The Dark Huntsman: A Fantasy Romance of The Black Court (Tales of The Black Court Book 1)

by Jessica Aspen

  “We seal this bargain now, or I take you back and kill you.” His soft voice stroked her, capturing her, despite her knowledge that none of this attraction was real. His thumb slid up and down her skin and she repressed a responding shiver. “Seven years is customary, but one will do for us. One year and a day. You will still be young, your family will still remember you.”

  The fire crackled and popped in the silence and Trina understood the meaning of eternity in a moment as his compromise dangled, a sharp knife wrapped in his velvet voice.

  For one year, I can do anything if I have to. Scrub floors, clean up after his horse. One year of labor or death. Not much of a choice, but it is a choice.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Okay.” The word fell out of her mouth.

  It was done.

  Triumph rocketed through his eyes. He stood, hauled her off the couch, and pulled her into his chest. The blanket slid down, her nipples rubbing against the soft silk of his shirt. The thin material caught between her and the heat packaged in his leather pants.

  “A kiss to seal our bargain, milady.”

  She had no time to prepare for his firm mouth. She fought, pushing against his lips with hers, her fists caught between them. The kiss softened and she relaxed in surprise.

  The release was just as sudden. He pushed her away and she fell onto the couch.

  He crossed the room to the door, his mouth twisted, his eyes remote. “Take the first room on the left at the top of the stairs. I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and lock the door,” he called over his shoulder. “My uncles shouldn’t be back until morning, but if they find you here they’ll not hesitate to take advantage.”

  “Wait! Where are you going?”

  He turned, his silver hair decorations chiming, his expression grim. “I’m running out of time. In order for the queen to stop hunting you, someone must set the scene for your false death.”

  “How?”

  “I’m going to set a fire and burn your house down.” He smiled. “But don’t worry, I’ll be back. We have unfinished business, you and I.”

  Trina went weak in the knees. Now that he was gone, she let go of her resistance and sank back into the couch, touching her swollen lips. Damn. One kiss and she was gelatin. Not a good way to start a job.

  Chapter Three

  Logan left the cottage, his blood buzzing from kissing the witch. He greeted the lolling hounds with absent pats and strokes behind their ears all the while cursing the lack of time needed to seduce the wild-eyed beauty.

  Time enough for that after he returned.

  He whistled for Solanum and pictured the witch as she had been during their bargaining session. Waist-long black hair tangled around her face and pale shoulders. Green eyes shadowed with exhaustion, the last vestiges of her power keeping her upright on the couch. She’d wrapped his blanket high around her breasts, seemingly oblivious to the indecent amount of smooth, bare thigh that remained exposed.

  Punishing him with isolation and sending him after a nubile young witch was not the queen’s smartest chess move.

  Look what had transpired.

  Red eyes approached. “Did you do her yet?” Solanum asked, his dark equine form barely visible in the shadows.

  “Crass, even for you.” Logan left off spoiling the hounds and pulled on his leather gloves.

  “Crass sure, but man, it’s been a long time for you. I’d have done her.” Solanum’s eyes gleamed. “That is, unless you had some action in the queen’s dungeons. I’ve heard stories.”

  Logan shuddered, and the puca whickered a low laugh.

  “Luckily for me, the bitch forgot me in a hole.” Finally, after she’d spent far too long making sure he’d remember why he was there. Logan distracted himself from the dark memories with thoughts of his new toy, and how he could use her against the queen.

  “We have an errand to run before it’s time to report to the queen,” he said.

  “Insane. Why would you risk her shutting you up again?” Solanum asked. “Let’s just run wild instead.”

  “If I don’t go back and cover my tracks, she’ll do worse than toss me in the dungeon,” he said. “I could run, but someone, somewhere would find me. I won’t live long looking over my shoulder. And there is the prince.”

  “So fuck the wench, kill her, and move on.” Solanum’s muzzle nudged his shoulder. “I’ll kill her for you, she looks delicious.”

