Caged: A Fae Fantasy Romance (Fae Magic Book 4) Page 26

  The crowd erupted into noise, but Ardan barely heard them. Once again his head was spinning. Hunt the Black Queen. A woman well known for her violence and sexual predations on men.

  The prince stood up. “Silence.” Slowly the room quieted down. “My mother is dead, Lady Aoife. We saw her die in this very room.”

  “You know as well as I do that traces of her magic have been found since. Strange things all over the kingdoms. I don’t know how she did it, but the bitch survived.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Maybe. But what’s the harm in sending him to find out? If he dies trying to locate her, you haven’t lost anything. And if he does find her and manages to kill her, then you’ve gained two things—your mother’s final death and the known loyalty of this man.”

  The prince stared at Aoife. The court became so quiet, Ardan swore he could hear his own heart pounding in his chest.

  “Very well. My Lady Aoife, set the quest.”

  She stepped up to him, pointing a single finger in his direction. Instinctively he tried to flee, but he was held in place, unable to move as she came close enough to touch him. Her magic rose and her eyes became crystal lavender pools pulling him in to drown.

  “General Ardan of the Winter Court, you are commissioned to find the Black Queen and to return to this court within a twelve-month.” She touched him on the forehead with the tip of her finger and the electricity of her magic shocked through him. He tingled all the way to his tongue even as the final words of her charge rang out. “Ardan, bring back the head of the Black Queen.”

  She stepped away and the magic went with her. He would have fallen if it weren’t for the guards on either side of him seizing him by his elbows and propping him up. They dipped him down and he managed a bow.

  Prince Kian gave him a stern look. “You leave at dawn’s light. Go, and don’t come back without my mother’s head.”

  They dragged him off, his head still spinning and his extremities still numb.

  He had one year to find one of the most powerful of the Underhill queens—and kill her. A queen who was an even darker, more twisted version of the woman he’d loved and hated his entire life. A queen who was well known for torturing her lovers.

  He shuddered, nearly unable to stand, not knowing if the pounding of his heart was fear...or anticipation.

  Want to find out how the Black Queen becomes a heroine and discovers true love?

  Want to know if Ardan can redeem his past?

  Click HERE and immerse yourself in BESPELLED

  A broken hero on an impossible quest...

  A faery princess who’s lost her identity...

  With everyone is out to get them and nothing as it seems the only thing that might save them is...falling in love.

  Read BESPELLED

  free in KU.

  Thank you for reading CAGED.

  Like this book? Leave a review now!

  Want more sexy fae?

  Want more fast-paced fantasy romance?

  Want to discover how a broken hero and a lost princess find true love?

  There’s more Fae Magic waiting for you...

  One-click BESPELLED

  A broken hero on an impossible quest...

  A faery princess who’s lost her identity...

  With everyone is out to get them and nothing as it seems

  the only thing that might save them is...falling in love.

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z8D76K7/

  or

  check out all the Fae Magic Books on my website

  https://JessicaAspen.com

  Need a different store or country link?

  Click https://books2read.com/bespelledmagic and let the folks at Books2read help you out.

  Want even MORE fast paced fantasy romance?

  Click the link and sign up for my newsletter.

  I’ll send you your exclusive

  JESSICA ASPEN STARTER LIBRARY

  including ROMANCED:

  a FAE MAGIC romance not available anywhere else.

  ROMANCED

  A Fae Magic Fantasy Romance

  Get advance notice of sales and review opportunities.

  Be the first to know when my fast-paced fantasy romance is on sale,

  And don’t miss out on other exclusive opportunities—tastes, treats, and teasers.

  All for newsletter subscribers like you.

  Click here: https://jessicaaspen.com/free-book-offer/

  and get your exclusive download link today.

  (Book selection of the Jessica Aspen Starter Library subject to change without notice.)

  Want to read about Ardan’s journey to happily ever after? Keep reading for a sneak peek of BESPELLED right now! Then go read it all! Free in KU.

