Crown of Thorns: a Fae Urban Fantasy (Dark Fae Assassins Academy Book 1)

by Melle Amade

  But I knew better.

  That cat had the devil in her, and it would take more than one frost fae to wipe her out. She might be held down and immovable, but there was more to that cat than met the eye, and werecats were so rare, that the frost fae who had bound her, probably had no idea of her capabilities. Tat and I did, though.

  Now I had the positions. The frost fae was in the far corner of the room, her back to the brick walls. Frost fae weren’t afraid of being cornered, they could blast their way through anything. I reached the end of the bookshelf. The frost fae smiled, her lavender lips lifting cruely at the corners. She thought she had me. She was right. There was nowhere further to go away from her.

  I had to go towards her.

  With a massive leap I did a double flip in the air landing hard on the ice block that held Tat. The ice was sleek, and my boots slipped, but I struck my nails into it hard for the briefest of seconds until my balance stabilized. I grinned up at the frost fae, my eyes as black as any true dark faes would be in battle.

  But the frost fae had stopped firing at me.

  “Do you know how long it's taken me to track you down?” she asked, her gaze flicking to Tat. “If it wasn't for your stupid werecat, I’d never have found you.”

  “That’s a lie,” I said, knowing it was the truth. Tat was the only being left in my life that linked me to the fair world. Well, her and Bruta, but everyone in Fae thought Bruta was dead, so no one was looking for her. “What do you want?" I asked.

  Her ice blue eyes narrowed, her pale white skin slightly tightening. “I thought that’d be obvious,” she said. "I am here to kill you.”

  I swallowed hard and assumed a fighting stance, but I knew it was mostly hopeless. I had been eighteen when I left the fae world. I had refused the Crown Academy, acused them of killing my parents and in a fit of well-plotted out anger left them no choice but to name me Unforgiven. I had tried to keep up my fighting skills, but a black belt in MMA and my fae physicality still wouldn’t withstand a trained assassin with ice magic.

  I was screwed.

  But I wasn’t about to go down without a fight. I slammed the heel of my boot hard into the ice block that held Tat. I did it again with the other heel. Again, and again.

  The frost fae gave a frigid laugh. “Are you trying to dance? Because you can’t be stupid enough to think you can break a block of frost fae ice. Or, wait, your memory would have been erased, wouldn’t it?” she smirked.

  I didn’t respond. There was no way I was about to let her know that somehow it hadn’t worked on me. Somehow, I’d retained my most important memories and what I couldn’t remember, Bruta had filled in for me.

  “Well, if I’m going to die, I might as well go out dancing,” I said, hitting my heels again.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t seem too shocked, by my presence in your home,” she said. “Is it possible you didn’t lose all your memory?”

  I wasn’t going to entertain that conversation. It didn’t matter. She’d made it clear this was a fight to the death so what I knew or didn’t know hardly seemed to matter. I swiftly hit my heels too more times creating just enough of a dent in the ice to know I could get a grip again. I crouched low, arms outstretched, body like a plank as I flew backwards through the air, tore two spears from where they were clipped vertically into the bookshelf. My feet barely touched the the top of the bookshelf and I sprung forwards, repeating the move and landing my heels in the grips I’d made on the ice block.

  The forst fae cocked an eyebrow. “Not bad,” she said with a slight smile, “but how’s it going to protect you against this?”

  Ice daggers shot from her palms. I deflected them with the head of each spear in a blinding motion.

  “Oh, you’re going to make this fun, darky,” she grinned, stepping forward out of her corner.

  “Well, you’re sure as hell not going to kill me hiding in a corner,” I smiled back. “Why don’t you come out and try some real action.”

  Her eyes paled at the challenge. “You don’t even know who you are dealing with.”

  “I’m dealing with the asshat who froze my cat,” I said.

  “He’s not going to be the only thing to die tonight, Unforgiven,” she said.

  “Tat is a she,” I said, refraining from letting her know that the cat was far from dead. Clearly this fae hadn’t studied her werecats that well. She had no idea what Tat could do. I just needed the frozen bitch a little closer. “I haven’t broken any rules,” I said, doing a quick back flip off the ice block and landing on the floor. I was going to need to entice her into a bit of cat and mouse.

  “The fact you know there are rules means you’ve broken them,” she sneered. “Your Unforgiven Darky it means you've had your memory wiped. But you’ve done something to get your memory back.”

  “You have a damn good point,” I say. “But it doesn’t explain why you wanted to hunt me down and kill me.”

  My chest tightens as I watch her blank expression. I don't think she even knows why she wants to kill me either. Am I just an assignment?

  “You talk too much,” she said, leaping nimbly onto the ice block and staring down at me, her hands raised as she prepared to blast ice daggers into my heart.

  Shit. This had better work.

  I pressed the buttons in the handles of the spears and jammed them with all my force directly into the ice block. Bruta had made these weapons for me specifically if a frost fae came for me. The metal tips heated up instantaneously and sent fracturing heat through the iceblock, but I knew that wouldn’t be enough.

  The frost fae lept in the air as the ice began to shatter, but she wasn’t fast enough. I dove to the side, thowing my body behind my black leather couch as Tat shifted in all her firey glory.