  Not going to happen. Logan had his own plans for the witch, none of which included killing her. The green herbal smell of her silky skin was fresh in his senses. No, he’d avoid killing her. If he could.

  “You know that killing her won’t be enough. The queen will find something else for me to do to earn my freedom. I need an edge, and this witch is it. Someone as powerful as the queen shouldn’t be concerned with a human witch. Somehow, she’s important, and I mean to find out why.”

  “Be honest. You were all set to kill her ‘til you saw her in the flesh. You always were impulsive, now you’re finally free and making the same mistakes. Leave the fucking politics alone, be a free agent, like me.” The puca kicked up his hooves in a little dance. “You’re playing with fire. Pacify the queen and kill the wench.”

  Logan swung up on the puca’s back. “Don’t forget, she’s an important piece in the game. There are other girls, to be sure, but none like this one.”

  “Too many years without getting any, and your noggin is fogged. Do her and clear your head man,” Solanum said.

  “Good advice. I’m working on it. Now back to the witch’s lair, I don’t want any loose ends leading back here. My uncles will not be happy.”

  “I thought we were going to Court.”

  “We will, but first, we fire the witch’s house.”

  “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Cauldron burn and cauldron bubble. Burn, baby, burn!”

  Logan hung on to the capering puca and cursed the queen. They sped up and the portal opened. There had been too many years of the puca running free, causing havoc. It was a wonder world upon world wasn’t burnt down to ash.

  Logan lounged against the antechamber wall of the Black Queen’s court, a small inlaid box waiting at his feet. Surreptitiously he looked around, taking in the crowd of petitioners who were there before him. A tiny, familiar-looking fae dipped her chin and buzzed her wings from the opposite bench, her multi-faceted eyes glittering. He nodded back, struggling to come up with her name. It seemed he had the dubious distinction of still being recognized, even if only by the minor fae.

  “Logan Ni Brennan!”

  He almost jumped. But he wouldn’t do that, not here, instead, he casually moved off the wall and over to the official gnome standing behind an equerry’s desk. Here, if one jumped, he was in danger of being the victim. In the Black Queen’s court it was better to be hard as iron.

  “The queen will see you now.” From his spot guarding the entrance to the throne room the gnome’s expression, and small, disapproving sniff, said someone had obviously made an enormous error.

  Logan straightened off the wall, picked up his box, and kept his face smooth and emotionless. This was the first time in a lifetime he could remember the queen ordering him to be seen immediately. A flicker of foreboding touched his neck. A sudden black cloud of knowledge that the witch was more important than he’d thought settled inside him. Maybe keeping her had been a mistake.

  He walked past the hard wooden benches filled with petitioners, and shut out the disgruntled mutterings and stares. A malicious foot stuck out and only fast reflexes, honed from years spent here in court, saved him. How could these fools know he would prefer to be anywhere but walking into the Black Queen’s court.

  A sobbing blue fairy spat hot venom and missed his boot by a finger. “I’ve been here three weeks. Three weeks!”

  You always had to watch out for the sweet looking ones.

  “Wait here.” The officious little gnome wasn’t finished letting him know his place. He left Logan once again co
oling his heels at the base of the twenty-foot-tall doors that opened into the thousand-year-old hedge, and into court.

  A drop of sweat licked its way down his spine as he admired the soft, hot pink roses twining up the side of the thorny hedge walls. The skin at the small of his back began to itch. That he’d forget the queen favored an almost tropical heat showed his level of distraction. Black leather was not working here. He’d been careless.

  “Well, well, well. Look what the lions have dragged in. Haven’t seen you in, say… fifteen years. Or has it been longer than that? I didn’t notice.”

  “Bosco.” Logan’s chin dipped in brief recognition.

  Slim and tall, a true Tuatha De Danann, Bosco posed, leaning on a nearby pillar in a negligent fashion. He had tweaked a traditional jester’s garb into a tight, black and white motley of shorts and tank that showcased his black eyes, white punked hair, and other assets.

