Page 30 of Fates Fulfilled
“In that case,” Garrin said, “Lex is safe for the moment, and I must leave and visit the king and queen.”
“You mean, your father and that interloper you call Mother?” Isle snorted.
A pinched sound came from Garrin’s direction. “I feartheisolation has taken your sanity, mother of Lexandra. Ailith, the queen, has always been my mother.”
“Not always,” Isle said sharply.
Lex sensed the tension radiating off Garrin. “Mom, why are you doing this?”
Isle squeezed Lex’s hand. “If we are to keep you safe, the prince must know all the dangers.”
“Explain,” Garrin said, his tone forbidding. “If my mother didn’t give me life, how do you account for my existence?”
“Theangelsmade your father pay for his crime with this frozen land. Andby notproviding him achildborn ofhiswife,norofany ofhisharem. You are illegitimate.”
“Absurd,” Garrin scoffed.
Her mother had to be wrong. It seemed like something that would be insanely difficult to pull off. Then again, Casone had hidden the truth of his first wife, so anything was possible.
“I won’t betray your true mother by sharing her identity,” Isle said. “Not after all she did for me. But you would do well to be leery of the current queen. I’ve never understood her intentions.”
Lex couldn’t tell how Garrin was feeling. His expression appeared blank in the dim light, as though he were holding in his emotion.
“What is your plan to keep Lex safe now that we are here?” Isle said. “No one will believe you went in search of the prophesied savior, only to bring home a female of no import.”
“I will tell them she comes from the Land of Sun.”
“The land of… You mean Sunland?” Isle harrumphed. “I see. You mean to call Earth by one of its Fae names so as not to lie, when you know very well that everyone in Dark Kingdom will believe she is from Sunland here in Tirnan. You tell a lie without lying. Did you gain that skill from your father?”
“Do you have a better idea, Mom?”
Lex prayed her mother did, because pretending to be one of Garrin’s many girlfriends in some harem did not sound fun. It sounded like a great way to humiliate herself.
Garrin and the other Fae were hot. Even Lex’s mom was beautiful, with amber eyes and clear, tan skin that was darker than Lex’s. Fae seemed to age slowly, her mother easily passing for a woman in her late twenties.
Isle dropped Lex’s hand and made a sound of disgruntlement. “We could attempt to return to the Earth realm—”
“No,” Garrin said firmly. “I won’t risk Lex’s life again.”
“—but,” her mother said, her face pinched at the interruption, “the Dark Prince is right. Tapping into your magic to get us by is one thing. Traveling across the entire Land of Ice would be dangerous without your ability mastered. At the very least, the portal creator must rest and regain his strength before we attempt it.”
Lex closed her eyes. Amund looked drained even after she’d supposedly juiced him with magic. “That could take days.”
Garrin smirked, which Lex caught in the dark because his expressive eyes sparked with mischievousness. “Which means you are mygirlfriend, Lex, as they say in the human world. Until we come up with a better plan for keeping your presence discreet.”
“The hell I am!” she said at full volume.
His eyes flared and he looked quickly out the door before shutting it silently. Garrin peered over her head at Amund. “We must leave before she alerts everyone.”
“Agreed,” Amund said in his deep rumble.
“Take her to my ladies while I speak with my father,” Garrin said.
Amund grabbed her arm lightly.
“Wait.” She looked at Garrin. “How can you leave me again?”
Irrational though it might be, Lex didn’t like it when Garrin wasn’t with her. She’d grown used to him.Stockholm syndrome,she thought, and shook her head.
