Gold is the Son: Castle Street Fae, #4

By MK Mancos

The Unseelie have made their final move

 

Like baseball, life can throw you curve balls. Lately, that's all I seem to get. Up until a few weeks ago, I thought I had solid plans for the future. Baseball scholarship, college, hot girlfriend…

…now my world has turned upside down.

Jonquil, the new Queen of the Seelie, has charged me with meeting my biological father in a bid to stop the escalating war with the Unseelie.

Thing is, now I've heard his side of the story, I'm not sure his vengeance is unjustified. Oh, and he's named me his heir.

 

I'm Dalton Day and I'm the bastard son of Zerachi, the Unseelie King.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MK Mancos
• Release date: May 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201108946

Book preview

1

Murder in the Court

Smoke rose, drifting from the floor as bodies disintegrated and returned to whatever material the fae were composed.

I stood at the edge of what had once been the ballroom, chest heaving and breath coming short, searching for my girlfriend.

The unreality of the situation choked me and I stood trying to gain my bearings in the melee.

I didn't see Peony and the rest of our group of friends. The only thing around me was blood, gore, and destruction.

My father did this.

The knowledge burned inside me worse than the smoke in my eyes and lungs.

A ball to announce Jilly Addams as the heir to the Seelie throne and welcome those of the Blackwell Sixteen found and returned to the fae had exploded in violence when Zerachi, the Unseelie King, used one of the lost children to breach the Seelie’s protective wards.

I coughed and started through the debris. The first person I found was Jilly.

Blood pumped up into my ears and forced me to breathe heavier. Adrenaline surged through my veins, but I tried to stay calm, to think, as I processed the horrific scene.

Jilly was bent over the corpse of the Seelie Queen, Capricia, holding the pale, limp body and rocking back and forth. A long dagger stuck out from the Queen's chest, and blood soaked her gown. Jilly’s long dark hair dragged through the pooled blood, wetting the ends of it. Every time she turned her head, they painted the area like blood-dipped paint brushes, leaving slashes of vibrant blue wherever they touched.

Apparently, some fae didn’t have red blood.

I bent to try and speak with Jilly, to offer her some comfort despite my fear, but was stopped by guards who drew pointed staffs at me. Apparently, I wasn't allowed to get so close to the new Queen.

I raised my voice enough to project over the din. Have you seen, Peony?

Jilly looked up with tears running down her face. Her light blue eyes pools of misery. She shook her head. No.

Guilt was a bone in my throat. Peony had told me what the death of the Queen meant. I bowed to Jilly as others swept over to take control of Capricia's body.

Your Majesty. They too bowed down to her.

All hail, Queen Jonquil. The chant came up from the guards and courtiers who had managed to escape the worst of the devastation.

She shook her head, and even in the dark, smoky room her eyes conveyed panic and assurance that a full-scale freak out was only a few heartbeats away.

Unfortunately, I didn't know what to do to head it off. So many horrible things must have been going through her head. Maybe more than were going through mine. At least her family had tried to stop the Unseelie from breaching the Seelie defenses. Mine had been the aggressors, and it made the hair on my neck rise.

At least no one had made a move to hurt me. Well, other than from stopping me from reaching Jilly. That probably had less to do with my parentage than it did them simply not knowing who they could trust at the moment. It hadn't escaped my notice that when Zerachi had made his move, others in the court had made theirs. He'd had agents inside the Seelie palace all along.

The Seelie had been too blind to see it and paid the price.

He'd been every bit as cunning and devious as I'd heard since coming to the fae realm with Peony. The fae sperm donor that had given me life and left my mother a wreck of humanity hadn't even acknowledged me. I had a distinct feeling he didn't even know I existed which was more than fine with me, given the situation.

Kräll, a fae warrior who had been sent by Jilly's parents to watch over her in the human world, cut through the genuflecting Seelie, bowed, then took her by the arm. He motioned for the Seelie guards to take care of the late Queen's body.

For a moment Jilly held out her hands and grabbed at the Queen as if she might not let her go. Kräll might look like he once played with an edgy emo Goth band, with his piercings and spikey hair, but he’d proven himself as a steady rock of reliability and he appeared to care deeply for Jilly.

With Jilly in capable hands, I continued to walk the throne room. Hard to believe, only a few moments before, a ball to honor the return of the lost children had been in full swing.

I closed my eyes as the carnage replayed in my mind. I tried to block it out, but it was hard, considering I still couldn't find my girlfriend. I fought to remember where I'd seen her last and honestly had no idea. She'd been with her biological parents, right?