  A burning ball of flames rose up into the air catching the frost fae on fire as her head flew back and she screamed in agony. Tat rose up, her dragon wings pulling her out of the shattered ice block as the frost fae fell, landing in a pile of her own frozen work.

  I rushed forward, putting out the flames as I dug my knee into her chest. Tat landed next to me her green eyes glaring at the frost fae, her mouth open, ready to burn the fae at my command.

  “Who sent you?” I asked. “Who sent you?”

  “Nice dragon,” the frost fae murmured, her breath labored, her stomach heaving as if it was taking ever ounce of energy for her to even breathe. Her hand reached out and before I realized what she was doing she shoved her hand inside Tat’s mouth and blasted every last bit of ice she had in her straight down Tat’s throat.

  “Fuck no!” I screamed. My gaze met with Tats and I watched as frost instantly engulfed every part of her body from the inside out and she shattered into a million broken beads of ice. “Tat!” I screamed, but it was too late, and I knew it. I shoved my grief down and pressed the blade of my heated spear against the frost fae’s throat.

  “Who the hell sent you to kill me,” I ground the words out wanting nothing more than to ram the blade deep in her throat but knowing she was just a tool and I needed to find the real one who wanted my head.

  “That’s something you’ll never know,” she muttered, her head turning to the side as she pressed a palm against a spike on her belt.

  “No!” I cried. “Damn it, no!”

  But the poison acted instantly. Her skin grew warm, her taut face slack and bloody foam trickled from the corner of her mouth. She lay there dead in a puddle of freezing water that was once my beloved werecat.

  3

  The core of my body shook but I couldn’t crack crack. There’s no way I could deal with the pain ripping through my body. I couldn’t believe Tat was gone. My werecat, my dragon. My only true companion for the last four years. The only being I had left to love. Tatiana was gone.

  No.

  Stop.

  I couldn’t think about Tat right now. I had to deal with what was in front of me. This fucking Frost Fae. Some sort of assassin sent to kill me for no damn good reason. Since wh
en had I interfered with the fae world. Hell, I was the one who wanted to leave it. I’d gone to great lengths to become Unforgiven.

  I needed to figure out who she was and where the hell she came from. But as I looked at her skin, she was starting to melt also.

  Damn it.

  Hurriedly I started to look at her body. I twisted her hands over and saw the mark on her wrist. The crown with the A in the center point.

  Crown Fucking Academy. She’s a frost fae from the same place where my parents worked. The same place they were sent on assignment and shipped off to who knows where with some flimsy excuse that ‘your parents were killed in the line of duty.’ The lie of duty more like.

  And just like that, the frost fae was gone. My stomach heaved as her watery remains mixed with those of my beloved werecat. There was nothing left of either of them. Not a hair or a scale. Just one blended clear puddle of water.

  And floating on top of it was the frost fae’s clothes. Must be some new school uniform. Though all black with gold trim was a little grim, even for the dark fae King Aoelfdene. Last time I was there for an interview they wore proper school uniforms. Not leather armor.

  A pounding on the door, startled me to my feet.

  Fuck. The landlord. There was no way in hell I had the energy to explain this to her right now. Even if I knew what lies to make up that she would believe.

  Forget it.

  I picked the frost bitch’s uniform out of the water and shoved it, dripping and all into my backpack. There was no way I was going to solve this alone.

  My face is reflected in the puddle. It’s all angular lines and determination. When my parents didn’t come back from “Academy Business” I was told to leave it alone. Told by my own sister.

  So, I had.

  Well, not this time.

  The pounding on the front door kept going but I wasn’t sticking around I lept on top of the bookshelf and ran along it until I got close enough to the shattered skylight. I lept like an arrow, shooting through the opening and I raced along the roof leaving behind the nosey landlord and the remains of my werecat.

  Bruta owed me a favor and today she was going to pay it back, no matter what it cost her, or me.

  The label Unforgiven wasn’t easily earned. There weren’t so many fae in the world that a clan could just get rid of one of its members. But we did have clear laws and killing one of your won clan was what you had to do to earn the title Unforgiven.

  They wouldn’t kill you, but you’d be banished. Forever. There was no coming back from the label. The only problem was, you did have to kill someone from your own clan.

  So, I had killed Bruta. The oldest dark fae I’d known in my entire life. The glee I felt when I’d been accused and found guilty was shocking. I had found a way out. I wouldn’t have to go to Crown Academy and be trained as an assassin, like my parents before me.

  It had been my career path for so long, I never knew or expected anything else. Even though I knew they just used assassins for the king’s own ends, it had always seemed the right thing to do. We were meant to live in service of our Dark Fae King. He needed all the help he could get against those sparkly light bastards. Even after killing Bruta the King had tried to pardon me, but I’d told him in no uncertain terms and in a very formal public court that he could take his Crown Academy and shove it up his ass. They were crazy to think that after everything the fae had been through we were all going to be able to come together in a single institution of learning and build a bridge of peace between the different fae.

  That was never going to happen. We’d already been fighting for millineum after millineum. Now just because the Dark and Light kings thought it was a good idea to marry off their two offspring together, they thought it would form an alliance and end the wars.

