Promised To The Shadow King (Captive 0f Shadows Book 1)

by Bailey Dark

  I’m running out of time. The night is disappearing, and the days are passing too quickly. I relish the night. Every morning, as dawn approaches, I can’t escape the memory of the day Maaz cursed me. Cursed me to become the beast she saw when I refused her. I close my eyes, envisioning the moment.

  Maaz, dressed in the blood-red gown slinked into my throne room as if it were hers already. She had dragged her long, black fingernails across my throat and down my chest, grinning.

  I will never forget that grin. Cursed, she had said. Cursed for a thousand years or until I find a Bloodbane witch to break the spell and bind herself to me willingly. Cursed to die, along with all of my people, at the end of the thousand years.

  And time is running short.

  My stomach twists as Maaz’s cruel smirk flashes through my mind again. The wind caresses my cheek, and I open my eyes to stare down at my city once more. My coat snaps out behind me as the wind speed picks up. It’s coming from the West, towards the mountains.

  I scowl, probably a reminder from Maaz. A gloat. A boast. She thinks she’s won already. Fury sweeps through me, sending my blood singing with blood lust. I swing my arm towards the flag pole beside me, where my banner proudly waves, and drive my fist through the wood. It splinters loudly, and the pole breaks in half. It clatters to the stone floor of the tower, the flag coiled beneath it.

  I stare down at it, at the black hawk poised to strike on the background of red fabric. My crest. My boot falls over the hawk as I drive the heel of my boot onto the hawk, soiling the flag. It’s a useless symbol, anyway. Behind me, I hear the soft sound of Navi clearing her throat.

  “When did you get here?” I ask, kicking the flag away.

  She stoops and collects it from the ground. Always the loyal and patriotic soldier. “When you destroyed a perfectly good flag pole with a single punch,” she says soberly. She folds the flag and cradles it in her arms.

  I scoff. “Just let it go, Navi. That flag won’t mean anything soon.”

  “Quitting right before the end?” Navi asks, her green eyes flashing. “I expected more than that from our King.”

  “King,” I echo softly. “A failure, you mean.”

  “Altair,” she whispers, placing a thin hand on my shoulder. “There is hope yet.”

  I turn to her, twisting my shoulder out from under her touch. She tucks her long hair behind one of her pointed ears as I stare coldly at her. “Don’t feed me lies, Navi.”

  “Your Majesty, the scholars have identified the one who may be the key to ending the curse. We know where she is now.” Navi’s eyes glitter. “Let me retrieve her.”

  “They found her?” I ask as the sun’s first rays slip over the horizon. Disbelief taints my voice. We’ve searched for her for hundreds of years, many of the scholars said it was impossible. That her existence was only a legend, a rumor.

  I have waited almost five hundred years for this moment.

  “I will go,” Navi says.

  “No.” I turn to the rising sun. “I will.”

  Chapter Two

  Verity

  The lipstick is too red for my tastes, a sharp contrast to my ivory skin. I sigh and wipe at it with a towel, smearing it a little. Tara clucks her tongue at me and uses a finger to gentle nudge my face towards her. She takes the towel and adjusts the makeup.

  “What’s on your mind? I thought we decided on that lipstick yesterday,” she says. “Let’s go nude.”

  I puff out my cheeks as she rummages through her makeup bag for a more natural lip. “I wouldn’t say that I’m getting cold feet . . . but I am apprehensive, let’s say.”

  She paints my lips with the nude coral tone. Much better. “You don’t have to do this, you know. You can back out now if you want to, run away even. I’ve got your back.”

  “Tara, you know I can’t,” I say. “My parents, well, they need this.”

  Tara purses her lips and steps back to survey the whole picture. “God, you look gorgeous. Come look.” She maneuvers me in front of the floor-length mirror so I can see myself. “You’re the prettiest bride in the world.”

  Dressed in a sleeveless ivory lace gown that hugs my figure before falling loosely to the floor in twirls of tulle, I do look the picture of a bride. Even if I don’t quite feel it. “The nude lip looks much better,” I remark, twisting my head to the side to admire my hair.

