Going Against the Realm by Heather Young-Nichols

☆ Aurora ☆
My entire life is based around a glittering court and rounds of dancing. As the Princess of the Fae, my hand is sought after by many from all of the realms.
Why? Because our realm rules them all.
Sure, they have governing bodies of their own but they all report to my mother. The Queen of the Fae. In our world, the women rule and the men act as consort. The idea is to find a man not that you love but one that will be loyal.
I’m not interested in any of it.
While brothers train and go into battle whenever an opposing court decides to try their hands, I get fitted for dresses and help plan whichever celebration is coming next. It’s boring and I grew tired of it when I was twelve.
Now I’m eighteen, the age in which a princess should marry but the idea of who would make a suitable husband is very different for my parents than it is for me. They want me to form an alliance. I want to be loved. Cherished even by… well, anyone.
When I am queen, people will respect me. Until then I’m not taken seriously. Because when the day comes that I sit on the throne, it’s not me that the people will respect but the throne itself.
If I don’t choose one of my parent’s offerings soon, they just might choose for me.
That’s when I hatch a plan.
I’m going to choose all right but the choice I’m making isn’t one they ever considered.
Deep in the woods there’s a cavern where prisoners are kept. Some of them are fae. Others are not. That’s where I will find my husband.
He’s human and doesn’t understand what’s going on but I’m about to rescue him from whatever punishment they have in store to the palace down the hall from me. As long as I have him under my protection, no one would dare touch him.
Only my parents aren’t on board and while he agreed to this with the idea that he’d get to go back to the human world, a war breaks out between us and the dragon court. Parker is tasked with protecting me which is ridiculous. He’s a human. What’s he going to do against a dragon?
More than I thought because while others are busy, I begin to train Parker to give him an advantage no matter what happens. It’s during this training that I realize there’s so much more to him than a way out.
If we survive this, my hope is that he’ll never want to leave. Though that’s not really fair given the disadvantages of being him in the fae world so maybe instead, when he leaves, I’ll go with him.