Caged: A Fae Fantasy Romance (Fae Magic Book 4) Read online

  Caged

  Fae Magic, Volume 4

  Jessica Aspen

  Published by Abracadabra Publishing, 2019.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Thank you for reading CAGED.

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  Dedication

  Dedicated to dragon lovers everywhere!

  And to my Colorado Romance Writer peeps, who always keep me going, even when it feels like I should stop. Thanks so much to all of you!

  To my love—Jeff, I can’t imagine where I’d be without you.

  To K & B—thanks for all the fish! LOL!

  And of course to Jessa Slade for her fabulous editing, Carol Agnew for her fabulous proofing, and to Ivytail designs for all the hours helping me tweak those covers

  Love you all!

  -Jessica

  Copyright Information

  This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person living or dead, or any events and occurrences is purely coincidental. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized editions.

  Copyright 2017 by Jessica Aspen

  Originally published as THE WINTER QUEEN’S DRAGON, January 2017 by Abracadabra Publishing

  All rights reserved

  Cover design: Ivytail Designs

  All rights reserved

  Chapter One

  One hundred years ago...

  Siobhan stared up at the impossibly high sides of the outer walls of the Winter Court, her stomach twisting in fear. In the dark, the tiny blue lights of the frost fairies were only deep purple flickers reflected in ice refrozen so many times that even the smallest bubbles of air were eliminated and the surface became as slick as black glass.

  “I must be crazy. It’s twenty feet tall.” She turned to the five tiny fairies floating in tight formation next to her like a small flock of night birds. “You sprinkled the sentries with sleeping dust? Right? Good. While we wait for that to work, show me again why I’m sneaking into the compound of one of the most powerful fae queens in Underhill. Maybe I’ll see something that can help us. Doubtful, since I’ve watched it over and over again, but I’ll take any help I can get at this point.”

  Freelana moved in front of her three sisters. The minor fae were perfect miniatures of the larger elvatians, but their structure was more brittle and their features sharp. Some in her village had hated them, suspicious of their sharp teeth and wider than proportional eyes. Siobhan had always loved spending time with them and they’d never hurt her. In fact, they’d become her fast friends.

  Her narrow pointed face frowning in focus, Freelana moved her wings almost too fast to see. Hovering a few inches away, she opened an ice bubble in the air. It glowed a pale, luminous purple in the dark and Siobhan ducked a quick look up at the sentry. But the shield she’d erected seemed to be working because he didn’t move so she gave all her attention to the bubble.

  Inside, a miniature image of her little brother formed. Bosco hadn’t been away from home very long, maybe a year, but already he looked more adult. Maybe it was the fear that sharpened his face. Maybe it was the skimpy high court attire that spoke of rooms well heated in the middle of winter.

  She’d been shocked at the changes the first time she’d seen this, but now she looked closer. His long, snow-white hair was pulled back into ornate court braids, threaded with jewels, that showed off his delicately pointed ears. Her mother would die at the sight of her baby’s precious ears pierced with long silver hoops. His eyes, the very rare black that few elvatians besides their family had, were full of dark desperation as he whispered his plea.

  “Please, Siobhan, come get me. This isn’t what I thought it was going to be. I’m scared.” His adolescent voice quavered, breaking on his last words. “I want to come home.”

  The bubble popped, fragmenting into tiny pieces of frost that blew away on the night wind. Siobhan pressed her lips together. “I still don’t understand. What could possibly have gone wrong? The queen herself crowned him the current King of Winter. He was thrilled.”

  It had broken her heart, but she’d never expected to see him again. None of the queen’s cosseted boys ever returned to their villages, even after they’d grown up and their stint as the Winter King was over.

  Freelana shook her head vigorously, the tinkling sound of ice bells chiming with each shake.

  “I know there are rumors, Freelana, but every time we see the boys she crowns, they seem happy. Just think of the few times we’ve caught a glimpse of Ardan.”

  Happy, yes. But now that she thought about it, she’d only seen them from a distance, riding with the hunt or attending the queen. They never visited their families, once they set off in the white sleigh of the queen, pulled by two elven steeds with hooves that could cut ice.

  Freelana chimed again, her sisters joining in.

  “What can I do?” Siobhan stared back up at the top of the wall where a sentry light gleamed. “She’s a full queen of the fae. She holds this keep. Hell, she holds all the lands of the north. Her power is the reason our village doesn’t fade into the mists of Underhill. She’s the reason we have a home at all.” She shook her head at the insistent fairies. “And she’s surrounded by all her lords and ladies. And don’t forget the guards. Even the least of them is more powerful than me, more powerful than anyone in our village.”

