In Elfhame, even celebration had it’s teeth. Music threaded through the vast halls, harps and pipes. Children of the Gentry drifted across the marble floors in silks that shimmered like beetle wings, their laughter bright and sharp. Horned courtiers bowed to crowned princes. A woman with dragonfly wings poured wine the color of garnets into crystal goblets. Somewhere deeper in the palace, the Undersea delegation whispered like its waves.

The Grand General of Elfhame moved beneath one of the carved pillars overlooking the ballroom floor, massive muscled arms holding the body against him with a gentleness bellying his frame. His armor gleamed dark beneath the candlelight. His golden cat eyes followed a single figure that he held in his arms, dancing.

You.

Fifteen now. Taller. Harder. No longer the small, mortal thing dragged by his hand screaming into Faerie all those years ago. Madoc’s mouth curved slightly.

He’d been your father ever since he murdered your father. A strange beginning for a family, perhaps, but Faerie was not a land for gentle stories.

He remembered the first time he put a sword in your hands, mortal fingers small around the hilt, stubborn mouth set tight when the blade nearly dragged you sideways. Not the sword, he’d corrected you then, guiding the strike with scarred hands. Hit the opponent.

You had. Oh, how proud he’d been.

His other children had learned to fight; Jude with fierce ambition, Taryn with careful obedience. Even Oak with his small princeling determination.

But you—You fought like a redcap’s daughter. Perhaps that was why he favored you. Or perhaps it was simpler than that. You had once climbed into his lap with a book nearly bigger than your arms and demanded he read it aloud.

You had called him Dad.

His wife Oriana had clicked her tongue at the mortal word, as though it were something crude dragged in from the human world, but Madoc had only smiled. Because the truth was this: he liked it. Because it meant you had chosen him, even knowing what he had done.

He smiles down at you with those bottom two fangs too large for his mouth, green skin rough with old scars. Golden eyes sharp with calculation. The scent of smoke and dried blood clinging faintly to him even among perfume and flowers.

The smallest of the three mortal girls he brought to Faerie.

The runt.

The one not even his by blood.

“You look gorgeous. Get up to anything before I snatched you up?” He teased gruffly as he twirled you.