  “I didn’t think she’d ever let you out, after your betrayal.”

  Logan’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t betray anyone.”

  “Well, the queen certainly didn’t take well to you backing the prince instead of her. She should have expected it of a mixed breed like you. I’d say, since she threw you in the dungeon, she thinks you’re a backstabbing cur.”

  “You haven’t changed, Bosco, still sniffing around court for easy meat.” Logan refused to be taunted into losing it today. He had to keep his cool. “Bugger off.”

  Bosco gave his eyes an exaggerated roll. “One would think that growing up here, you would know better how to survive this cesspool.”

  “I’m still alive.” Logan’s tightly locked jaw ached. He stifled the almost smothering rise of memories of his miserable childhood, and how many times he’d been saved from Bosco’s crowd by luck. Luck, and the prince.

  “Hmmm. So, are you the prince’s man, or the queen’s? The dungeons can be a powerful persuader.” Bosco slid off the wall, circling around Logan, searching for weakness. “I know you aren’t a fan of the queen’s choice of bride for poor Kian, but surely, marriage to one of the troll-kin is better than imprisonment. Or at the very least, a different kind.”

  Was Kian still imprisoned? The prince hadn’t been in the queen’s dungeon and he sure as hell hadn’t contacted Logan since his release. Anxiety knotted his stomach. Concern for the prince was not something he could afford today. Nor was trading information with Bosco.

  His liege, the prince, would have to wait. He had the witch to protect first. Not for the first time he regretted his impulsive nature. He should have learned his lessons better in the dungeon.

  “Logan Ni Brennan to see her majesty.” The clear voice of the seneschal rang out over the crowd. Logan turned his back on Bosco, ignoring his hiss of displeasure. Bosco was the queen’s fool, not someone who would ever be his ally. It was time to face the bitch.

  The enormous doors opened and Logan stepped through into the glitz and glitter of the never-ending party that was the Court of the Black Queen.

  Court. What a crock. A gorgeous cover for a mass of social quicksand, shifting and sucking the unwary down to their doom.

  He passed lumbering giants and clusters of the tiny blood-sucking winged fae, teeth gleaming in sharply pretty faces. Whispers spread in front of him in a shallow spill of oil, ready for him to slip. On the outside, he strode with a confidence none could deny. Inside, he tread warily.

  Court hadn’t changed during his absence. Everyone in the sultry atmosphere competing for tiny bits of information that might push their tiny movements up the ladder. Or down. Long green expanses filled with bright flowers combined with the massive walls of thorns. Room after room spread out for the exotically dressed and politically charged crowd to gossip, play, or torture.

  He split one large festive group in two, silks and satins rustling as he pushed between a large Indian tiger conversing with an elegant Tuathan lady and a tuxedoed satyr. He ignored the laughter and snide comments dropped behind the crowd’s hands and paws. Odds were, the crowd thought he was still in disfavor.

  Odds were, they were right.

  He was at the approach to the queen faster than he’d ever made the walk before and it increased his already strung-tight nerves. Sometimes, the magic of the audience chamber shuffled you away and you never could approach the thrones. Not today. Not for Logan. Today, the magic of the court was an escalator to hell.

  Two ancient trees towered into the sky above, their roots twisted into polished seats for the queen and her counterpart. Prince Kian’s throne was empty.

  No help there. And no knowing when he might see his friend and probably only ally. Please the Goddess, the prince was not still in disfavor with his mother. Logan should know, fifteen years of the queen’s disfavor was enough to kill a man.

  Her majesty, The Black Queen of the Tuatha De Danaan, was a vision in a barely-there gown, a shimmering rainbow of purples, matching her eyes and exotic purple red hair. Once the poor, ignorant humans had worshipped her as a goddess, and no one had better forget.

  Logan was relieved to see Aeval, her pleasure aspect, and not the Morrigan, the dark battle goddess. Or worse, the Crone. Aeval implied her mood was light. At least, as light as the queen’s mood could be. The queen’s appearance was one of the many gifts that had put her on the throne. Her changes were real, touchable, and dangerous.

