by A. D. Winter
PRAISE FOR IVY CROSS AND THE MONARCH OF DARKNESS
“Ivy Cross and the Monarch of Darkness” … is a wonderful book. A.D. Winter[’s] writing style is impeccable, crisp and accurate with a perfect flow that effortless[y] takes the reader along throughout the action; with a good constructed storyline, a careful[y] crafted fantasy world, wonderfully crafted and multifaceted characters.
Katheyer from Goodreads
Ivy Cross and the Monarch of Darkness is shall I say fantastic. Once you pick this up I hope you have plenty of time because [you] will not want to put it down for anything.
Scott from Goodreads
There is so much to love about this Ivy Cross and the Monarch of Darkness. If you enjoy such masterpieces as Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, … Lost Girl, Buffy the Vampire Slayer … Supernatural, Lord of the Rings, Carnival Row, … you will love this book.
Sabrina from Goodreads
Amazingly written with twist[s] and turns you won’t see coming!
Joanna Bigg from Goodreads
The story flows off the pages[,] keeping you engaged and turning page after page, even after you should have gone to bed! I can't recommend this book enough to fantasy lovers and personally can not wait until I can read the next one!
Carlynne Toomey from Goodreads
Ivy Cross and the Monarch of Darkness
By
A D Winter
Contents
Prologue
1. Ivy
2. Ivy
3. Ivy
4. Ivy
5. Ivy
6. Ivy
7. Malicik
8. Ivy
9. Ivy
10. Ivy
11. Ivy
12. Ivy
13. James
14. Ivy
15. Ivy
16. Ivy
17. Ivy
18. Barton
19. Ivy
20. Ivy
21. Ivy
22. Ivy
23. Ivy
24. Ivy
25. Malick
26. Ivy
27. The Initiate
28. Ivy
29. Ivy
30. Ivy
31. Ivy
32. Barton
33. Ivy
34. Ivy
35. Ivy
36. Ivy
37. Ivy
38. Ivy
39. Ivy
A quick word from A.D. Winter
Prologue
For the first time since he was a child, Grand Duke François was frightened for his life.
His hands were trembling. His heart was racing. And his brow was covered in sweat. He tugged at the restraints of his chair, wincing as the manacles tore at his wrists.
But it was useless.
He took a deep breath, hoping it would calm his nerves, but his chest suddenly tightened again as he heard the ominous footsteps of his torturers outside in the hallway.
His gaze shifted to the door, eyes wide with fear.
How had it come to this?
How had he allowed himself to be put in such danger?
Because of love, he told himself. Because of love.
The elf stirred as the door to his room swung open, its metal framework slamming against the concrete wall of his prison.
Seconds later a hooded figure in a red robe appeared. At the figure’s side was the slender beauty who’d betrayed him. Even now he couldn’t resist her charms. She was seductive in her black latex dress, her pink hair loose around her shoulders. She shot the grand duke a toothy grin, plunging the stake of her treachery deeper into his heart.
How she had seduced him with her false promises and playful kisses, blinding him to reason and leading him down this dark and evil path.
Now he was alone, shackled within the Forgotten Quarter, forced to face the hooded figure, who was now his captor.
“Hello, François.” The hooded figure’s voice was deep and menacing.
The grand duke swallowed. He’d never met the Monarch before. Their communication had always been limited to messages scribbled on pieces of parchment. A frustrating way to do business, he admitted. But now that his associate was standing before him, appearing like a tower of crimson, its hooded face an abyss of shadow, the grand duke wished that they’d remained strangers.
“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked.
“What happens to all traitors,” the Monarch replied. “You will be punished.”
“But you have no right,” the elf shot back. “I am a grand duke.”
“And from what I know, grand dukes die just as easily as goblins.”
The grand duke’s eyes narrowed in anger. “How dare you! If I were—”
“Silence!” The Monarch’s voice lashed out at him like a whip, and he felt his brain sting with malice. “Your refusal to uphold your end of the bargain is unacceptable, and now you must pay with interest.”
The grand duke blinked through his desperation, a bead of sweat—or was it blood?—dripping down his face. “What you ask for is too much.” His head hung wearily between his shoulders. “Even for me …”
The Monarch snorted. “An elf with a heart. I wonder what your siblings would think if they could see you now.”
The grand duke recoiled as the Monarch stepped forward, and he felt its cold fingers running across his cheek.
“Yet worry not. The ruin of Salvation is well underway, and in less than two days, the lies of the fae will be revealed.”
The grand duke raised his chin in defiance. “The others will fight you. They’ll go to the Council. They’ll stop you.”
