by Cilla Raven
Shameless Fae (The Fae Bounties, Book 1)
Cilla Raven
Copyright © 2020 by Cilla Raven
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All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, names, and events are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is purely coincidental.
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No part of this book, whether in print or electronic format, may be used, reproduced, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in an article or book review.
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www.cillaraven.com
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Cover art and design by
Nichole Witholder - Rainy Day Artwork
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www.rainydayartwork.com
Created with Vellum
To my great, amazing, fantastic, wonderful, awesome husband who inspires me each and every day.
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To Nicky, may your art continue to inspire me as it did with this book! You built Z in my mind with an image. Oh, the power you wield!
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And to everyone who’s ever dreamed of getting revenge or having wings and the pointy ears to match… this book is for you.
Contents
Fae Classes & Wing Colors
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Lazlo Cren of Igamoxar
Roan Grissom (Origin Unknown)
Quinn Frost of Wrogmar
Priya Ravenskull of Tavatika
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Also by Cilla Raven
About the Author
The Raven’s Nest
Acknowledgments
Fae Classes & Wing Colors
Black - Royal / Chief / Leader
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Purple - Noble / Advisor
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Dark Blue - Scribes / Historians
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Brown - Guards
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Red - Artisans / Smiths
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Teal - Traders
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Light Purple - Bards / Artists / Musicians
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Green - Farmers / Agriculturalists
Chapter 1
Living a double life is a double-edged sword, and both of the lives I lead have their own sets of benefits and shortcomings.
By day, and whenever I find myself in public, I’m Princess Zinnia Thornfire, the only living heir to the throne of Tavatika, one of the largest and wealthiest nations in all of Arorial.
It’s a title that affords me certain perks no matter how much I wish it didn’t.
There’s this heightened level of respect and dignity that every fae and human are required to show me, I’m allowed to do pretty much as I please, and I’ve never once wanted for anything to ensure my basic survival. There’s always been way too much food on my table, rack upon heavily-laden rack of clothes just waiting for the day when I will wear them, human servants to do my bidding, and unrestricted access to almost every place within Tavatika’s city walls.
However, as the princess, I can’t go outside the city walls, I have to keep people at a distance, hold my tongue, abide by frivolous and useless customs, have an escort everywhere I go, and play the part of the future queen perfectly, even though I’d rather pull all the feathers out of my big black wings than stand on tradition, ignoring all the problems in our nation as if they don’t exist simply because it isn’t my place to do anything about them yet.
But by night, I’m the bounty hunter known as ‘The Ghost.’
The nickname developed slowly over time, and it took me a while to realize that I was the one they were talking about when I’d first heard of this new and dangerous bounty hunter cleaning up the streets of Tavatika. In reality, the rumors give me way more credit than I deserve, such is the nature of the rumor mill, but that’s not to say their fear of my tactics is unwarranted. My uncle has trained me well over the years, and the money I’ve put back into the kingdom from my nightly excursions amounts to a lot of much-needed change within the city walls.
My motives for being a bounty hunter run much deeper than just the monetary reward it affords my kingdom. To be honest, the money and precious gems I earn for capturing each criminal I hand over to Eruxus never even stays in my pocket long enough for me to care about it. I give everything back to the Tava people knowing I don’t need it, but they certainly do.
No, my motives for heading out each night to catch any criminal fae that crosses my path have much more to do with the fact that I seek vengeance, mainly from what we call the rebellion- a bunch of different kinds of fae who work together to wreak havoc on all of Arorial, especially in the Tava nation.
The rebellion took my mother from me thirteen years ago when I was ten, and since then, I’ve been training and hunting in the hopes that one day I’ll be able to capture the fae that were responsible for her death.
However, while living my double life, I realized pretty quickly that I’m happiest when I’m out hunting bounties, when I wear a disguise, when people don’t change who they are while they talk to me. It’s as if I’m a free fae when I hunt, and I continuously find myself rushing through my duties as the princess just so I can go out on another hunt.
There’s a duality to living two separate lives. While sometimes I feel like I’m handling everything on my plate, at others, I don’t feel like I’m living either one of my personas to the best of my ability because one side of my life is always being dampened by the other and vice versa.