  Love sexy shifters, alpha wolves, and paranormal suspense?

  Check out Wolf Enforcer

  Mistaken identity. An accidental kiss...

  But will she be dead before finding out if it's true love?

  Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WZPQ7YL/

  Need a different Amazon store or Country link?

  Try Books2read: https://www.books2read.com/wolfenforcer

  Now for your taste of

  BESPELLED

  Ardan ducked, the sharp edge of his opponent’s sword swooshing past his ear. He lunged, and shoved his sword, Gleam, deep into the other man’s gut. His opponent’s wound gushed, spraying bright red onto Ardan’s armor. The sword twisted in and he yanked on it, the pressure of the torque making his arm ache. His muscles would pay for that later but right now he was flooded with adrenaline and the pain was nothing more than a nuisance.

  The troll-kin’s face paled in the light of the flickering torches. So like his own, with pointed ears and pale skin, but wider and rougher, like the blunt-edged knives children used for sword practice compared to the flexibility and strength of his own magical blade. The green crystalline fractures in the man’s irises stood out as his black pupils shrank and he opened his mouth in a howl of pain.

  But Ardan didn’t have time to watch the man crumple to his feet. Nor to acknowledge the life now draining out on the floor. He spun on the cavern floor, worn smooth from years of disciples’ feet. Gleam slammed into the other troll-kin’s blade and metal screamed as edge slid along edge.

  This new opponent’s blocks and parries showed a higher level of expertise, but he was no match for Ardan. As the fight wore on the troll-kin slowed, each time his sword dipping a little lower in the torchlight. But Ardan didn’t pause. When the man over-compensated and raised his blade too high, Ardan took advantage. He slipped Gleam into the space between his opponent’s ribs and tore a hole in his lung.

  Bright red blood sprayed from the wound. “Argh.” More blood burbled from his opponent’s wide open mouth.

  Even as the troll-kin lurched, off balance from the wound, he moved, a killing look in his eye. The man’s blade descended and Ardan slipped away from where he’d been. There was a swish of air by his face as the man’s blade missed, stabbing instead into the worn stone of the cave floor.

  Taking advantage of his opponent’s temporary loss of balance, Ardan swung his sword in a circle and turned. Momentum gathered for the strike, he brought his weapon down hard on the troll-kin’s wrist.

  Gleam’s sharp edge caught on the crunch of bone and gristle, slowing, as if cutting through frozen butter. The troll-kin’s hand dropped to the ground, thick dirt-encrusted fingers still clutching the pommel of his sword, and Ardan finished the follow through, ready for the next challenger.

  But there were no more.

  Ardan left the dying man on the ground and checked out every inch of the cave he could see in the flickering light of the torches, casting a tiny globe light of his own into those corners where he couldn’t see. But the place was empty.

  “You’ll pay for this.” His opponent lay curled on the ground in a spreading pool of blood, gasping for breath and clutching his bleeding stump. “The Goddess will send her emissary to
come to get you, you’ll see.”

  Ardan snorted and kicked the man’s sword further away. The hand went with it leaving a wet trail in the dirt. “Tell her I’m looking forward to it.”

  This cult of troll-kin worshiped an old goddess, so old and so minor he doubted anyone else in Underhill even knew her name. No one would come looking for him. And if they did, it was worth it.

  Ten months of searching for the Black Queen and what did he have to show for it? More scars on his body and dents in his shield, but he’d yet to catch up to her. Not even once. But tonight...tonight here in this forgotten place of worship, he stood a chance.

  He ignored the man’s moans and mutterings and wiped off his sword, sheathing it before making his way to the stone altar in the back of the cave. What he wanted was nearly lost in the clutter of small tokens. Stuck in generations worth of hardened wax drippings from the motley collection of candlesticks, the small wooden box didn’t look like much. The twelve-pointed star carved in the top, the design picked out in white paint faded to a chipped and peeling grey, had faded almost to non-recognition. But this was it. His hands shook as he pulled his knife and used it to dig the box out of its prison.

