His words are cruel, jagged things that carve into the ever-growing wound inside me. Words I had once imagined falling from Valerian’s lips. Words that were supposed to fill me with anticipation, not hopelessness and despair.

Words that will bind me forever to the Fae in league with the Darken.

I make sure Hellebore can see the hatred seething from my entire being as I say, “I do.”

A dull throbbing pain wracks my right arm, where Valerian’s brand has claimed me as his for nearly two years. But I don’t have the courage to unzip my suit and pull down my sleeve to see what horror it hides.

Not until my Fae mother has dragged me as far away as possible from the Spring Court and I’m ensconced inside her penthouse in Manhattan, near her office skyscraper. A place that makes Mack’s top floor apartment look like a pauper’s dwelling in comparison.

Only then do I force my gaze over my arm. A single white Bloodstar bud grows between the metallic gold of Valerian’s markings. The tight bud has already begun to open. I know with a terrifying certainty that it will bloom, and then another bud will appear, and another.

Until Valerian’s brand is choked out and Hellebore’s mark is all that remains.

48

“Do you want to read them or should I trash them?” Mack asks, tipping down her black Ray Bans to reveal her cornflower blue eyes.

We’re sitting at one of the several cream-colored couches on my mother’s penthouse balcony, breathing in the warm New York air. Fae gossip magazines stolen from the magazine vendors below by Ruby are spread out on the glass coffee table; my face stares out from every single one.

The image of me taken wearing the Summer Princess’s crown—the one that would only bloom for her—is the most widely used.

It’s also the picture that I despise the most. The wide-eyed girl on the cover didn’t know it yet, but her future had just died.

Her hopes, dreams, freedoms, and love story, all destroyed.

I hate her innocence. How she still clings to that wonderful notion that she can be happy with Valerian. That her life is still hers.

“Trash,” I finally say. “Definitely.”

“Maybe you could make Ruby stop stealing them,” Mack suggests before grumbling under her breath, “and force her to wear some clothes while you’re at it.”

“I can’t make Ruby do anything,” I protest, glancing over at the sunbathing sprite. She’s laid out on the stone railing, completely, unapologetically nude.

“I can hear you, rude human,” Ruby calls before snapping her fingers. A brownie appears from thin air with a doll-sized frozen strawberry daiquiri in hand. “They’re calling my master the people’s princess. She’s beloved by all the world. Why not show her proof of that?”

My head falls back as a ragged sigh escapes my lips. But . . . part of what she says is true. I’ve been presented as both mortal and Fae, a princess for both races.

No doubt, thanks to my mother, who’s taken this opportunity to boost the image of her company. Not that I’d expect any less from a Fae.

Mack grins. “I bet Queen Larkspur loves Ruby.”

I snort, remembering the horrified way my mother stared at Ruby the first time she caught her in the walk-in pantry, tiny butt sticking out of a jar of honey.

“How is your mother, by the way?” Mack asks. “To be around every day, I mean.”

“Beautiful. Imposing. Hard to read.” I shrug, hoping Mack doesn’t hear the pain in my voice. Even though I called Zinnia my aunt out of respect for her daughter, I always considered her like a mother.

And now . . . it’s hard to feel anything for this strange woman when I miss Zinnia so much it physically hurts. When calling the Summer Queen mother feels like a betrayal to the woman who raised me.

Zinnia hardly batted an eye when I revealed the reason I had to spend the summer here. She must have always suspected I was part Fae somehow—suspected and still loved me.

Yep, there’s no way the Summer Queen can take Zinnia’s place.

“You don’t remember the queen from your life before?” Mack presses.

I take a sip of sweet tea and then lean back against the sofa cushion. “With the Winter Prince, there was a connection immediately. But . . . not with her. The only thing that feels familiar is her perfume. It has this exotic floral aroma I can’t place, but remember somehow. It’s unmistakable.”

“You’ve been here two weeks and that’s all you know about the woman? The scent of her perfume?”

“She works all the time, so I really only see her at dinner.”

My mother’s one request. That we eat dinner together every night. She seemed offended at first by my preference for mortal food, but now she has her chef provide both.

Mack quickly shuffles the tabloids together. Before she can stand to throw them away, one of the two brownies employed by my mother appears and jerks the magazines from Mack’s grip, rushing them to a trash can hidden in the corner.

“I will never get used to them just appearing like that,” Mack whispers. “It’s creepy.”

