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“Because the risk is her brain turning into metaphorical goo, and I just don’t see the powers that be coordinating that chance into her story.”
“You don’t know my sister.”
“I’m sure I don’t.”
“So you don’t understand that while my genre is contemporary cozy romance, hers is sword fights and high fantasy. With dragons. If you can manage. She loves high risk.”
“Then my domain is not where she belongs.” Cael sighs. “Or did you miss the fact I’m running a contemporary cozy kingdom?”
“There’s got to be an enchantment that would allow her to be in Faerie without going crazy.”
Pouring his attention back to the page before him, Cael dots a final period and sets his quill in its stand. “I understand your reasoning, little one, but it may shock you to learn I am not all powerful, and any enchantments dealing directly with a person’s mind are not the sort I allow beneath my reign.”
“I bet you can tell if Alana is fae enough to work her way up to being able to perceive all of this. Maybe she can practice or something in order to connect with her fae blood? Please, Cael. She doesn’t want to live out there anymore.” A pinch in Brittny’s tone tugs on my heart. “Do you understand that? She doesn’t want to live out there anymore. And it’s my fault I told her about any of this.” Something chokes in her throat. “I have to at least try to do something.”
Wrapping my arms around her shaking shoulders, I soothe, “Shh, beautiful. It’s all right.”
“You do not have to do something,” Cael states.
“Cael, please,” I murmur.
“Ollie, we understand this.”
“It’s her sister. Truth may be too hard in this moment.”
“Truth is all we have. If your sister belongs here, no doubt coming here will prompt everything on its own.” He threads his fingers together before his lips. “You cannot force fate.”
I squeeze Brittny tight a second before letting her go. “Could you give us a moment alone, beautiful?”
She sniffles. “Truly alone?”
“Please.”
I wait for the sound of her heartbeat to be distant enough that I know she can’t hear us anymore, then I take a breath, rise to my feet, and—
Cael swears. Gripping his fist in front of his mouth, he sinks back against his chair, pinning his antennae against his copper hair.
I flinch. “Um.”
“Alana is coming here? Soon?”
Clearing my throat, I inch back down into my seat. “Tomorrow. We’re going to have french toast at the diner in town—which promises to be an earplug experience. For numerous reasons. Alana is…loud.”
Cael smooths a hand over his antennae, wide eyes searching the rest of the room.
I tilt my head into his darting vision. “Hey. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Closing his eyes, he extends his hand toward me.
Hesitant, I reach for it.
The second our skin touches, he jerks me forward, knocking papers off his desk in the process. “Promise me what I’m about to tell you won’t be information you pass on in any shape or form until the point in time where it might become common knowledge.”
My brows rise as I repeat the oath.
Cael frees a short breath. “I am quite near positive that Alana is my mate.”
“What?” I crush his hand. “How do you know?”