  Tara, my maid of honor and best friend, adjusts her purple gown and huffs. “Henry is such a manipulative bastard.”

  I know instantly what she’s talking about. We’ve had this discussion many times since I first accepted Henry’s proposal. “Hey.” I eye her. “It’s not unusual for a husband to help his in-laws financially.”

  My father ended up with expensive medical bills after his chemotherapy a few years ago. He and my mother pay them off little by little, but they won’t have made a dent in the debt by the time they pass. And worrying about the debt falling on my shoulders has made them physically sick numerous times. We do what we can. Henry saw the struggle and promised to help if I married him.

  “Yeah, but most men don’t bribe women into marrying them with that,” Tara says pointedly. “I mean, would you have married him if he hadn’t led with that offer?”

  I sigh. “No. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Tara snorts.

  “Henry is a good man. He can be kind and affectionate. And he obviously knows how much I care about my parents, that’s a good sign.”

  “He’s also a bit of a dick most of the time,” Tara says as she picks at her manicured nails.

  “Okay, maybe more often than not,” I mumble. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to help me feel confident in my decision, not try to talk me out of it.”

  She grips my shoulders and stares intensely into my eyes. “What kind of a friend would I be if I didn’t have your back? I just want you to be happy, are you going to be happy with Henry?”

  “I . . .” I take a slow breath in, “I . . .”

  She frowns, “Verity.”

  “I need some fresh air,” I say, waving my hand in front of my face like a fan. In less than an hour, I’ll be walking down the aisle towards Henry. I’ll be binding my life to his for the foreseeable future. It’s a lot.

  A lot a lot.

  Tara ushers me towards the door. “Go outside and get yourself together. I’ll come get you in time for the ceremony, and if you change your mind just text me. I’ll drive the getaway car.”

  I flash her a grateful smile as I hurry to the back door leading out of the manor. Henry picked the venue for the ceremony and reception; a beautiful villa on the hills of Connecticut. I peek out the door before I exit, checking to make sure no guests are lurking around, or Henry for that matter. But the way is clear. The villa is a sprawling house with several wings. I picked the most secluded one to keep my big reveal a secret, and to give myself some privacy to think.

  Ever since Henry and I became engaged, it’s been wedding this and wedding that. We’ve been sorting through guests lists, budgets, invitations, the legalities of marriage, and even moving. Of course, I’m the only one doing any moving, since Henry has the nicer apartment.

  And in New York City, apartments are do or die.

  As I climb to the crest of the hill, I feel the true weight of my decision settling on my shoulders. In my fantasies, my perfect man was never Henry. It was the quiet librarian at the New York Public Library that I’ve never talked to before. Or it was the stunning, gentlemanly man who’d helped me catch the taxi that almost drove off with my purse. When you don’t know the man, you can make up any personality you want. Henry doesn’t have many of the qualities of the perfect man.

  Of my perfect man.

  He’s arrogant, brash, and rude to waiters. But he tips generously anyway. Though I’m not sure if that’s because he is generous, or if he likes to flash his money. An investor and entrepreneur, Henry built up his empire in his early twenties. I’ve been there since the beginning, and we were close at
first. But the more successful he became, the more he changed.

  The sun is warm on my bare shoulders and the air smells faintly of freshly mown grass and lavender. Behind me, I can hear the sounds of the wedding, conversation, laughter, the tinkling of music. Henry footed the entire bill, with a few contributions from me. As a librarian at an inner-city high school, my salary would never have colored this extravagant affair. But it’s what Henry wanted. And, I’ll admit, it does feel like a fairytale. But I’m not sure if Henry is my prince.

  Suddenly, the breeze picks up considerably, sending a chill through me. I wrap my arms around myself, bouquet in hand. The leaves in the nearby oak trees rustle loudly. It sounds like whispering.