  Well, feelings didn’t go away that quickly.

  And I don’t care how hot those two royals were rumored to be, I bet they didn’t get on all that well either.

  Crown Academy these last few years would have to have been an epic fail. There was no way I’d have anything to do with it.

  My sister had stayed though. She watched my trials and believed I killed Bruta and she’d willingly let them wipe her memory of me. No matter how much I begged her to leave, she had refused. They had promised her a great future there and she had fallen for it hook line and sinker.

  And to be fair, what did I know? Maybe she had met the man of her dreams, was doing great at the academy and never had a sense of missing something…like her only living relative. I ground my teeth together. I’m not sure I could ever forgive her for not coming with me.

  More than that, I don’t think I would ever forgive her for believing I would kill another dark fae.

  4

  Bruta owned a massive brownstone in Brooklyn. That’s one thing you gotta give the fae, they know how to live stylishly among the humans. I bounded up the stairs, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder. No one had followed me. If they had, I would have known. I would have smelled them, frost fae or not.

  But it worked both ways, Bruta knew I was there before I arrived, and the door opened as I raised my hand to the devil-headed knocker. Bruta was so old she remembered when the Dökkálfar became labeled Dark Fae by the Ljósálfar who claimed the title Light Fae. She wasn’t as offended as everyone else had been, she had simply embraced it. If the Light Fae wanted an enemy, Bruta would happily oblige. Stories around her activities were legendary. She had grown horns, changed her skin red and had magically implanted fangs. But it wasn’t all just looks. She had been at the forefront of the Dark Fae army, leading hordes of rabid followers into battle against the Light Fae and their subordinates, the Blood Fae. So many had died under her rage, but she had kept going, bringing the Frost Fae to heel and join her forces in a way no other general had done before or since.

  I stepped through the threshold of her home and knew exactly where she was. Not because of my fae senses, but because she almost always spent her time in the atrium at the back of her house. The house itself gave no hint of her fearsome fae heritage. It was, in fact, the most human house one could imagine. She had designed it with a modern flair that kept a sleek red, white and black pattern going through the house. I passed through the pristine white kitchen and paused at the counter, leaning against it and watching her stretch up and prune a kiwi vine that was twisted around the white columns.

  Sometimes I forgot how different fae really were from humans. In general, we looked the same, two legs, two arms, a head with hair growing on it, but I’d been living amongst humans now for a few years and compared to fae they were clumsy, awkward and basically inadequate. Unlike fae though, this made me like them more. There was something gentle and naïve and unpredictable about humans. Fae were lythe, graceful and every movement measured with accuracy and precise intention. As I watched Bruta’s hands move with inhuman speed across the kiwi vine trimming it with her fingernails, I couldn’t hep smiling. No matter what she did, she was a master. And secretly, I was glad she had shed her warlord appearance, the horns, the fangs, the red skin had all been replace with the handsome features of a middle-aged human, even though she was ancient even by Fae standards.

  “They found you,” she said, finishing her work and turning towards me, her high cheekbones and thin lips drawn with serenity and grace.

  I plonked my dirty backpack onto her sparkling white quartz counter.

  “I don’t know if they did,” I said. “But this one tried to kill me.” Hell, I wasn’t even sure if I knew who ‘they’ were, and I had learned better over the years than to ask her too many questions. Bruta only shared the information she wanted to when she wanted to. I untied my backpack and dumped the frost fae’s wet uniform onto the pristine island.

  Bruta cocked an eyebrow as water dripped from the uniform onto the floor. “I see you got your black belt,” she smiled, coming over and lifting the bedraggled strip of cloth up to inspect it. It clashed with the intricate patterns of white braids that piled h
igh on her head. “Congratulations, my girl,” she nodded. “I know you have worked hard for this.”

  “The bitch killed Tat.” My tongue felt swollen as I choked the words out.

  Bruta’s fine white eyebrows knit together and her hand clasped mine. She knew what Tat meant to me.

  Everything.

  I marveled at Bruta as she gently stroked my hand, the delicate rings on her fingers clinking together in a musical pattern. For someone who was rumored to have killed more than five hundred fae on her own and led the battles that destroyed thousands more, she was the most sensitive fae I’d ever known.

  And she still had magic.

  Her touch was calming and a relief to my anxious system. My breath slowed down and began to match hers until calmness had almost enveloped me.

  “It was a frost fae,” I stated.

  She nodded slowly. “Yes, this is clear, but the question is, why?”

  “I kept asking her that,” I said. “And I asked who sent her, but she wouldn’t tell me. She used the last of her magic to kill Tat and then she pressed her hand against this.”

  I carefully maneuvred the belt around so she could see the poisoned spike that had instantly killed the frost fae.

  Bruta frowned, sniffing at the spike. I held my breath nervous that she would come too close and it would poison her too, but she put it down after one deep inhale.

  “A squaddie,” she said.

  “Squaddie?” I repeated stupidly. I knew about the soldiers who had fought in the legions. They were also known as legionaires, but they were outlawed with the new accords and the peace the Dark and Light Fae kings were trying to make. “Shouldn’t they be illegal?”