as if there were no tomorrow. It was infectious to be around. This remote winter castle felt more like home than almost anywhere I’d been. These were my people. This was my land. I was their ruler. I was Winter personified, a storm given shape. I wasn’t meant to be tethered to the mortal realm. If not for Sean and Charlie, I could have been happy here. But I knew in my heart that I would never be able to bring them here. It was too harsh, too cold for human children. If I embraced this part of myself, I would have to give them up.

Which was never happening.

Instead, I asked Basil over the thrum of the enchanting music, “Where should we start? Does anyone look familiar?”

“Sadly, the answer to the second question is ‘yes,’” Basil said while pulling me abruptly behind what looked like a cherry blossom tree. For some reason, it inexplicably smelled like a saltwater lake.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, peeking behind the tree’s trunk.

Basil looked intensely over his shoulder on the opposite side of the trunk. “As I implied, several familiar faces in the crowd.”

“So what’s the problem?”

He winced as he brought his head back around to me. “Familiar is not always a good thing. Aside from Netty, no one who remembers me will do so fondly. You will recall that Ididcause a fair bit of unrest before my departure.”

“I can see that,” I said, even as I wished I could see who had him so worried. “So we’ll find a stranger—better yet, severalstrangers—and start working our way around the room. When one of us has Janara in range, we’ll signal each other.”

“A workable plan,” he said as his eyes flitted back into the crowd with trepidation.

“It’s okay,” I insisted, taking his hand in mine. “Just stay behind me and let me do the talking. Netty said it best: everyone is too self-involved to notice anyone besides themselves, right?”

He nodded, even as uncertainty dogged his every step while he followed me out from behind the tree.

I didn’t waste a second. I tapped the first woman I saw on the shoulder. When she turned her perfect, platinum-blonde self around, she smiled brightly at me.

“Oh, hello!” she said gleefully, her breath soaked in evergreen wine. She fingered a lock of the elaborately styled pink hair on my head. Netty had taken sadistic delight in weaving it into a nest of knots on top of my head. My scalp was screaming for mercy. “Aren’t you a lovely sight?”

“Um... hi,” I said, struggling to meet her exuberant energy with my own. “I was wondering if you could help me out for a moment—”

“I love helping!” she squealed, throwing her arms up in the air. “And moments! I love them all! I love everything!” Then, without warning, she wrapped her arms around me and planted a kiss on my lips. “And I love you too!”

“Uh, that’s nice,” I said, wondering if she’d have been this bold if she were sober. I hoped not, for Priss’s sake. She’d probably vanish in a puff of social anxiety if kissed so forwardly.

I’d experienced a few sloppy kisses in my day: high school boyfriends, drunken nights with Jonathan, and a disorderly encounter involving a sixty-year-old man.

“Say, do you happen to love the queen? Enough to know where she is?”

Her wide gray eyes remained the same; they stayed open andvulnerable like a doe in the woods.

“Oh, no, I don’t know anyone like that,” she said, shaking her head. “But you know, Iloveyour dress! Could you tell me who made it?”

“Maybe later, thanks,” I said, already eyeing our next prospect while walking away. Thankfully for us, the woman was lavishing her drunken affection on her next victim. I shot a glare at Basil when she’d wandered far enough away. “What’s that smirk for?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just uncertain if I should be jealous or flattered that my daughter’s loveliness was enough to make that lovely lady ignore me completely.”

I squinted at him. “There’s something disturbingly Freudian about that,” I said under my breath.

He let out a bleak chuckle. “I suppose there is. Forgive me. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

I ended up dancing—a lot. Yet another reason I didn’t want the stupid throne. By the time the third waltz rolled around, I was ready to smack every pompous lord of Winter who’d tried to grope what they believed to be a lowly Winter lady in her evening best. Priss was my sister, and it was my prerogative to fend off creeps, even if that meant posing as her to do it.

The puffy pant legs on an older lord reminded me of Basil’s fashion sense. They hung loosely at his hips while his muscles dimpled in all the right places. His face was plastered with a dopey drunken grin that matched the loves-everybody blonde. He didn’t grope me, thank God.

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