“Same.”

I’m starting to suspect the brownies spy on me for my mother. But at least they’re super helpful spies, and once the tabloids are gone, my tension eases.

The news of my appearance—in a mortal body, no less—caused major waves in the Evermore and mortal community. Waves I’ve mostly been protected from by my mother, who’s had the penthouse under locked guard and the Fae news channels turned off.

No one gets into the penthouse but the lesser Fae servants who are sworn to secrecy and Mack.

My mother sends out for everything so I don’t have to leave the apartment. The few times I made the mistake of venturing into the Fae communities around the city for groceries or coffee or just to get out of the house, the Fae made it impossible to fly under the radar.

They stared. Took pictures. Whispered. A few even touched me for luck.

I once walked through a Fae market and the Seelie vendors fell over themselves to give me gifts—neverapples, healing crystals, rare and expensive tonics. When I returned my mother freaked out because, inadvertently, I’d accepted favors that I now have to repay.

It’s like a strange nightmare I can’t wake up from. One where I gained a mother and new life but lost my old life. My friends. My other family. My freedom.

My mate.

The only silver lining to this whole mess is that Mack’s apartment is two blocks away. I can literally wave to her from my floor-to-ceiling bedroom window. Or, with the right high-powered flashlight, send her signals.

Which was super helpful when I was trying to get her to forgive me for lying to her.

It took a week of shining my high beam into her bedroom window until she finally returned my calls. But it only took two seconds on the phone for both of us to break down in tears.

Five minutes later, she was on this very balcony, giving me a stern talk about never keeping secrets from each other again.

After that—and an entire carton of Half Baked Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, smuggled in by Ruby—all was forgiven.

“Any word from the ILB?” Mack asks softly. She knows now that he’s my mate, and that being away from him is torture for me.

I shake my head, mindlessly running a finger over the Bloodstar that’s now half-bloomed on my upper arm. Now that my engagement to Hellebore has been made permanent, he can control almost every aspect of my life. My mother has been using the firm’s resources and clout to negotiate for certain freedoms I used to take for granted.

Like whom I’m allowed to see, talk to, even wave at.

So far, the Spring asshat has agreed to me being around Mack for two whole hours a day, allowing a visit to my aunts in the Tainted Zone one weekend a month, and letting Ruby come live with me at the Summer Queen’s residence.

He also finally agreed to Eclipsa’s request to tutor me once a week, since I’ll be attending school in the fall as an Evermore, not a mortal shadow.

Who better than the infamous Lunar assassin to school Hellebore’s soon-to-be wife on all things Fae?

But Valerian . . . he’s off limits. I haven’t been able to reach him since everything happened. All I know is that he’s safe.

For now.

As long as he does exactly what his father says.

Forget about me. Get back with Inara. Pretend I don’t exist as Hellebore’s mark slowly eats away at our bond until there’s nothing left between Valerian and me but bitter memories.

“You okay?” Mack asks before her eyes turn dark with fury. “Did Prince Helle-Douche do something? If he did—”

“Nope,” I say, pushing away the pain. I’ve become something of an expert at that over the last two weeks. “Helle-Douche knows if he shows up here, my mother will ‘accidentally’ cut his tiny balls off, so he’s been gloriously absent.” I drag a strand of hair from my face and tuck it behind my ear, desperate to change the subject. “Now, ready for Operation Destroy the Bastard?”

“Hell, yes.”

After I’ve sent the two brownies on a fake errand to the nearest Fae market, Mack drags out Evelyn’s box of stuff. I had it sent over with my things the first week here.

My only hope to escape my new bonds is to expose Hellebore. The Spring Court Prince may own a spot on my flesh, and he may be able to control who I see—for now. But he can’t control what I do in my spare time. And with my access to my mom’s law library, I’ve dedicated every free hour to researching Fae laws that could break my engagement to him.

After nearly two weeks of searching, I still know of only one ironclad way to break his hold over me.

Expose his ties to the Darken.

So that’s what Mack and I do. We sit on the balcony, drink entire pitchers of the sweet tea I taught my mother’s staff how to make, and search for the key to Hellebore’s downfall.

There has to be something in Evelyn’s box of random things that points us in the right direction. There has to be.

All I need is one clue. One tiny little shred of evidence. And I’ll spend the rest of my life following that thread until it leads to my new fiancé’s absolute destruction.