“Ahhh,” Temper sighs after she takes her first swallow, “now this shit is good.”

I take a sip myself and—yum. Fairies make excellent wine. The two of us sip our drinks in silence, people-watching.

“I hate this place,” Temper finally says. She nods to the fairies mingling about the field. “Look at the way they stare at us. It’s worse than high school.”

In the darkness, I see the firelight flickering in their unnatural eyes. Their gazes indeed keep coming back to us.

“They’ve been staring at you too?” I ask, my brows rising.

“Since we road in,” she says. “You’d think they’ve never seen a human before.”

To be fair, I doubt they’ve ever seen a sorceress—or a winged siren.

… Not that that’s the reason they stare.

Here we are, the two enigmas amongst them, the humans who managed to outmaneuver the rules of their realm to end up in the highest echelons of fairy society.

“Did you notice?” Temper nods at the servers moving in and out of the crowd like ghosts.

I watch the humans, the changelings of this realm. Either they, or their ancestors, were swapped at birth with a fae baby.

“Notice what?” I ask, following her gaze.

“Look at their wrists.”

I take another look at one of the nearby waiters. It takes several seconds to see it at just the right angle, but when I do …

I suck in a breath.

The raised, mottled skin of their wrist is a raspberry color, and it’s styled in the shape of a leaf.

“They’re branded.”

Chapter 22

Branded like livestock. I’m reeling from that realization long after Malaki joins our group, his eyepatch silver tonight. He only lingers long enough to invite Temper to dance, and then my friend is gone, dancing about the field like she belongs to these people.

And here I am, still the same wallflower I was in high school.

I stare down at my wine.

This is why I really shouldn’t drink. Pity isn’t flattering, no matter how well you wear it.

My eyes sweep over the gardens, taking in the revelries of Solstice.

This isn’t a party, it’s a bacchanal. Everywhere I look people are dancing, their forms illuminated under the moonlight. They’re laughing and spinning, their loose hair whipping about them.

Those that aren’t dancing are on the outskirts of the dance floor, chatting and drinking. Well, they’re either chatting and drinking, or else slipping away. Couples are disappearing into the woods, and I’ve seen at least one fairy leave with one man and return with another.

Everyone’s eyes are too bright, their smiles too wide, their cheeks too flushed.

Tanked out of their minds.

The crowd has all managed to let go of their cares for the evening. The only people who haven’t are me and the human servants, the latter who keep their eyes downcast most of the time.

“Enjoying yourself?”

I jump at the voice, my drink spilling over the rim and onto my hands.

“Shit,” I curse under my breath.

Green Man is at my side, and I have no fucking clue just how long he’s been there watching me as I’ve been watching everyone else.

“Sorry,” he says, his eyes trained on my face, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, you’re fine,” I say, shaking off my hand.

“We were never formally introduced,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’m the Green Man, king consort to the Flora Kingdom.”

I take his hand, mine still a little sticky with wine. Rather than shaking it, he brings my hand to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of it, his amber eyes trained on me.

His eyes, I decide, are too intense, too mischievous, too covetous.

He releases my hand. “So, are you enjoying yourself?”

The man is too perceptive. He knows I feel uncomfortable and out of place.

“No,” I say, going with the truth.

The Green Man’s face lights up with my admission. “It’s a rare treat to come across honesty within these walls.” He glances around us.

Technically, there are no walls around us, but the ones he’s talking about are invisible. They divide peasants from nobility, humans from fairies.

I give him a tight smile, my gaze moving to the crowd. They’re watching me again, probably because the Green Man is at my side.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” he says.

I glance to him. “What is?”

“The eyes that both see you and don’t. The posturing. The effortless gaiety.”

I hide my swallow. This man is reading me, and I don’t like it that he can do so, so easily.

I make a noncommittal sound, searching the crowd for Des. There’s an ever increasing cluster of fairies around him, vying for his attention. I’m tempted to elbow my way back to his side, but I don’t want to be in that dog pile any more than I want to be right here.

My eyes then land on Mara, who’s laughing amongst her group of men and some fawning nobles. She’s the sun and they’re all planets revolving around her, eager for her smile, her touch, her gaze. The only one missing from her group of admirers is the man at my side.

“Will you dance with me?” said man asks.

That makes me turn my full attention to the Green Man.

Fairies in general, and male fairies in particular, make me nervous. Karnon and his men are to blame for that.

But when I look at the Green Man, I don’t see a predator, I see a kindred spirit.

Why not dance? Tonight is a festival, the Green Man looks eager, and I’ll be damned if I don’t have fun.

“Sure,” I say.

He smiles at that, and I reel back at how staggeringly handsome he is when he’s happy. It’s not that I hadn’t noticed earlier—all fairies seem to be attractive. It’s just that Mara’s presence seems to eclipse him.

He takes the wine from my hand, setting it on a side table, and leads me into the crowd of dancing bodies. And then we’re moving, spinning just like all the other couples.

The alcohol warms my stomach, and the dancing throws away the last of my caution. I find that as soon as I move my feet, I’m caught up in the music’s haunting rhythm.

“So you are the Night King’s mate,” the Green man says, staring a little too intensely at me.

“Mhm.” It’s hard to focus on him when the music, the wine, and the dancing all want to pull my attention up and away.

“You have all of our kingdom fascinated by you,” he says, his hand moving to the small of my back. “A human who has supernatural powers, a mate to the King of the Night. Not to mention that you are lovelier than many of our women.”

Why are we talking? And why about this?

“What does being lovely have to do with anything?” I say, distracted.

I guess it’s a stupid question to ask here in the Otherworld, where beauty is a point of fixation and ugliness only ever lurks beneath the surface.

“Everyone thought the merciless Desmond Flynn had gotten himself shackled to some ordinary slave,” the Green Man says. “We had pitied him until we met you.”

The wine sours in my stomach, the music begins to grate, the dancing starts to dizzy me. I push away from the Green Man, no longer interested in dancing with him.

“Is something wrong?”

He says this as though he didn’t just call my people slaves, as though he didn’t just insinuate that he holds them in such little regard. It’s his casual bigotry more than anything that’s off-putting.