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The words ring in my ears like alarm bells, the sound of them about as foreign as Elixir giggling or Cerulean slurring. I feel my eyes blinking, then I veer my head to Juniper, who’s still clutching my biceps for balance. Any moment now, she’s going to shed light on this mystery, interpret where Elixir’s brain cells have gone wrong.

Problem is, Juniper’s features have slackened. Her wide eyes fixate on Elixir, as if he’s just narrated a Fable she’s never read.

And now I’m damn sure she’s as confused as I am, because it’s taking her longer than me to process his statement.

Candle flames twitch from the oak branches. The earth crumbles beneath my hooves, the soil about as dry and useless as my tongue. My leather vest cinches in my ribcage, suddenly tighter than it’s ever been.

Juniper and I move in unison, pivoting toward Elixir. Forget the visceral-but-ordinary,What did you just say?Neither of us are the types to ask someone to repeat themselves. It’s boring, not to mention a waste of energy. We heard him just fine.

“That’s impossible,” Juniper and I say at the same time.

Elixir’s eyes flash. “No. It is not.”

“In that case, I overestimated you,” I tell him. “Or does everybody else here need to spell it out?”

“He’s a Fae,” Juniper rehashes, her voice rising to a hysterical octave. “I’m a human.”

“It is rare for Faeries to conceive,” Elixir acknowledges. “Rarer still for woodland Solitaries.”

“And rarest of all for satyrs,” I finish, the fact tasting bitter in my mouth. “Where are you going with this?”

“It is rare,” Elixir repeats placidly, then strikes quickly. “But it’s not rare for mortals.”

Juniper and I fall silent. His point hits truer than a honed arrow. It echoes through the great oaks and burrows as deeply as the exposed roots weaving in and out of the soil.

My brother’s right. Juniper being mortal isn’t a barrier—it’s a breakthrough. It’s a defiance against every natural law in my world. That’s why it’s never been considered, never fathomed by my kin or her people.

Nothing like this has happened before. Not in our recorded history.

Yeah, satyrs are the one type of creature in this wild who have a sexual appetite for humans, particularly if those humans are virgins. We’re the only Faeries who fuck them. I’ve pounded enough mortals to outperform a brothel, mostly with males.

As for the female humans our kin have seduced and bedded, none have ever carried a Fae inside them.

Then again, none of those satyrs have ever fallen in love with their conquests. That emotion is also a rarity in this world. Faeries are intrinsically less capable of it, and most of all satyrs, who are the least likely to lose their hearts to anyone, much less a human.

My woman and I not only broke the mold. We shattered it to fucking pieces.

Maybe that’s why I hadn’t known. Everything I’ve felt for Juniper, everything I’ve done with her, is so wildly new and unfamiliar, that it’s kept me from recognizing the signs fated mates would have detected immediately.

The possibility…the actual possibility that this is happening…drains me of words. I can’t speak. I can’t think. I can’t feel the weight of my fucking antlers. My tongue lolls around in my mouth like a sloth, and the fringes of surrounding greenery blur.

Wings flap. Shadows launch off the ground.

The Parliament members quit the scene. Tímien and Lark’s nightingale flee the premises too, likely to keep vigil while the drama unfolds.

Several nearby figures slip through the cracks of my consciousness, reminding me of everyone else’s presence. Our clan has kept their mouths shut this whole time, probably pacing themselves and giving us our due moment. But now the voices burst like a dam from the sidelines, overlapping and getting as tangled as a thorn bush.

Female voices try to get Juniper’s attention, to ask if she’s all right, but she doesn’t answer. Meanwhile, a male’s whisper seeks me out, murmuring in Faeish, but I ignore the hell out of it.

Cove gives up on Juniper and glares at Elixir with an intimate sort of fury. And good. He deserves to be in deep shit with his lady.

Instead of her customarily benevolent tone, her voice cuts through, as sharp as her spear. “How long have you known about this?”

Elixir is not one to hedge. “You know the answer to that.”

“You should have said something,” she charges. “I’ve asked you more than once why you kept looking at Juniper like you knew something important. I asked why your eyes flashed when you shook her hand right before the flood. Iaskedyou, and you said it was nothing to worry about. You lied.”

“I omitted,” he corrects, rueful. “Cove—”