“They will do no such thing.” The Monarch’s confidence was unnerving. “Their greed and taste for power are as great as yours.”
“Not when they find out what it is you mean to take from them.”
“By then it’ll be too late,” said the Monarch. “Just as it is for you.”
The grand duke flinched as he heard the scream of a young girl from the next room, followed by the threatening growl of a beast. “Please,” the grand duke said. “Don’t.”
“Enjoy these final moments, Your Royal Highness,” said the Monarch, “for soon your voice will be silenced, and the Song of Woe will play once more.”
The grand duke watched in fear as the Monarch glided from the room, leaving him alone with his onetime mistress.
The vampire’s eyes blazed with hunger as she strode toward him. “Don’t worry, Your Royal Highness,” she said in her Dunkler Ward accent. “This will not end quickly.”
“How could you do this to me, Celia?” the grand duke asked. “I trusted you.”
“And that was your first mistake.”
She leaned into him, and he felt the tips of her teeth sinking into his neck.
She drank slowly but steadily, and soon he felt his life begin to drift away, falling into the accursed abyss, where it was quickly snatched away by the cold hands of death.
1
Ivy
I froze in horror.
Not from the frightening vampire glaring at me from the end of the street. Nor from his ugly minions swarming the tops of the surrounding buildings, blocking my escape. But from one single realization—I’d run out of bubble gum.
Rats!
I stepped back and drew my nunchucks, their fiery edges whistling through the night air as I swung them around me. They’d been forged in the mountains of the dwarves with dragon’s breath. A tool of unimaginable destruction. A weapon of unequal strength. In other words, they were pretty awesome.
I held them out befo
re me, watching as I was surrounded by the enemy.
Vampires. They were all the same. Pretty little things who brooded in the dark. What a joke. They thought they should rule the world just because they were immortal and had really nice bone structure.
I mean, they did. But still.
They were nothing but a bunch of losers, refugees from the Dark Uprising, who were allowed to exist because the Council of Light was led by a bunch of fae.
But that was why I was here. I was going to put an end to their little party and get what I’d come for.
The vampire strode out with a toothy grin, confident now that I was surrounded by his minions. Frederick the First, or as I called him, Freddy the Fake, was a sight to behold. His long black hair was combed neatly to the side, revealing a chiseled face and piercing eyes, and his three-piece suit was decorated with a bright red tie that was clearly expensive. If he hadn’t been such a jerk, I might’ve gone out with the guy.
“Ivy,” he said in a smooth voice. “What a pleasure it is to see you again.”
“Wish I could say the same, Stink Breath,” I replied.
I’d met this loser years ago, when I was just an initiate. Back then he was just a small-timer, a bloodsucker in the shadows, working for his mistress, the Witch of Death. But now he was moving on to bigger and better things. And I needed to put an end to it before it got worse.
“You’ve been busy,” I said, motioning to his cohort of pesky vampires.
“What did you expect?” he said. “Everywhere I go, I’m met with the reek of bubble gum.”
I pressed a hand to my cheek, acting as if I’d just been insulted. “Moi?”
But he was right. I had been hunting him—for a while now—searching through the seediest parts of the city for any sign of his stinky brood. But vampires were like roaches, sneaky little insects that scampered away into the cracked edges of the night whenever the light appeared. But now I had him.
“Enough with the chitchat,” I said. “Where’s the woman?”
“What woman?”
“The one whose family you just butchered.”
He rolled his eyes. “Butchered? You make it sound so savage.”
“Because it is,” I said.
“Tomayto, tomahto,” he said, using the human expression. “It’s all a matter of perspective.”
“What are you doing with them?” I asked.
“Why, continuing with the plan, of course.”
“Whose plan?” I asked. “Ursula’s?”
A shadow of regret crossed his face, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.
He was picturing her, imagining her touch, her voice, and most of all, her evil.
But I didn’t care.
Ursula had been a horrible witch who’d tortured people with her potions. In fact, I was there the moment she died, when Carl, a homeless man who’d saved my life, slit her throat and ended it all. But now it was Freddy’s turn to face justice.
“As much as I loved her,” he said, his eyes growing sad, “she was just a pawn. As am I.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Our roles,” he said. “It’s only part of a much bigger plan. No matter though, for soon you’ll be dead, and I’ll be made a king.”
“A king?” I snorted. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”
My fingers curled around my nunchucks, and my gaze shifted about, counting the pairs of red eyes peeking over the edges of the surrounding buildings.
I counted six, but by the reek of blood in the air, I could only assume there were more. There were always more.
“If I die, the Order will be notified,” I threatened. “And there won’t be a coffin thick enough to protect you from their blades.”