  He made his bow, exposing his neck for the ritual chopping block, and waited to be addressed. The small, inlaid box weighed heavy in his hands.

  “So Huntsman, it is done?" Her unwavering gaze latched on to his and he struggled to remind himself that he too was of royal blood.

  “I followed your instructions, my lady. You bade me go to the house of the witches and kill what I found there.” Her eyes constricted slightly, darting from side to side in a quick birdlike motion, but she didn’t call him on the deception. He hoped that meant he had successfully deceived her into thinking he had obeyed.

  “I see you have brought me a gift. What is it?”

  The court’s immediate silence hung over him, the crowd waiting for the queen’s languid hand to wave before the blade dropped. The hot, heavy smell of jasmine twined around him, tickling deep in his throat. He suppressed a cough and stepped forward to present the queen with the small box.

  This had better work, or he was worse than dead.

  “The heart of she I slew,” he said formally, holding the intricately decorated box out until his arms strained. An eternity later, a slender maid with sly, tip-tilted eyes took it from him and presented it in turn to the queen.

  Aeval took the inlaid box, and opened it.

  Of incredible Dwarven craftsmanship, the box was magically made to preserve whatever was inside. It held the fresh oozing doe’s heart as it had been moments after death. Logan concentrated on not holding his breath and looking the correct amount of disinterested.

  The queen barely glanced in the box before she shut the lid and handed it off to her handmaiden.

  “There is only one. What of the rest? There were to have been more of them!” Her lips compressed into a small thin line. He felt the court shrink behind him in preparation for flight. Another drop of sweat slid down his neck. The itching became almost unbearable.

  The key to lying successfully for one of the fae was to never actually lie. That would get him through this. That, and the fact that the queen knew, as well as anyone, that none of the fae could utter a lie. Fifteen years of floating in the never land of hibernieth had given him ample time to think of how to deal with her majesty.

  And how to dissemble. Not lie.

  “There was only one.”

  “No.” she said, rising to her feet. Her hands moved outward in a short chopping gesture. “My mirror said there were four witches living there!”

  Logan stood his ground and held fast to the truth he chanted inside his head. The truth he wanted her to hear, to believe.

  “There was only one.”

  It was the truth.

  One doe in th
e sage labyrinth. One doe called by his magics. One death for the queen.

  The queen’s eyes swirled into a deep purple vortex, sucking him in. He couldn’t look away as she looked deep into his soul, as if she could force him to change his answer.

  Only one. Only one. Only one.

  Her slender fingers tap, tap, tapped together in a pyramid. He kept his gaze steady, facing her without flinching. His life, his uncles’ lives, and that of the woman he now hid, all depended on him. How had he come to this? Too long imprisoned without a woman and he’d made a snap decision looking at her naked body.

  He must have been mad.

  He forced himself to drive all doubts from his mind, all thoughts of the witch and her possibilities. All desires. He held fast to his statement. His truth.

  One death for the queen.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  She had better be worth it.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  The moment hung in the air until his back was wet. The queen eased back down onto her throne, never taking her disconcerting eyes off of his.

  “Haddon!” she snapped out. Still looking at Logan. Still tapping her fingers.

  The queen’s secretary and chief counsel scurried over. A tall, thin man with pale green skin and lank, green, weedy hair whose boot-licking had propelled him a long way up the social ladder since Logan had first met him as a child. They whispered back and forth. The queen’s eyes never breaking their vicious hold.

  Logan waited. Legs slightly spread, hands folded behind his back, knees bent. He could stand like this for hours, and he might need to. She’d left others until they dropped. Did she forget, just move on? Or did she do it on purpose? She did love to torture.

  The queen and Haddon stopped whispering, their heads still close together. They eyed Logan. A pair of cats eyeing a mouse, deciding whether to play with him some more or move straight to devouring. The queen’s long tapping fingers stilled. Behind him, he could sense the court gathering for the feast.