  She’d never regretted her small amount of magic, until now. Country living in a land of winter suited her. She skated during the
long winters on lakes of frozen glass, making Jack Frost patterns in the ice with her tiny friends. She formed lovely flowers for feast days using snow and water and magic. No, she couldn’t join the courts, but then, who would want to?

  Her brother, Bosco, that’s who. And, all the adolescent village boys who saw the court riding by on their fine horses and in their fine clothes, each of them wielding more power in their fingertips than her whole family could muster. She remembered the celebration years before, when the queen swept into the festival and took Ardan, Siobhan’s childhood sweetheart, to be the Winter King. That had been fifty years ago when Bosco had been little more than a baby. Ardan had taken one look at the beauty of the White Queen and climbed into her sleigh. And he’d never looked back at Siobhan again. Not even to wave goodbye.

  The fairies chimed.

  “I know. I know. That sentry should be out by now. And Bosco’s waiting...” She checked the sheath of the sword strapped tight to her back, pulled her ice shoes out of her pack and strapped the metal spiked soles onto her boots. Before putting the pack back on, she dug out her emergency escape globe.

  The marble-sized ball was cold as it rolled in her palm, its colors swirling together as it moved. One use, that’s all it was, but if she needed it, she’d want it somewhere easy to get to. If it worked at all. None of this magic was her strength. She was an artist, a creator of frost flowers and designs in ice. But even she knew better than to go into the Winter Palace without an escape route. She tucked the ball into her left side pocket, then double checked that the leather straps of the shoes were tight.

  Her stomach churned with nerves. This was it.

  “I’ve never climbed anything this straight and smooth before. Can you help me?”

  The fairies swarmed with her over to the wall. She handed them her climbing rope, its end tied with a viciously sharp hook. It took all five of the fist-sized fae to haul it up and secure it to the top. Siobhan took the rope in hand and started up.

  The climb was worse than she’d thought it would be. The shiny surface resisted her spikes, and she slid and slipped with only her arms to hold her up. Several times she thought she’d never make it, but she finally pulled herself over the top and collapsed next to the concerned fae, her fingers cramping.

  “I’m fine,” she panted. “We made it.” Arms shaking, she unstrapped her ice shoes and tucked them back into her pack, shrinking it down and stowing it in her right coat pocket.

  Pack in the right, escape globe an icy presence in the left. “Lead on, ladies.”

  Keeping low, she followed the fairies as Freelana sped ahead, dowsing the lights as they approached. The purple glow of the fairies’ inner light a beacon, drawing Siobhan down a set of stairs and into a quiet courtyard.

  A hand grabbed her elbow and fingers covered her mouth, preventing her scream from escaping.

  “Shh, it’s me.” Bosco’s face appeared, illuminated in Freelana’s light.

  Her heart thumping in her ears, she wrapped her arms around her brother and squeezed tight. Tears rose to her eyes. “Oh, it’s so good to see you. Are you well?” She kept her voice low as she ran her hands down his arms. He’d never been heavy, but now she could feel his bones sticking out like fence railings under her hands. “Aren’t they feeding you?”

  She stepped back and really looked at her little brother.

  In a few short months he seemed to have aged. It wasn’t something obvious. Anyone else would say he was still the same lanky adolescent, definitely thinner. Maybe a little taller. But there was a maturity in his face that shouldn’t be there. A knowing look that said he’d seen too much. And it made her blood chill.

  Elvatians rarely had more than one or two children over their very long lives. Some lived for ten thousand years or more and never had any. But her mother had been blessed with two, mirror images of each other: Siobhan in her youth, and Bosco merely one hundred years later, the gap between them making her a young adult by the time he’d been born. She’d loved every minute of helping her mother raise him. Until this year’s Winter Solstice, when the queen had come to town and chosen her beautiful baby brother out of all the young boys competing at the festival.

  “Not now. I’ll tell you everything later.” He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. “We should go.” He took her hand and pulled her back the way she’d come.

  “Wait. This is serious. What do you think would happen to the village if I steal the Winter King?” Visions of a furious White Queen and her soldiers rampaging through the quiet streets searching for Bosco made her cringe. “No one leaves the queen’s service, Bosco.” She squeezed his hand. “I can’t take you home. You know that.”

  “Oh gods.” He let her go and stepped back, betrayal written all over his face. “Then why did you even bother to come?”

  “To understand. This is what you’ve always wanted. You were so happy to come here. Why would you want to leave all this?” She waved her hand, indicating the fancy embroidered vest he wore over bare chest and arms and on down, to his low-slung leather pants, all the way to his velvet slippers. “I mean, they aren’t very practical clothes for winter, but they are pretty and I assume the queen keeps the fires hot.”