Sitting with my arms wrapped loosely around my knees on the bench under my window while my wings hang limply at my back, I sigh a heavy breath as I watch all the commotion going on outside the castle. Our guests had started to arrive in their carriages over the last half hour or so, stirring up dust as they traveled down the long path from the castle’s gates to our front door, my mind swirling with memories and my heart heavy with the emotions this holiday always causes me.
When I was little, the arrival of all the other royals in Arorial was one of my favorite parts of all the Faedom Day festivities. My mother and I would sit together at this very window and watch them as they drove down the path or arrived on their steeds from the skies. Back then, I remember feeling like I might just burst out of my skin with the excitement of it all.
We’d watch as the kings and queens of the Dual Dominion would step out of their carriages dressed in their most elegant attire, an entire entourage following in their wake behind them. We’d cheer as the high chieftains of Igomoxar and Lotaque would fly in, each riding their own breed of pegasus, and we’d try to keep ourselves from trembling as the ambassador of Eruxus would fly in on his griffon wearing bones around his neck, on his clothing, and hanging from his half-cropped ears.
However, since my mother died, the excitement I used to feel for Faedom Day and all it encompasses has remained as elusive and unattainable for me as seeing her again in the flesh. Once she was gone, something switched inside my brain. I started to see things differently, analyze things more critically, and that switch turned out to only work in one direction. I c
ouldn’t go back to seeing the world the same way as I had when I was little, to hold it in the same high regard as I had before she was taken from me so brutally by the rebellion.
Instead, every year in the days leading up to Faedom Day, I’ve been sitting by the same window without her, watching the same parade of Arorial’s finest, just as I had when she was alive, forcing myself not to flee out the back door for greener pastures. Somewhere where no one would know who I was and where I could start living the full life I wanted to live. One I want desperately but just wasn’t born into. In fact, I have to force myself not to make a run for it every day.
Watching the other royals climb out of their expensive carriages, I try really hard to keep the memories of my mother from springing to the forefront of my mind, but no amount of self-talk seems to help as the thoughts bombard me like they do every year at this time.
That night, thirteen years ago, was one of the scariest I’ve ever lived through, and it set the stage for The Ghost to be born.
We’d all gone to our bed-chambers that night thinking everything was normal, that we’d wake up the next morning to the sounds of the castle’s bells noting the eighth hour, encouraging us to start a brand-new day as usual. My mother had hummed her sweet melody to me - the one I knew by heart, and couldn’t sleep without hearing - while she tucked me into bed that night.
When she walked out my chamber door for the last time, closing it tightly behind her as she went, I saw her soft smile, and its effect on me had been instantaneous. I felt all kinds of happiness and contentment, resting comfortably in the knowledge that life was amazing, magical, and full of never-ending goodness.
However, right after she shut the door, I heard keys turning in the lock as if she were locking me in my room, and I hadn’t been able to understand at the time why she’d do such a thing since she never had before.
Confused, I’d gotten up from my bed and wandered over to see if she’d actually locked me in, and when the door wouldn’t budge, I stood there for a little bit wondering what in fae was going on.
I was never a bad child, but I also wasn’t ever too well behaved either. As such, I’d explored the castle well enough to know that there was a hidden door behind the tapestry on the wall that would offer me a chance to investigate my mother’s strange behavior. I also knew that if I crept through the hidden door just right, it wouldn’t squeak when I opened it, and that unless someone knew to look for the door, they’d never know where I’d gone.
Abandoned passageways litter this castle. They weave between all the rooms and even have skinny staircases to reach every floor. It’s always been my favorite thing about the castle, if for no other reason than to see the looks on people’s faces when, as a rambunctious child, I’d just show up out of nowhere right behind them, making them jump and causing laughter to bubble up from inside my chest. The passages are only a few feet wide, and spiders and the occasional rat regularly make them their home, but I have never minded. I didn’t know anyone knew about them at the time, so for the better part of my childhood, the passages acted like my secret hideaway.
A few days after my mother’s death, my uncle told me that the passages were initially built into the castle for the human slaves to travel through so that no one would ever see them. However, after the unrest of the humans over a hundred years ago, they closed them all off, and eventually, most people in the castle had forgotten they even existed.
I remember it being so dark in the passageway that night that I’d had to go back in my room to get the lantern from the side of my bed if I wanted to have any hope of figuring out what was going on. I hadn’t known where my mother had gone, but I’d guessed she was going to bed as well, so as quietly as possible, I walked between the walls of the castle until I came to the door that led to my parents’ bed-chamber.