Dalton! The voice was distant but powerful.

Relief washed through me. That was my girl. I turned my head, trying to peer through all the debris. Where are you?

I don't know. I can't see anything. It's dark in here. She sounded more pissed than panicked which I considered a good thing.

Her voice didn't sound muffled as if she was enclosed. My stomach roiled with all sorts of horrible thoughts of injuries that might have taken her sight. It still didn’t explain why I couldn’t see her.

I can't find you. Lord knows I'd looked at every pile of ash and spot of blood. She wasn't anywhere in the throne room. At least, I didn't think so. This was the fae realm, and anything was possible with those jokers.

They'd been nothing but shady since they started messing with Peony months ago. Hell, since my father had messed with my mom.

I got closer to the nearest wall and put my ear against it. Peony. Talk to me, babe.

I can barely move. It's so close in here. Frustration painted the complaint.

With hand to the wall, I traveled along, using my fingertips to sense where she might be. Not that I had any powers, but intuition and a healthy dose of growing up knowing the feel of a baseball in my hand helped. Sounds weird, but when I pitched, I always knew by the ball what to throw by what the ball said to me. It didn't literally speak, but I did strike out a large percentage of batters that way. I guess I had a stronger intuition for things than the average person.

One area of the wall in particular tickled my hand. I ran it back and forth a few times to be sure. Peony?

Dalton. A tap came from behind the rock. Please, help me.

I don't know how. It's solid stone. I turned and looked around to the fae trying to get themselves together and sort out the living from the dead. The ash from the bone.

In the grand scheme of things, no one cared about one minor fairy girl; though, to me, she was the world.

I pressed hard against the stone. I wanted her out of the trap and in my arms.

Heat radiated out from my palms, though I didn't see anything. The surface grew softer, more pliant. Just like that, the stone turned to liquid and oozed down to puddle at my feet. I stood back and looked at my hands, but I had no powers. How was this possible?

My heart started to beat up into my throat. It might not have been me, but the wall itself. Perhaps Peony had done something from the other side. Yeah, that had to be it. We'd touched it at the same time, and it caused a reaction.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and all those old sayings, I reached into what amounted to a crawl space and pulled her out.

She's only a little firecracker of a thing, so I brought her up to my chest and held on tight as she kissed me all over my face in appreciation.

That was amazing. How did you do it? She kept kissing me, and I wasn't about to stop her.

But her question brought me up short. I stalled for a moment and swallowed. All right, so maybe she hadn't done anything to help. Still, I had no powers. I knew that to be true. I kissed her back and tried for the best explanation I could muster.

I touched the stone and thought about getting you out. The stones did the rest. I tried to shrug, but I still held her.

She wiggled her feet, so I put her down. Her bright green eyes went wide and filled with sadness as she took in the destruction around us. Oh, no! My biologicals. Where are they?

Honestly, I hadn't even given them a second thought. The entire situation was so damn confusing and hurtful to my friends that I pretty much resented everything about the elder Seelie. I mean, part of me understood why they sent their children into the human world, but another part of me hated it.

At least Peony and our friend, Tannis, had known they were adopted. They had never known until later that they were fae, but they did know the parents who raised them weren't the same who'd given them life.

Jilly hadn't even known she was adopted until her father was jailed for insider trading and she was sucked into the fae realm. That was a real mess that had ended with her giving up her human family for good and having their memories of her wiped.

Me? I was a halfling who had been raised by a stepfather after my mother had a nervous breakdown. My dad did the best he could, and I'd had a really good life up until this point. Unfortunately, I thought my mom's ramblings about the fae and all were flights of fantasy she'd constructed due to schizophrenia. Yet, she'd never been diagnosed. In retrospect, I felt guilty for not believing her sooner. In my defense, why would I believe it?

Truth was I hadn't seen Peony's biologicals since before the invasion by the Unseelie had started. They probably wouldn't be too hard to find. Both of them had the pale platinum hair that Peony had—except a lot longer.

I tucked a piece of hers behind her ear and shook my head. Where did you see them last before the explosion.

She bit her lip and glanced around the room. I'm not sure. I don't even think I was standing over here.

Not surprising. When the initial blast of magic had occurred, bodies of fae had been hurled across the room, turning to dust as they moved like meteors over the heads of the courtiers. Funny, I had thought they were all together.

Don't worry. We'll find them. I took her by the hand and started a detailed search of the room. If they had been able to move, they may have attempted to find her. I tried not to think of the possibility they might be one of the piles of ash littering the floor.