  Bosco barked out a short, bitter laugh. “You have no idea.”

  “Then tell me. She’s already given you riches and I can smell the extra power on you. If you stay, by the time you reach manhood you’ll be powerful enough to be a Tuathan lord yourself. You’ll be rich. Powerful. Why would you go?”

  His face changed, the soft, baby cheeks of adolescence shifting into something suddenly hard and adult. “You don’t know. You can’t.” His voice dropped low. “It started off...nice. She was...affectionate.” Even in the pale light cast by the fairies, she could see his face turn red.

  “Do you mean she—” she swallowed hard “—touched you?”

  Her baby brother. The one she’d diapered and taught to walk. Taught to run and climb. The one who now had a look in his black eyes that made them deep pools of shame.

  She barely heard his next words.

  “That’s not the bad part.”

  She couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice. “What could possibly be worse than having a woman more than two thousand years older than you making you her bedmate?”

  “Making you her bed slave.” A loud mocking voice behind her shattered the quiet of their hushed conversation.

  She turned quickly, the whiplash of her braids nearly smacking Freelana out of the air. Standing in front of her was a man who had been a boy when she’d last seen him. Now the jump in her heart froze at his cutting look.

  His face had sharpened, and so had everything about him. Once, she’d thought they’d be married but now the ice of the court was in his gaze, making the silver of his eyes unfamiliar.

  “Ardan?”

  “Don’t you recognize your childhood sweetheart?” He gave her a mocking bow. “Go home, Siobhan. Leave Bosco to serve out his term.”

  “You were Winter King. You must have known what the queen was like. You’re older and stronger. You were always the leader when we were young. Couldn’t you protect him?”

  “Protect him?” Ardan laughed, his laugh an icy cold seeping into her heart. “That’s rich. You’re just as innocent as when we were children. I’ll tell you who I am and what I do—I’m not his protector, I’m part of his training.”

  She couldn’t keep the disgust from her face and his face turned bitter.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Siobhan, judging what you don’t understand. You have no idea. You people in the villages, buying your safety from the queen with our young bodies. None of you question what goes on in here.” His lips twisted and he shook his head. “None of you. As long as she stays away from the villages, none of you care.”

  Bosco edged closer. He twined icy fingers into hers and whispered, “Can we go now?”

  Siobhan nodded and together they edged away from the mocking face of the man she once thought she
’d loved.

  “Leaving us, are you? Good luck with that, Siobhan.” Bright light flooded the courtyard, reflecting off of the snow. Siobhan threw her hand in front of her, her vision suddenly night blinded.

  Four of the Queen’s Guard blocked their escape route, each one holding a sword or pike. She pulled her sword. On the wall a row of archers materialized. Ardan melted back into the shadows, leaving the two of them isolated in the glare. “The queen is on her way.”

  She felt Bosco quake all along her side.

  “Don’t worry.” She held her sword in her right hand and palmed her escape bubble with her left. She didn’t know how she was going to fight off four of the toughest fighters in the region, but she’d go down in a bloody heap before letting her baby brother go back to a woman he feared this much.

  But Bosco stepped up to her side. “No, she’ll kill you. Let me.” And her skinny adolescent brother, without a weapon in his hand, moved in front of her, just as the Winter Queen came into view on the far side of the courtyard.

  Dressed in long white furs, Maeve glowed, her power so strong it illuminated the air around her. Tall and slender, like all Tuatha De Dannan, she was almost fragile looking, the bones of her face sharply protruding around her penetrating gaze. There was a rumor that once her hair at been as pure white as Bosco and Siobhan’s own, but now it was streaked with the deep blue of her power and she looked as if she lived on nothing but snow, and ice, and magic.

  “Come to me, my fine Winter King. My bed is cold and lonely without you.” The queen reached out to Bosco and beckoned.

  Siobhan looked right and left and knew they were out of choices. There was no time and too many foes. The queen herself could blow them to pieces with a snap of one of her fingers, even from far across the courtyard. She had to act now, or Bosco would be lost.

  She raised the bubble to her mouth, the ice touching her lips a reassuring cold. She couldn’t compete with the queen or her guards, but she knew the frost. And this one small piece of magic had taken her months to get just right. It would work. It had to.

  She blew on the surface and activated the globe. It began to grow as the guards drew closer. She blew harder until the bubble lifted off of her palm. It floated toward Bosco, growing larger and larger until it touched his back, just as the first of the guards reached them. He startled, but it was too late. The bubble wrapped around him, enveloping him in its protective sheet of ice.