  I sigh and turn away from the mansion, facing instead towards the city. I can’t see New York from here, but I can imagine it. The gentle park and woods here are so different from the hustle and bustle of the city. A cloud passes over the sun, casting a long shadow over me.

  A dark shadow.

  I toss the bouquet between my hands. Maybe the sudden change in the weather is a bad omen, a sign that I shouldn’t go through with this. I’ll feel terrible if I bail on Henry. My family will still be in trouble if I do, and he’ll probably resent me for the rest of our lives. I don’t want to think about what a man with his kind of money could do if I made him angry.

  Tara will be here soon to escort me to the ceremony. I never thought getting married would be so difficult for me. The shadow over me stretches forward and swirls. Odd for a cloud. I look up and see blue sky above me, and then black closing in on me.

  Fear grips my gut as a giant, black creature descends from the sky. Its wings stretch out impossibly long, as wide as the hill. And it reaches out a clawed bird’s foot towards me. A scream lodges in my throat as I look into its eyes.

  Hazel eyes set into a panther’s face.

  I’m hallucinating. The stress and pressure of the wedding has finally gotten to me and my brain is responding by creating a hallucination of a monster. That has to be it.

  Because monsters aren’t real.

  Something like this can’t be real.

  I stumble backwards, tripping over the tulle of my gown. One of my sparkling heels falls off, but I don’t reach for it because the monster is close. In seconds, that clawed foot is wrapped around me, squeezing me tightly. Finally, the scream frees itself from my throat and shatters through the silence. I drop my bouquet as the ground falls away. When I’m high over the tree line, supported only by the beast’s foot, I let my fear overtake me.

  Darkness claims me.

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  Chapter One

  Daphne

  “Mm-hmm,” Vania said through a mouthful of avocado toast, crumbs tumbling to the tabletop. I rolled my eyes at my best friend. “That would turn me on, too.”

  “Oh, gawd, that’s not what I meant. I wasn’t saying seeing him beat the shit out of Rhone would rev me up. I just meant—”

  “Oh, you just meant you would melt in his arms and do anything he wanted after he bashed your boss’s face in. And, I mean, anything, Daphne…” Vania grinned and flicked a baby carrot at me. I caught it deftly and popped it in my mouth. I slowly grinned as a slight breeze from the courtyard garden ruffled my blonde hair. My best friend’s brown curls were a bit messy from the debauchery of the night before…she had made that walk of shame all the way to work on time.

  “All right, maybe I would be a little more willing to explore, if he was, you know, detail-oriented…” We giggled. I sighed. “It’s just been so hard. Rhone is incredibly difficult. I had to stay at work late every day the last two weeks, and I am still running behind on the deadline for the Flores account.”

  “Rhone is such an asshole. Why can’t you just tell him off?”

  “Are you kidding me? I know you have never seen him, but there’s just something…scary…about him…” Rhone was a towering figure in my office doorway far too often. He was over six feet tall, with the broad shoulders of a swimmer or climber, clothed only in high-end designer suits. His facial hair was finely groomed, his black hair slicked in a wave around his piercing black eyes in a starkly pale face. I shivered, imagining how he could skewer me with just a look. “He takes private martial arts classes, you know.”

  Vania sat up straight, setting her tea down hard. “Do you think he would ever actually harm you?”

  “Of course not!” My protest was without hesitation, but a tiny thread of doubt trilled through my body. No…no, of course not. He will never actually hurt another person. He just enjoys the intimidating aura he has. Over his employees, over his clients, even over the bike messengers. We are all just caught up in his Rhone-sphere.

  “Ok.” Vania took another bite of her lunch. “So, tell me more about this super-hot, super-suave boyfriend that will come to your rescue and then rev your motor, gladiator-style. If he doesn’t show up soon, you can always ask Sean to confront Rhone for you.”

  I rolled my eyes again. “Sean is a mess.”

  “I know you’re afraid to lose this job, since you’re paying for your brother’s loans, but really, Daphne. This job is killing you. Does Sean make things easy on you ever?”

