The Warlord

by Gena Showalter

  He geared up to flash them.

  “Wait,” she said. “I want to try something.”

  He didn’t flash, but the next thing he knew, he was sitting at the edge of his bed, Taliyah reclined in his lap.

  A laugh sprang from her. “I did it! I flashed us both. Because I’m amazing!”

  “That you are.” What other powers had she developed with her ascension? They would find out...later. Roc divested his wife of her stunning scarlet dress and set out to show her just how much he loved her. He was living a life he’d never dreamed possible, loved beyond reason, accepted and supported by a warrior of incomparable resilience.

  Whatever came next, they would overcome. Together, they were unstoppable.

  * * *

  Read on for a sneak peek at New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter’s next thrilling and sexy new novel, Heartless, the first book in her Immortal Enemies series.

  Heartless

  by Gena Showalter

  1

  Astaria, the fae realm

  Midnight Court

  “How dare he!” Kaysar the Unhinged One, King of the Midnight Court, Ruler of the Nightlands and Master of the Dusklands, banged his fist on the arm of his throne, an elaborate seat made from stalks of poisonvine. Bloodred flowers with sharp, jagged petals bloomed along the upper arch, perfuming the air with a sweet, intoxicating fragrance. “Something must be done.”

  Prince Jareth of the Winterlands had lied to him. Kaysar despised liars with every fiber of his being. He despised the prince for a thousand other reasons, but the lies... In his estimation, there was no worse crime.

  He goes too far!

  A new shout brewed at the back of his throat. If you couldn’t own your evil, you shouldn’t commit the act.

  With one metal-tipped hand, he braced to rise, ready to strike at Jareth this very moment if he were here. With the other hand, he sank his metal claws into the poisonvine, holding himself in a seated position as drops of venom flowed from the punctures.

  “Tell me again, word for word, changing nothing,” he commanded his seer. “Fill my ears with his crime once more.”

  “Word for word.” Her tone said what she didn’t. Must I? “Very well.” Evincing dread, she repeated, “I’m so sorry to tell you this, Majesty, and please don’t shout, but Prince Jareth approaches your—” she cringed and braced for impact “—border.”

  “How dare he!” The words exploded from Kaysar once again, his companion flinching.

  “Perhaps you should study your map, Majesty,” she suggested, using the same soothing tone a mother might use with an upset child. “You wish to study your map, yes?”

  His map. He tensed before he softened, melting into his throne. “Yes, I wish to study my map.” He plucked his fingers free of the stalk and traced a claw along different lines in his palm, the way he used to do as a boy. He welcomed the sting, the pool of blood.

  Over the centuries, he’d memorized the layout of Astaria and each of the five fae courts, yet the art of creating a forest-specific map still calmed him. This was his one remaining link to his sister, after all. If he’d ever really had a sister. Sometimes he wondered if he’d invented her. The angel who’d kept him sane during the worst year of his existence. Well, somewhat sane.

  As he worked, etching crimson lines over his forearm, he made new, deeper cuts, using torn skin as markers. The newest stings barely registered as tension seeped from him.

  “Majesty?”

  The softly spoken question snagged his attention, and he snapped up his head. He narrowed his eyes and focused on the woman standing before him. Though she had probably mentioned her name at some point, he knew her only as Eye, a beauty he’d saved from goblins however long ago. Months? Eons? Time had lost all meaning to Kaysar, one day the same as any other. He awoke and thought of ways to punish his foes, then he actually punished his foes. His methods might vary, but his goals remained the same.

  Surrounded by onyx walls and torchlight, Eye wore an ivory gown, appearing as ethereal as a dream. A glorious mane of sable hair framed a delicate face, her skin a shade lighter than her rich brown eyes. As a seer, she could meld her mind with another’s to reveal whatever images she’d beheld in a vision. Things that had taken place in the past, things that were taking place in the moment or things that would take place at a future date.

  Pushing the words through clenched teeth, he told her, “What is my one and only rule for you, Eye?”

  She gulped. “I’m not to interrupt you. But if I must, there are two instances I’m not to do so, even if I’m dying.”