He laughed. “You speak as if the Order actually cared.”
“The Order is the fist of the Council,” I said. “The protectors of the fae. The weapon against wrong. It combats the forces of darkness and upholds the pact.”
“The pact,” he said, and spit on the ground. “Such a ridiculous notion.”
“We protect it with our lives,” I said.
“And yet you’re the only one here.”
He was right. I was alone. But what choice did I have?
The vampires were believed to have withered away. Even the Order, the actual institution meant to fight them, refused to accept that they still existed. But I knew. And I was going to do everything in my power to prove it.
“I won’t need help to do what I need to do,” I said, holding him in my gaze. “But that’s something you’re going to find out.”
He laughed. “So brazen! So courageous! Just the type of prey we enjoy on a night like this. Listen, Pale Fury. You might be an inquisitor now, but there are at least a dozen of us.”
“A dozen, you say?” I snorted. “Thanks for the information. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind as I begin to slay you. Now, where’s the woman?”
He scowled, annoyed by my persistence. If there was anything he should’ve learned by now, it was that I never backed down from a fight, and I never left a vampire alive.
“Fine,” he said. “If you want her so badly, take her.”
From behind his back, he dragged out a woman in a white nightgown. She was shaking uncontrollably, her blond hair a frightening mess. Her hands were free, yet strangely, on her back was some type of metal brace holding her shoulders together. It was something I’d never seen before.
I steeled myself against the anger pulsing through me, and I reached out a hand, reassuring the woman that everything would be okay.
But even I couldn’t guarantee her safety. Freddy, as much as it pained me to admit it, was a killer whose penchant for cruelty was only matched by his narcissism. I needed to be careful.
“We can make a deal,” I said, lowering my nunchucks. “The woman for another night of freedom. What do you say?”
His brow strained as he considered the offer.
“Think about it,” I said. “Do you really want to lose your life over a human?”
A grin touched his face. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, Inquisitor. This is no human.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Look closely.”
I narrowed my eyes as I studied the trembling figure. It was then, as her eyes came into view—those magical spheres of lavender that were as beautiful as they were frightening—that I realized what she was.
2
Ivy
She was a fae.
By Danu’s sweaty palms, they’d captured a fae. But how? And when?
My body tensed as I fell back into my stance, watching as the vampires began to stir.
They rose from the surrounding rooftops like awakened gargoyles, their eyes glowing even brighter amid the darkness. They leaped from the edges of the buildings in droves, falling like birds of prey, and before I knew it, I was staring down an army of monsters ready for my blood.
I swallowed.
Swinging my nunchucks to the side, I called upon their power and felt a surge of energy vibrating through their shafts. Soon they would build into raging furnaces, weapons of unquestionable might, and I would use their magic to smite these bloodsucking idiots.
The vampires charged at me with toothy grins, their black nails shooting out of their fingers like angel blades. They took to flight, gliding through the air like raving bats, and I felt my heart leap as I saw their fanged maws.
Vampires were fast and extremely powerful. But I was an inquisitor, a warrior who’d been trained by the monks of Qin at the Temple of Sorrow. I wasn’t going to let these toothy jerks kick my butt.
I swung my nunchucks from every angle, blasting the bloodsuckers with balls of fire. The flames ripped through their bodies like cannonballs, leaving them a gory mess that littered the sky. Heads exploded. Limbs erupted. And the embers of their rotten souls were whisked away by the howling wind.
When they were nothing but ash, and I was left panting from exhaustion, I
glanced back at Freddy and grinned.
He frowned. “I see the monks of Qin taught you well. Perhaps we could come to some type of agreement.”
“Sure,” I said, swinging my nunchucks absently to the side. “Release the fae, and I won’t turn you into a box of matches.”
He snorted. “Clever.”
The fae winced as he grabbed her by the neck, and he quickly pulled her into his embrace, sniffing the length of her neck. “What is it about crossing into the old world that drives the Council of Light so crazy?”
“The pact,” I said.
“The pact.” He rolled his eyes with a chuckle. “Lies. The fae color the truth with promises of security, but the truth is you have no idea what you are. The Minstrel did though.”
“The Minstrel is thirteen feet underground,” I replied. “Which is where you’re going to be if you don’t release the fae.”
“I think not.”
“Bad move, Freddy. Really bad move.” I pulled out a throwing star from my coat and launched it at him. It caught him on the wrist, severing his hand from the fae.
“Run!” I screamed.
The fae didn’t hesitate. She raced for the sidewalk, desperate to save her life, but with her wings trapped under the mechanical brace, she could only stumble away. Eventually, she disappeared into the shadows.
