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We nearly made it.

“Wanna just pretend we didn’t hear that?” Temper asks.

“Callie!” Mara calls again, more insistent this time.

I sigh and shake my head.

The two of us turn. The Queen of Flora is no longer on the dance floor, instead drinking a refreshment from where I stood a moment ago with the Green Man, who is now no longer in sight.

“You must come here.” She beckons me over, her crowd of men eyeing me curiously.

“Have I mentioned I don’t like that woman?” Temper says next to me. “Look at that smug smile of hers. She looks like the kind of snake who befriends you just so she can steal your boyfriend.”

This is precisely why Temper and I are friends. The girl gets it.

“Ugh, I should probably go over,” I say.

Being mates with a fae king has its drawbacks. I spent my teen years being a wallflower and the years following that making people forget they’d run into me. But now, being Des’s mate, I’m as far from anonymous as I can be.

Temper dips her finger into her wine, stirring it contemplatively. It’s a look she gets right about the time she’s concocting a spell. “If she pisses you off, give me a signal, and I’ll rescue you again, no questions asked.”

I nod. “Thanks for having my back, Temper.”

“Anytime—oh, and later I want to hear what you were about to tell me,” she says as she backs away.

I swallow uncomfortably, the Green Man’s conversation bubbling back up.

I could be pregnant.

I nod and part ways with her, taking a deep breath as I head over to Mara, who’s giggling with her harem. Her gaze moves to me, and her eyes sharpen.

“So, tell me,” she says, “howdidyou and Desmond meet?”

I glance around at the men watching us. Everyone looks so goddamn predatory. This is exactly why I wanted to stay far, far away from the Otherworld in the first place. These people will eat you alive.

She sees where my attention is. “Don’t worry about them. Now, I’ve been dying to hear this story.”

I have a knee-jerk reaction to lie, as I have in the past when it comes to how Des and I met, but before I can, I reassess my audience.

You know what? Why not give them the truth?

“The first time I met the King of the Night was the evening I killed my father. He helped me hide the body.”

For a moment, no one speaks.

And then, one of the men begins to laugh. One by one, the rest join in. Even Mara cracks a smile.

“What have I told you about humans?” one man says to another. “They are vicious little things when they want to be.”

I frown at the man before the Queen of Flora drags my attention away.

“My, my,” she says, “howmuchyou and Desmond have in common. No wonder he’s so smitten with you. A woman after his own heart.”

I furrow my brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She waves the conversation off, taking another sip of her drink. “That’s not my story to tell. But, speaking of stories, I imagine you have quite the tale from your time with Karnon.”

Yeah, that’s not exactly a tale I want to share during cocktail hour at the Flora Queen’s palace.