  “That’s right.” The woman had more privileges with him than anyone else in existence, but there were lines even she was not allowed to cross! “Name those instances, if you please.”

  Shifting from one foot to the other, she admitted, “When you’re studying your map that isn’t a map. And every moment of every day.”

  Map that isn’t a—He flicked his tongue over an incisor. Was it his fault others couldn’t read the thing?

  As a boy, he’d had no spare money for ink and paper, so he’d adapted. As often as he and Viori had made a frantic dash from one village to another to avoid being punished for simply surviving, he’d needed a map. The Forest of Many Names was an infamous labyrinth known for gobbling up visitors and spitting out their bones. Eventually.

  Would he one day discover Viori’s bones?

  His lungs squeezed, his breathing suddenly more labored. “Your insolence this day is concerning, Eye. But I’m a merciful king. Upon occasion. Too merciful, perhaps. I’ll give you a chance to save yourself from reprisal. Show me what Prince Jareth is doing right this second.”

  The seer seized the opportunity, presenting him with a new image. One of Jareth Frostline, Crown Prince of the Winter Court, traveling through the Forest of Many Names with his new bride, Princess Lulundria, the darling of the Summer Court.

  “Show me the end result of our coming skirmish.” And there would be a skirmish. There was only one reason the prince would grow the stones to near Kaysar’s borders. He craved a fight.

  Hoping to impress the wife with his strength, perhaps?

  He will face only humiliation! Because of the Frostlines, Kaysar had lost everything of importance to him. After his escape from captivity—he ground his teeth—he’d hunted for Viori for over a decade. She’d vanished without a trace. Even Eye had failed to catch a glimpse of her.

  Now Kaysar lived to ensure the Frostlines suffered and suffered and suffered and suffered and suffered, then suffered some more. Until they experienced the same devastation they’d caused an innocent boy who’d wished only to protect his sister, Kaysar would not stop.

  He would never stop. His own suffering endured throughout the ages. Theirs would, too.

  “Must I?” Eye asked. “To show you what transpires, I must also watch.” She shuddered, her distaste for the sight of blood her biggest fault. Along with a handful of others. “We both know you will win.”

  “That’s right. I always win.” Kaysar grinned, a cruel twisting of his lips.

  In battle, he had no equal. Not because he was born with a natural or even unnatural talent for killing. In his formative years, he’d worked as a farmer, like his parents. No, he succeeded because he would cross any line to achieve his objective. Nothing dissuaded him from a goal.

  It helped that he’d trained under the harshest conditions. That he’d spent centuries battling goblins and ogres. Monsters and the worst of the worst.

  Perhaps he was a monster himself, eh? But at least he wasn’t a liar.

  When he’d taken control of the Nightlands—once a prison territory inhabited only by the dregs of society—he’d created a new fae court, no one able to stop him. To the fae, might equaled right, every kingdom ruled by the one with the strength to keep the crown.

  Now the M
idnight Court was the wealthiest of all the kingdoms...but still the most dangerous. Kaysar’s army was double the size of any other, his soldiers more stalwartly trained.

  He’d labored to ensure his men had no equal in battle. Without hesitation, they savagely killed anyone who served the Frostlines. But. As ordered, they always spared the Frostlines themselves. To this day, Kaysar lamented ending Prince Lark’s life. So soon.

  You couldn’t torture a dead man. Kaysar had tried!

  His only solace came from making the rest of the family wish they were dead.

  “Is there anything else I should see?” he demanded, repositioning. He leaned back, stretching out his legs and crossing his ankles, then tapped a claw against the arm of the throne. The razor-sharp tip left tiny oozing grooves.

  At one time, that venom would have agonized and paralyzed him for several critical minutes, as it did to everyone else. With trials, tribulations and a whole lot of determination, he’d developed a tolerance for it, as well as the magestone used to build the palace. A simple-looking gray rock able to temporarily mute a fae’s power. Well, any fae but Kaysar and Eye, their immunity to poisonvine an antidote for the magestone.

  “There is always more you should see,” Eye muttered, “but most of it you choose to ignore.”

  Had she insulted his selective understanding? Yes. Was she wrong? No. “Show me what I do wish to see and nothing more.”