  He stared at the box, almost afraid to open it.

  For the first few months of his quest he’d followed the trail of the queen, thinking that he’d catch up to her eventually. But all he’d found was carnage and fear. And tales of a woman in black who left traces of dark powerful magic. No one would tell him where she was—if they even knew.

  And as the year he’d been given to find her eased from winter into summer, he grew desperate. His own Gift not one of searching, he traded what he could for others’ talents, fighting small skirmishes in return for money he could use to buy spells.

  But no one’s spells worked. Not the Traveler witches on Earth, frolicking in their RVs at their annual meeting outside of Denver. Nor the mystics on the hot sands of D’nun. Not even from the magic pool in his own native lands up north, where he’d spent most of his life in service to the Winter Queen, could he get a fix on the location of his quarry.

  Nothing and no one got him close enough to the Black Queen. And so, he’d finally gotten desperate and made the journey to the Golden Court and consulted King Oberon’s psychic. Known as the Oracle, the old man had been a mess. But what he’d said had changed all Ardan’s plans.

  Forcing his suddenly damp hands to steady, he opened up the hinged lid. And stared, his heart thumping in wonder, at the small black needle gently turning end over end inside a ball of glass. He’d found it. The lodestone.

  “So you think that’s the magic ticket that will get you the Queen’s head and earn you Kian’s gratitude?”

  Ardan spun, box in his left hand, Gleam, in his right.

  He had no idea how old the Lady Aoife was. She could be a thousand years old, or she could be three thousand. Her skin was soft with subtle wrinkles but it glowed with health, as she mocked him from across the gore-soaked dirt of the cave. Her white hair shone and her upright posture spoke of a rigid determination to never get old. She wore a deep blue cloak, embroidered with glittering stars. And in this place, deep under the earth filled with blood and guts and grime, her tunic, slacks, and even her boots, were a pristine white.

  He bowed low. “My lady.”

  At the court of Prince Kian, he’d thought she might be an ally. She’d saved him from prison with this quest, making sure he was outfitted with Gleam and a white fae steed, named Triton. But it hadn’t taken long to realize she only saw him as a weapon to hone and send out to find its target.

  “Ten months and you’re no closer to finding her than those pitiful things are to attending the next royal wedding.” She gestured at the troll-kin dying on the floor, sweeping her cloak carefully away from the spreading pool of blood. “What makes you think this trinket will help you?”

  The incredulity on her face made him squirm.

  “What makes you think it won’t?” Ardan’s hand tightened on the box, the edges cutting into his skin. It had to work. He had nothing else.

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “I thought the point was to find and kill the Black Queen and earn my place in her son’s court.”

  “For you, the point is to prove your loyalty and save your life. Running around like a dog after a scent is getting you nowhere. Certainly no closer to that bitch.” She shook her head at him, her eyes gleaming in the candlelight from the altar. “In fact, it’s getting you worse than nowhere. Bosco has the prince’s ear and he’s grinding away at him to get it over with and just kill you.”

  Ardan’s jaw clenched.

  Bosco.

  Despite the fact that Bosco was the very reason Ardan now had his freedom, Ardan rued the day that the other man had returned to the Winter Court, attacking it and pushing Ardan into renouncing Queen Maeve.

  Freedom was overrated. Belonging to a court, having a job, a role—that was where he wanted to be. Needed to be. These last few months, wandering on his own, had made that very clear. He was a knight. A soldier. He owed service to someone. And without that what was he?

  Nothing. Just a man without a place.

  He needed his place back. And this lodestone was going to help him find it.

  As soon as he had the thought, the needle inside the ball stopped its lazy spinning. It shivered back and forth, finally centering on a direction.

