Page 35 of Virgo Queen
Gently, so I don’t scare her off, I lay my big hand against her cold cheek. Under the flush of wind and excitement, nutmeg freckles dust her petal-soft skin.
I wanna kiss every one of them. This girl—this shy, smart, skittish creature, whatever she is—she’s mine.
Ours.
It’s the three of us now.
“What are you?” I repeat, before I lose my soul forever in her silver gaze.
“So, uh, that’s kinda complicated.” She shuffles awkwardly in her moon boots. “I’m half mortal—just plain old witching race, my dad’s clan Virgo, but with close to zero witchcraft. I’m also half Seelie, from my mom. She’s pureblooded Light Fae. Because the Fae… we’re a thing.”
“Fae, as infairies?” I stare at her in raw disbelief. “Fuck. Me.”
“We’re a lost species. We’re in the lore.” Her shoulders lift in a meek shrug. “We’ve actually been hiding, camouflaged in plain sight among the normals for, like, a thousand years? Because the Dark Fae, the Unseelie, they’re our mortal enemies. So they hunt us—”
Jean-Emilien bares his white teeth in a wolfish growl. “No one is ever hunting you or hurting you again on our watch, you.”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Uncomfortably she shifts in our arms. My chest contracts with worry. Mallory’s noÍslendingar, and my girl’s getting cold.
I’ll smuggle them both into thedomus,where it’s nice and warm, in a sec.
I saysmuggle, because they’re both spending the night (and every night from now on) in my room and nowhere else, Academy Codex be damned.
“Go on,” I urge, to keep our girl talking.
She bites her lip and glances around like she’s afraid of being overheard. Jean-Emilien and I both tighten our grip and hold her safe in our shared embrace.
“Pretty sure the Dark Fae will be hunting me specifically,” she confides at last, with an apologetic look at both of us, like she’s really sorry to be such a bother. “The Dark Fae King stole my big brother Ash—the Seelie Prince—like, years ago. Straight up kidnapped him. Just whisked him away to Avalon. That’s the Unseelie Realm. Ever since Ash vanished, my parents have been totally obsessed with keeping me hidden.”
“Bon bagay,”Jean-Emilien murmurs in total awe. “The Fae. They’re real.”
I’m right there with him.
“Oh, we’re real all right.” Mal’s teeth sink into her soft lower lip. “Now that I’m coming into my power, I guess, I’ll be a whole lot harder to hide. And now that we know I’m apparently not a complete failure in the Light Fae magic department, there’s a much greater risk that the Unseelie will find me.”
Jae growls low and fierce in his chest. A meathead like me, I’m slower on the uptake. So I’m still piecing this shit together.
“If your brother’s the Seelie Prince,” I say slowly, “then…”
“Yeah,” she finishes in a whisper. “I’m royalty. The Seelie crown is matrilineal. It passes from mom to daughter, as long as the heir manifests the power. Otherwise there’s a whole ritual that happens—you know, to crown someone else. But there aren’t many of us left, we’re almost extinct, and I’m the only daughter of our house. So there hasn’t been a crowning since my mom. Now that I’ve claimed my wings—because tonight’s the first time I’ve ever flown—I think they’ll crownme.”
Her eyes lock on mine and cling, like my gaze is all that’s holding her up. I squeeze both of them, both my precious mates, into my chest till my arms ache.
And just wait for the rest.
Finally she pulls in a slow shaking breath. “As soon as the Seelie find out what’s happened, they’ll crown me, whether that’s what I want or not. I’ll be the Light Fae Queen. That’s when the Unseelie will come.”
Chapter Eleven
Mallory
For the first time in forever, I finally feel warm.
Sometime during the night, I finally stopped shivering.
I’m pretty sure that’s completely due to the fact that I’m smothered under an actual bearskin fur, tucked between Draco Mars and Jean-Emilien Labête, in Draco’s narrow dorm room bunk. The three of us are literally pressed together like sardines in a tin.
Not that I’m complaining.
