Des rubs his chin. “I refuse to hand her over,” he says.

“My king—” the fairy begins.

“The sorceress is an honored guest and thus has my protection and that of my kingdom,” he says. His eyes flick to mine. “Any damages her arrival has incurred will be paid in full from my personal coffers.”

My breath catches. He’s so obviously doing this for me.

Just when I thought it was impossible to love him more …

Malaki’s eyebrows go up. He assesses Temper, who’s giving him a look like she wouldn’t mind getting a taste of him for dinner.

The fairy standing in the doorway hesitates, then bows. “Very well. I’ll let them know.”

After the door closes, the room falls into silence.

Finally, Temper clears her throat. “I suppose you want me to say thank you,” she says, picking at a stray piece of lint on the chair.

The fact that Des offered Temper his protection … I’m not sure he realizes that’s kind of a big deal for her. Temper is used to being judged and condemned, not given the benefit of the doubt.

“Now you must make a showing at Solstice,” Malaki interrupts. “You’re going to need to prove to the other kingdoms that you’re still a faithful ally. Otherwise, this could mark the beginnings of war.”

Des rubs his face. For once he seems like a weary king.

Sensing that he has sway over Des, the Lord of Dreams steps forward. “If you attend Solstice and show them that you are the same ruler you’ve always been, it will go a long way to cooling tensions.”

Des doesn’t say anything for a minute, just ponders Malaki’s words.

Those hypnotic, silver eyes of his meet mine. I can tell he’s torn between protecting me and protecting his kingdom. It shakes me to my core to matter that much to someone.

“I don’t need protecting,” I say.

“From these fairies you might,” Des mutters. Finally, reluctantly, he nods. “Alright, I’ll go—we’ll all go.” His eyes sweep over the room, touching on Malaki, then me, then—shockingly—Temper.

She’s coming too?

Temper looks pleased. “Sounds good to me. Consider me this one’s rib,” she says, jerking her chin in my direction.

It hits me, really hits me, then: Des means to take me and a hot-headed sorceress to a place where mortals are slaves. We’ll have to respect their archaic laws, laws that subjugate humans.

I suppress a swallow. What have we gotten ourselves into?

Chapter 18

“Girl, give it to me straight, what the hell is going on?” Temper asks.

The two of us stand inside her guest suite. Like the rest of the Night Kingdom’s palace, this room has a Moroccan feel to it, with arched doorways, tiled columns, and hanging lanterns.

I lean back against the door. “What do you mean?” I say.

She begins to poke around the room. “Seems an awful lot like you’re getting comfortable here while you test drive your fairy prince.”

I am getting comfortable with this realm and my mate, something that the old Callie would’ve not been chill with. In her eyes, the Otherworld was too frightening and Des too flighty.

“What do you want me to do, Temper? You said it yourself earlier—I can’t just head back to earth.” I gesture to my wings. “I’m a freak.”

Freak. The word tastes like a lie when it leaves my lips. Maybe it’s all the things I’ve discovered I can do, maybe it’s that everyone in this realm looks a bit like me, or maybe it’s that the King of the Night seems to think that I’m perfect even with all these additions. Somewhere along the way I decided that different no longer equaled bad.

“There are ways to undo what happened to you,” Temper says.

Something uncomfortable slides through my stomach. To undo Karnon’s magic … how many times have I wished for these scales on my forearms to disappear? For my black nails to return to their normal, fleshy color? For my wings to disappear?

It’s a familiar feeling. There was a time I wished to wash away my flesh and live in someone else’s skin.

I’m only now accepting that I want this skin, imperfections and all. And Temper is suggesting that I can get rid of those imperfections. That I should.

I don’t expect to be hurt by the offer, but I am, just a little. I want her to accept all of me the way Des has.

“I don’t want to undo it,” I say.

Temper stops poking around to arch a sculpted eyebrow my way. “Seriously?”

Self-consciously, I reach around and drag the edge of one of my wings forward, the dark, iridescent feathers shimmering.

Releasing my wing, I sigh. “Is that so hard for you to believe?”

“Girl, you and I both know that you can’t come back to earth looking like you do. Don’t you want to come home? You have a whole life waiting for you.”

A lonely, empty life. That’s not to say that I want to abandon it, but I don’t also want to have to change myself in order to return to that life.

I open my mouth to tell her this, but then I stop myself. I’m not going to defend myself to her. She’s supposed to have my back the way I’ve had hers in the past. That’s the way our friendship has always worked.

I shake my head. “Forget about it.”

I turn to leave.

“Wait.” She heads back over to me and catches my wrist. “Callie, you know I only care if you care.” Her warm brown eyes search mine. “It’s just that I know how much you didn’t want to be a werewolf when you were with Eli, and now after being with another guy for three-point-five seconds, you look like a fairy.”

I give her an exasperated look. “I haven’t been with him for ‘three-point-five’ seconds.”

She squeezes my hand a little tighter, reading my features. “Fine,” she says, making some judgment call, “you have a long and sordid history with him. I just don’t like sharing my best friend, even if the dude’s her mate.”

And there’s the truth behind Temper’s trepidation. My friend feels threatened.

For as long as we’ve been friends, no one else has come between us. And as far as she knows, Des is the same guy that made me jaded towards men, so she’s also anti-Des because she’s loyal. And here I am, asking her to let go of her anger and jealousy.

It’s a lot to ask for, and she’s willing to work on it for me.

I pull my hand out of her grip so that I can give her a hug.

“I love you, you crazy chick,” I say.

Her arms come around me a second later. “I know. How could you not? I blew up a portal for you.”

Right there, in the middle of the hug, I begin to laugh. “I still can’t believe you did that. And the look on that fairy’s face …” I say, referring to the fairy she held hostage. That dude probably needed a new change of pants after the experience.

“You mean my guide?” she says. “That’s what he gets for overcharging me.”

Now the both of us begin to crack up, and it’s so messed up, but the two of us are a little sick in the head.

Temper pulls away, her laughter trailing off. “Okay, now where do these fairies keep the liquor?” she asks, glancing around the room. “I’m going to need to get trashed if I’m to stay here in the mother-fucking Otherworld.”

“I thought you were all about fairies,” I say, moving deeper into her room.