  He held it up. “See? It’s found her already. It doesn’t matter what Bosco says. With this, I’ll have her by the end of the year and I’ll bring her head to the prince. He’ll make me a part of the court and I’ll have my life back again.”

  It wouldn’t be his old life, in service to the woman who’d taken him as a lover when he was little more than a child, and then discarded him once he was a man. The loss of her love, of everything he’d had in the Winter Court still burned inside him, pushed him. But it would be a new life. One with purpose. With meaning.

  “Hah!” Aoife’s short laugh caught him by surprise. “You still believe you have two months left, don’t you?”

  A sick feeling twisted in his stomach.

  “The frost has just begun to creep over the ground. My year isn’t over until the week after the winter solstice.”

  “Weren’t you listening to a word I said? Bosco has the ear of the prince. He’s convinced him to come after you if you don’t return by the next full moon.” She turned and opened up a portal.

  He watched the grey mists trying to crawl out of the rectangular door of the portal, the curdling in his stomach becoming a heavy mass of pain.

  “One month?” How could the prince have done this to him? How could Bosco still hate him this much?

  A hand reached out of the mist, so gaunt it looked as if it were only leather stretched over bones. Seven long fingers grew claws that scraped at the edge of the gate.

  “One month.” She stepped into the portal and raised her voice over the howling. “One month, and instead of being the hero you dream about, you’ll be hearing the baying of the Dark Huntsman and his hounds.”

  The portal shut behind her leaving the cave empty of all but the death moans of the remaining troll-kin.

  “Kill me.” The hoarse whisper dragged him from his reverie.

  Ardan closed the distance between himself and the dying man. He leaned over. Ignoring the man’s stare of hatred he drew Gleam’s sharp edge across his throat, putting the fatally wounded troll-kin out of his misery.

  The cave was finally quiet. He wiped his blade on the corpse’s trouser leg and sheathed it. In the half-light of the torches he looked at the lodestone, cradled in its nest of faded silk, its needle still pointing east. His mouth was dry.

  One month left. Not two. One month and he stood to lose everything. Any chance at a position. Any chance at a life. One month, and if he didn’t deliver the head of the queen to her son’s court he’d become a wanted man with a price on his head. He closed the lid over the glass ball of the lodestone, tucked it s
afely away, and strode out of the cave.

  East. The Black Queen lay to the east. For now. He only hoped she’d stay there long enough for him to find her and lop off her head. Or else, in about thirty days, he risked losing his own.

  CONTRARY TO ALL HER own rules, Aoife opened the portal directly into her own courtyard, scattering the sunning flower fairies, who shrieked and screamed and acted as if the world were at an end. Who cared if it was dangerous? Or if it might have opened in the fountain, instead of on the now flattened grassy area she’d targeted. She was angry and tired of waiting for results and it was her own house and home at risk anyway.

  As soon as the portal snapped shut and the mists had disappeared, she was dive bombed by a cluster of fairies, clutching at her hair and her shoulders, looking for reassurance. She batted them away and made her way around the central fountain to the front door of her chateau. The late afternoon sun slanted through the trees outside of the courtyard wall and she stopped and gazed at the wide windows and white marble pillars.

  This was her favorite time of day to look at her house. It was a lovely home. Large and well appointed, with acres of land. Gated and secure. The best money and power could provide. It wasn’t cold or damp, or anything else that a castle typically could be. But then again, it wasn’t a castle. It was a dowager’s home.

  The taste of failure soured in her mouth.

  Few remembered when she’d been queen. Fewer still remembered exactly how she’d lost her place as queen at the Golden King’s side. And no one but she knew the real reason why she was living here, shuttled off to a lovely suburb of the Golden Court, pretending to be merely your average, not so young, Tuathan Lady.

  But she knew. She remembered. And she’d sworn vengeance so long ago it had become the only thing she valued. Vengeance against, Aeval, the Black Queen. The little bitch who’d stolen all of Aoife’s dreams.