  “He never has.” My stepbrother had always been a little too impetuous for life to treat him fairly. He was always chasing his next inspiration, be it a girl, business, bike, college, or real estate. “I love him, regardless. I really think this next brilliant idea of his will take off—”

  “Just make sure it isn’t your money on the line, this time.” Vania’s green eyes were serious.

  I consented with a nod. “I just think—” My cell phone rang. I picked it up, groaned, and looked up at the clear midday sky, taking a deep breath. “Hello, Rhone, how can I—?”

  “Get your ass back to work. You weren’t supposed to take lunch today. I need that Flores report.”

  “I am almost done, Rhone. I will be back at the office in ten minutes.”

  “I know you are in the gardens with that twat friend of yours, Vania. Be in my office in three minutes.” Click.

  I slumped forward, the phone in my lap as I took three deep breaths. I focused on a blooming rose bush beside the table, pretending I could inhale its bloom and profit from the beauty. These gardens were a small sanctuary for me and Vania. “I have to go back to work.” I was truly touched by the look of concern and sad encouragement on my best friend’s face. I managed a weak smile back to her.

  “You have to get a new job.”

  “I can’t, Vania. He pays me too well. I will likely work late tonight, so I won’t be able to go on a run with you tomorrow morning.”

  “I don’t mind you canceling our runs, but you need to make sure you keep taking care of yourself. Running is good for you.” Vania placed her hand on mine. “I just want you to be happy.”

  “I know…I will give you a call tonight. Keep trying to find that Prince Charming for me, all right? Make sure he has blue eyes, a lust for adventure, and a mean right hook.” I blew Vania a little kiss, tossed the rest of my lunch into the trash bin, adjusted my pinstripe pencil skirt, and headed back to work.

  Chapter Two

  Daphne

  I flipped the pages, the swift turning making an eerie flutter on the glass walls of my office in the lone desktop light. Where was that itemized document? I swore I had made the intern alphabetize this file. I looked toward another box in the corner and blinked against the darkness. I glanced at the clock. 11 p.m. My desk light was the only one still illuminated on the whole floor. I had stayed at work until 9, but right as I was lying down for much-needed sleep at home, the Flores file information running through my mind, I realized that the entire case hinged on that itemized budget. I hadn’t remembered seeing it in the final prepared file. I had dutifully gotten out of bed and driven back to work. If that piece of information w
as as vital as I thought it might be, Rhone would be furious the next morning that it had been left out.

  I wasn’t supposed to be at the office this late. I had input Rhone’s own code to get onto the private elevator. I had seen him type his code in once and memorized it, not thinking I would ever have the guts to use it.

  “Where the hell is it?”

  I bent over to pull another box from the floor to my desk when a light flared on in Rhone’s office. I heard muffled voices and footsteps. My heart catapulted into my throat. I clicked off the desk lamp and crouched to the floor.

  “…know how important she is.” I didn’t recognize the voice speaking. I peered around my desk and saw Rhone and another man walking down the hallway.

  “Yes, I know. Damn Daphne. She probably didn’t even…” The voices muffled again as they moved into Rhone’s office.

  What? Are they talking about me?

  I stayed low, pulse beating rapidly in my ears, fingers clammy as I pulled open my office door. I crept down the hallway to one of the offices that looked right into Rhone’s. I stood up and hid behind a file cabinet. The glass walls were a beautiful accent to their high-powered office, but they were single pane. Now that I was closer, I could hear what they were saying.

  “So, we just wait?”

  “Yes. He should be here any moment.”

  The other man was tall, but much skinnier than Rhone. He had on a long, leather jacket and gloves. He lounged back against Rhone’s desk as Rhone rustled some papers on his desk. They had turned on one of the lamps, but the lighting wasn’t enough for me to get a good look at the other man’s face under his fedora.

  Rhone walked out from behind his desk and turned so I could see his other side. I stilled a gasp. He was wearing a sword! The scabbard was long and curved. The handle was ornate, curling with waves and crested with jewels.