Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
ROWAN
Ashimmer of magic in the greenhouse alerted me to his presence.
I stiffened. “I’ve told you a dozen times I’m not going to participate in your schemes.”
Goddamned fairies.
Evie’s father appeared in a flash of emerald and golden light. He’d foregone the horns this time and appeared as human as one like him could appear. His eyes swirled with his ever-present magic, but he wore a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. But his feet were bare in twenty-degree weather.
I shook my trowel at him. “Go away.”
Cernunnos hopped onto one of the potting benches. “Evie loves her greenhouse. She spends most of her time there.”
“When she’s not trying to overcome yours or the other Lord’s schemes?” I drawled.
His laugh sent my hackles up. “I’ve always played the long game, Nature Lord.”
“Yes, well, I prefer coming in from the front so I don’t have to keep my lies written down.”
Cernunnos grinned, and the sight sent my hackles up. “You have a refreshing sort of honesty about you, something I rarely see in someone of your kind.”
“Fuck off, Cernunnos.” Speaking such to the Fae King was dangerous, but this fucking guy had been visiting me at least once a week trying to get me involved in another goddamned scheme concerning his daughter or the Lords or…anything, really.
The king was a walking MLM scheme. Or at least it felt that way.
Granted, he always had a plan, but I was either too stupid or too honest to see it.
Every time he started talking it felt like I was a crazy person standing in front of one of those police string boards trying to explain how aliens were going to invade New York City in two days’ time.
I adored Evie. Her father was a completely different matter.
“Why are you not afraid of me?” Cernunnos asked, but this time he was genuinely curious.
I set the trowel down. “I’ve never been afraid of dying, but I am afraid of losing myself. The moment I allowed you to manipulate me, I would lose a piece of myself. That is a road I am not willing to start walking. The first request is always small, right?”
Cernunnos smiled.
“The second one is a little bit bigger. The third, a little more. I start getting nervous, wondering what I’m doing.
Then you come in with a fourth and a fifth, and soon enough I’m running for my life and being chased by the paranormal mob.
No thank you. I’m content with my territory, my life, and my plants. ”
“There’s one lie in that statement,” he said.
I picked my trowel back up and stabbed it in the pot of dirt I was filling. “Oh?”
“You never wanted this territory.”
“True, but now that it’s running well, I don’t have to do much except ensure order.”
“That’s not quite true either, is it?”
“It’s a job, Cernunnos. That’s all. We all need one, unless we’re fae royalty, right?”
He tilted his head and studied me. “Would you like to be royalty?”
I laughed. “I’d like nothing less.” The thought of that much power sent a cold shiver of fear rolling down my spine.
Cernunnos smiled. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Isn’t that the statement?”
“Something like that. I don’t want a crown. Even this territory is too much some days. I’m content where I am, so stop trying to manipulate me. There’s nothing you can offer me that would make me take you up on any of your harebrained schemes.”
“Harebrained?” Cernnunos placed a hand over his heart. “How you wound me.”
“Cut the shit. What do you want?”
“Do you have some coffee?”
I eyed him. “I do.”
When I didn’t offer him anything, Cernunnos laughed. “You’re a hard nut to crack.”
“There’s no cracking happening now or ever.”
“I believe some changes are about to occur. Serious changes with the potential to upend the current power structure.”
I set my trowel down and turned to fully face him. “Spurred on by you?”
An enigmatic smile but no answer.
“What did you do?”
“I’ve done nothing that didn’t need to be done. But my actions have not caused anything to happen, only begun the process.”
“Does this involve Evie?” The poor girl needed a break. She finally had one after her near death by tree experience and she and Caelan had finally achieved some sort of balance together. Long overdue balance.
“Everything I do involves Evie.”
“Can’t you leave her alone? Let her go back to a life of relative peace?”
Cernunnos’s lips thinned. “She is the heir to my kingdom, Nature Lord. The second she discovered who I was to her, Evie’s life as she knew it was over. I’ve given her time and freedom, but it is time she steps up and accepts her destiny.”
“Evie doesn’t want this.”
“No one worthy of a crown wants to wear one. But I am not here to discuss Evie’s peace of mind. I am here to discuss you and Evie.”
I went very still. “Whatever scheme you’re cooking up, I want nothing to do with it.”
“You don’t need to do a thing.”
“That’s even worse. Leave me out of whatever this is.”
Cernunnos smiled and hopped off the table. “You and my daughter have a genuine friendship, yes?”
I sighed. “You already know the answer.”
“You would do anything for her, yes?”
“Spill it,” I growled, power rising in my veins.
But Cernunnos surprised me. “She will need a friend soon. One who will not use her or take advantage of her position. She is more than she seems, Rowan. More than the Fae Queen. More than this world is ready for.”
I’d always known Evie was keeping big secrets from the world at large, and her power was off just enough to make me wonder if she was more than a Floromancer and more than a demi-fae.
Even with the revelation of who her father was, I always wondered if there was something strange swimming in her blood.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“She trusts you.”
I snorted. “Not enough if she’s keeping a secret that big from me.”
Cernunnos smirked. “You are not her lover, and you are still a Lord. One day she will trust you enough, but until then all I ask is you pick up the pieces when they shatter. And they will.”
“You’re asking me to step into a position of…” My voice trailed off. Of what? A lover? A mate? “We are friends. That is all.”
Despite the insistent voice in my head that screamed at me we were more than that, more than simply friends, more than people who asked the other how their day went and occasionally showed up with takeout, I wouldn’t push that boundary.
Not while she was involved with Caelan. My friend.
And a powerful Lord I did not want to alienate.
“She has friends, Lord. But she does not have friends with the power to protect her from what’s coming.”
“I’ll do as you ask,” I said against my better judgment. “If she comes to me, I will protect her. But not for you. I’ll do it for Evie. If she’s the one to ask.”
Cernunnos held his hands out at his sides, palms up, and smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Good luck, Lord Rowan. You will need it.”
The Fae King disappeared in a splash of magic, leaving me alone in the greenhouse contemplating his words and the potential fallout coming Evie’s way.
What could possibly be so bad that she would have to ask for the protection of another Lord?
And why was anticipation unfurling in my stomach?