Seva! Jurel! I yelled their names, projecting my voice as I did on the ball field during a game.

Several people turned to look at us but offered no help.

Then I heard it: screaming coming from outside the court. I gripped Peony's hand tighter and ran for the door.

By the time we'd made it outside, a small crowd had gathered. The once shining, sparkling Seelie courtiers now looked like rejects from the Thriller video. All their attention and hatred was focused on one girl, who stood behind Tannis, as he made a wall of protection between them and the vengeance of the Court.

I recognized her from school, but she looked different. Changed. Why or how, I couldn't put my finger on.

Tiana, Peony whispered beside me. How could you?

Tears ran down Tiana's face. Her breath sawed in and out. Her hazel eyes were narrowed and familiar. But not hers.

Zerachi had a hold of her soul.

"How could I? How could you?" She pointed an accusing finger, not at Peony but the elders standing around us. The generation who had given up their children in order to save them in some last-ditch attempt to protect them from my biological father's machinations.

I swallowed down the shame I had at bearing the same genes as someone who had been the cause of so much pain it rippled out in ways no one had expected.

There was no need to give us up. No need to betray us. Yet, you did. She pushed at Tannis' shoulder, but he wouldn't move to let her through to the crowd that surrounded them. I lived in a complete hell for eighteen years and none of you cared. You put me up as expendable, and you wonder why I turned on you?

The pain of her survival. The anguish of her everyday life filled the corridor with such heavy emotion that the doors to the throne room creaked under the weight.

Even my own heart was in danger of breaking.

You sent my mother away from here. You turned her against you by marking me as a sacrifice. What made you believe she'd let you get away with that?

As she hurled accusations, I listened to not only the words, but the quality of her voice. Even that was odd. Tinny. It sounded like it had been put through a mixer and ground down a few octaves.

The doors to the hall opened and Jilly exited with Kräll and the guard behind her. I'd never seen her look so regal or powerful. Everyone bowed to her, but Tannis and Tiana. Tannis because he still held Tiana in check.

As the new Queen of the Seelie Court, I, Jonquil of the Amber Fields, am the sole word on what your punishment and sentencing shall be in this case.

Tiana blinked a few times. You? Are the new Queen? She breathed a few times and seemed to lose her steam. No.

Oh, the acting here was so bad. I couldn't keep silent.

Jilly! It's Zerachi. He's still in control of her. It’s not her. Not Tiana.

Then Tiana was on her knees in a supplicant's pose. Her eyes were anything but. They sparkled and swirled and glowed with an unholy light. A glance cut my way and the expression changed to one of surprise. Did he recognize me?

Jilly lifted her hand to Tannis, who looked worn and rough around the edges. His breathing came fast, and hair stood up in odd angles.

Tannis, please allow us to take Tiana for treatment. If she is to survive this horrible possession, Zerachi must be purged from her soul.

Tannis bit his lip and looked at Tiana, who continued to stare at me as if unable to break her gaze away.

I stood there in the grips of emotions so big I wanted to burst from them. I loosened my hold on Peony's hand, afraid that I might crush it in my hatred for my own father. He'd done this to Tiana. He and the plots of Queen Capricia. If Tiana hadn't been jerked back and forth through the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, she never would have been in a position to be taken over in such a way.

At that moment, I couldn't say I was sorry the Queen had been killed. Of course, I kept that opinion to myself for now. Watching Jilly, I knew the Court would do well under her rule. I only hoped that some of the elders didn't decide to double-cross her.

Couldn't say I knew a lot about the fae. What I did know, I'd learned in the last few months hanging with Peony and listening to her mentor, Aethais.

Everything I knew about them differed in reality from what legend portrayed. Not saying all of what the world knew was bogus, but it was different.

If anything, to me, the fae were sneakier than their literary counterparts. Also, more vengeful.

I glanced around those assembled. The Seelie were all a bit ragged. Singed. Angry. I didn't blame them, but they did rather bring this on themselves by putting Tiana through hell.

My home life was so unstable when I was younger, that I totally sympathized with her. But I was one of the lucky ones. When my parents divorced, my stepfather had stepped up and taken care of me. For all intents and purposes, he'd been my father. Truly the only one I'd ever known. The one I called Dad.

Now, it was time to meet my real one.

2

Friends and Future Warriors

Tiana was shackled with iron ropes and taken to a room where she would undergo a purge. Then she'd be taken to a cell and wait for Jilly to