  Eye heaved a sigh. Like she’d done thousands of times, she projected an image into his mind. This one featured a bloody Jareth on his knees, his head bowed as he sobbed.

  Prince Jareth, miserable enough to squeeze out a few tears? Kaysar must witness this. The princeling will sob within the hour!

  The royal seer took a step forward, daring to brave his wrath as she lured him from his musings. “Why don’t you kill King Hador and Prince Jareth and be done with your hatred once and for all?” She motioned to the tattoo branded into his biceps. A snake curled into a figure eight, eating its own tail, with a sword running through the center. His kingdom’s symbol, meaning “eternal war.”

  Foolish girl. “You don’t part with the things you love. You hold them close and never let go.” His hatred was his oldest and dearest friend. His closest family. If he lost it the way he’d lost Viori, what would he have?

  Eye gave him a pitying look. “Why does your desire for vengeance matter more than another’s hope for peace?” The words contained notes of curiosity rather than disrespect, the only reason he spared her life. “Your people tire of war, King Kaysar. Myself included. Do you even care?”

  “What a ridiculous question. Of course I don’t care. My people have shelter, food and protection. A slight to them is a slight to me. I demand only what I’m owed in return.”

  “Yes, but you think you are owed blind obedience every moment of every day.”

  “Wrong. I believe I’m owed blind obedience every moment of every day and truth.” If anyone lied to him, they immediately lost their kingdom privileges. One of which was breathing.

  She tossed up her hands. “You make it impossible for your people to find happiness, you know.”

  “You have never been more wrong. Happiness is the only thing I’ve left up to them. If they go without it, they can only blame themselves.” A thought occurred to him. He tilted his head, intensifying his study of her. “Have you decided my terms are unacceptable? You are more than welcome to leave my lands.”

  To reach another kingdom, she must travel through the Forest of Many Names. Long ago, Kaysar had relocated centaurs, ogres and trolls into the wilds. For anyone not bearing his seal, moving from kingdom to kingdom had a high likelihood of ending in disaster.

  “I have no desire to leave,” she said, then sighed. “Don’t you want love, accolades and respect?”

  “No,” he replied, and he meant it. Highborn and lowborn alike often accused him of being cruel and heartless, obsessed and maddened. The adjectives he preferred. Why change?

  Her shoulders sagged, as if she’d failed him. “If you don’t let go of your vengeance, Kaysar, you won’t grab hold of your woman, the only person who can give you what you long for most. And it isn’t vengeance!”

  Had the visions addled her brain? “I have no woman, I want no woman and I long for vengeance.” His only form of satisfaction. What did he care about a specific bedmate? A lover was a lover, one the same as any other; they simply wore difference faces. The least important feature.

  In what seemed like desperation, Eye burst out, “You could have a woman. You could have more than loneliness.”

  Lonely? Him? “I’m beginning to question your sanity, Eye.”

  “If you continue on this path, you will condemn yourself to a misery unlike any you’ve ever known,” she stated, a flash of sympathy in her dark gaze. “You will lose everything that matters to you.”

  “I have already lost everything that matters,” he grated. “Now I merely repay.”

  “But—”

  “No!” Enough of this. “The Frostlines planted seeds of hate in the rich soil of my heart. For twelve months, the king and princes watered those seeds, ensuring they sprouted up and grew roots. Yet here you stand, daring to complain to the tree for producing its harvest? How dare you? The Frostlines will eat the fruit, that I swear to you.” Temper verging on dangerous, he leaped to his feet. “You would do well to mind your tongue, Eye, before I add it to my collection.”

  Yes, he displayed severed tongues in jars, on special shelves in his bedroom. He displayed other organs, too. What made a better trophy than a literal piece of his foes?

  Before he did something he might possibly consider regretting at some later date far in the future, Kaysar flittered, then appeared in the Forest of Many Names. In a location he’d recognized from Eye’s vision.

  He turned his focus to his mission—hurting Prince Jareth in the worst way imaginable.

  Don’t miss the next all-new novel, Heartless, by New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter!

  Copyright © 2021 by Gena Showalter

  ISBN-13: 9781488077777

  The Warlord

  Copyright © 2021 by Gena Showalter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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