I could hear my mother singing to herself as I got nearer, and being bolder than was probably smart, I silently turned the handle on the door and peeked through. She’d been sitting at her dressing table, brushing out her long black hair, eyes closed as the song she was singing reached a passionate part with high notes that gave me chills to hear. I remember thinking about how beautiful her voice sounded, how much like an angel she seemed in that moment with her white nightgown, black wings, and bare feet.
I’d been so lost in watching her, I hadn’t noticed that her chamber door was slowly opening until it was too late.
Five fae men with bandannas over the lower parts of their faces and different colored wings crept into her room behind her. As I looked back at her with wide eyes, I realized she’d already glimpsed their reflection in her mirror. She stood up instantly, her fangs elongating as a feral growl tore from her throat. I’d never seen or heard my mother act that way, and the newness and surprise of the entire situation had my body frozen in place.
Once they knew she’d seen them, the five fae sprinted across the space toward her, one grabbing her by the neck, another pulling her arms behind her, effectively trapping her wings in between them while another tried to grab her around her middle. The other two stood there and watched, their body language saying they were prepared to jump in if they were needed as the other three wrestled my mother over to the bed.
She was kicking and clawing, biting and snarling as each of the fae men took turns trying to beat her into submission.
My ten-year-old body just wouldn’t move when I’d told it to, despite how much turmoil I was feeling on the inside. My brain struggled to wrap itself around what I was seeing. I wondered where her guards were, why the fae men were attacking her, how they were able to get into the castle in the first place, what they could possibly have to gain by doing what they were doing. My mind had been a complete mess.
But when I saw one fae man sliding up between her legs and pulling his trousers down while the other four held her down, something inside me snapped. I might’ve only been ten years old at the time, but I knew about sex and rape and the difference between the two.
I remember pushing out the door silently, preparing myself to ambush them where they stood with the lamp I still held in my trembling hands, but as I’d gotten nearer, my mother’s eyes met mine.
It was a look that will forever be etched into the foundation of my memories, filling my restless nights with nightmares of the evil fae for the rest of my life.
I’d stopped dead in my tracks when she looked at me. Tears filled her eyes, not from what the fae men were doing to her, I don’t think, but from the sight of me. Where one of them sat on her arm, I watched as she lifted her hand in a shooing motion as she pleaded silently for me to leave.
Stubbornly, I kept walking forward, dismissing what she’d obviously been telling me to do, but as I got closer, her voice came out lovingly, though it was raspy and pained at the same time. She said, “Get out,” and I knew her words were meant for me. There was no denying it.
Fighting against every cell in my body, I backed away slowly, easing my way back into the passageway so the fae men wouldn’t see me. As soon as the door was almost closed behind me, I turned on my heel and ran as fast as I could through the door that would lead me into the hallway outside my parents’ chamber to find help.
When I’d opened that door and looked out though, I’d seen seven guards, dead on the carpeted hallway floor, and panic like I’d never known before snaked its way through me, sending an icy chill down my spine.
My mother’s brother, my uncle, was the only other person in the castle that I could think of at the time, who’d be able to help since my father was off somewhere doing fae knows what. I ran through the passages as fast as my legs would carry me, and busted through the hidden door to his room, scaring him half to death with my abrupt appearance.
However, there was no laughter that time as he faced me, worry written all over his face as he asked, “Z, what’s wrong?”
I was panting, and it was hard, pulling air into my lungs to get the words out, but after a second, I heard myself squeaking out, “Mama!”
My uncle’s eyes got big as fear visibly spread through him, and he reached out to me, grabbing me by the hand as he stared into my eyes and said, “Take me to her. Hurry now.”
I led him back the way I’d come, and he busted through the door to my parents’ chamber like a madfae.
Only when I followed him through did I realize that I’d taken way too long getting help.
My mother was laid out naked on her stomach, her wings flat atop her back in a sickening position that just screamed there was no more life left in them, and as I looked into her open eyes, there was no more light left within them either. She was staring at the door we’d come out of as her blood soaked into the bed beneath her, spreading from wounds inflicted all over her body.
The fae men who’d done that to her were nowhere in sight, and as my uncle dropped to his knees, a pained cry tearing from his throat at the sight, I’d found myself frozen yet again, the only movement from me being that of the tears that clouded my vision and seeped down my cheeks.
