Table of Contents
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part II
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Part III
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part IV
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Wings of Stone
Protectors of Magic - Book One
Jenna Wolfhart
Wings of Stone
Book 1 of The Protectors of Magic Series
Cover Design by Covers by Christian
Copyright © 2018 by Jenna Wolfhart
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Also by Jenna Wolfhart
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part II
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part III
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part IV
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Author
Also by Jenna Wolfhart
Protectors of Magic
Wings of Stone
Carved in Stone
In the same universe as The Protectors of Magic Series…
The Bone Coven Chronicles
Witch’s Curse
Witch’s Storm
Witch’s Blade
Witch’s Fury
Part I
A COVEN OF SHADOWS
Chapter One
My smile was a lie. The Stone Keep was chilly even in the height of summer, but it was winter now, and I hated when the cold seeped into my bones. Somewhere in the world, there were beaches with hot sand and bright blue skies, and jungle forests with thick humidity and stifling heat, but that wasn’t here. I’d been stuck in the Dreadford Castle, one of the many ancient homes of the shadow witches, ever since I’d been born, and I’d never left. Not once.
“Time for your daily walk, Rowena,” Tess said from the open doorway. Her dark hair curled around her shoulders, highlighted by bright white streaks. As always, she wore black jeans, a black shirt, and a black leather jacket, and a silver crescent moon necklace gleamed around her neck.
I dropped my book on the coffee table across from the red velvet sofa before standing with that fake smile of mine plastered on my pale face. “Thank the goddess. I’m going crazy in here, Tess. You’ve got to give me something else to do besides sit in my room and read all day.”
She gave a slight shrug of her shoulder, like she didn’t give a rat’s ass whether I was going stir-crazy or not, even though I knew she did. Out of all the witches in this place, Tess cared the most. But she hated for anyone to see vulnerability in her, and she considered any kind of emotion to be just that. A weakness.
“You’re going to have to take that one up with the Queen,” she said. “She’s in charge of your daily schedule.”
“She’ll just say no,” I countered.
“Probably,” Tess said. “I doubt she’s going to agree to up your activity until you get over your sickness. She doesn’t want to see you overexert yourself, and neither do I.”
“But she’s convinced I’ll never get over my sickness.” With an irritated sigh, I grabbed my thick coat from the antique rack, passing by the stone gargoyle statue they’d positioned in the corner of my room a few years ago. It hunkered there like some kind of creepy guardian angel, and sometimes I swore I saw its eyes move in its cold, stone head.
Though that was just my sickness tricking my mind—sometimes I imagined things that weren’t really there.
“I’m sorry, Rowena. I really am,” Tess said as she ushered me down the twisting stone stairwell that led to the Great Hall. Every day, I got an hour outside my quarters, for fresh air and to keep my muscles from losing their strength. Any longer than that put a strain on my body, or so they said. They never let me out of my room longer than that for me to find out for myself. “We’re just trying to keep you healthy. You were so sick when you were found in that tiny raft floating on the moat. You were cursed. Badly. And they didn’t think you’d even survive. Luckily, they found a way to save you, though I hate to say you’re never going to be healthy like everyone else. I know it sucks.”
It was a story I’d heard hundreds of times by now. I was the poor cursed orphan who had been left in the moat outside the Dreadford Castle. When the shadow witches found me, they had decided to take me in as one of their own, even though I had no magical powers myself. In my spare time—which was a hell of a lot—I’d read their grimoires and tried to learn, but I just didn’t have it in me. I was only human, after all.
When we reached the Great Hall, several witches glanced up from where they were lounging around the fireplace on a cluster of sofas and armchairs, whispering amongst themselves. This hall was the main area in the castle for relaxation—witches came here to unwind and gossip and drink their goblets full of wine. And, on the other side of the half-wall that jutted out in the center of the expansive hall, there was a dining room big enough for the hundred of them to eat all their meals together.
I had dinner in my quarters. Alone.
I ate all my meals alone.
“Oh, look, there she is.” One of the witches giggled into her hand. At fourteen, she was one of the youngest in the castle. It had been years since any of the witches had decided to have a child. For reasons I didn’t know. I’d asked, of course, because knowledge and information were pretty much the only thing I had right now. And, of course, they’d just waved my question away.
“Just ignore her. She’s an idiot.” Tess rolled her eyes, leading me out of the hall and toward the courtyard. Outside, the air was crisp and cold, but I sucked a deep breath into my lungs, chasing away the staleness of my room. It was only late-afternoon but already the sun was beginning to set in the winter sky. Sometimes, in the summer, the witches would pull their chairs out here and bask in the sunlight—though clear sky days were few and far between where we were. Right now, though, only a few women were out and about, bustling from one building to the next in thick coats, wellies, and scarves.
As I relished in the sce
nt of pine and snow, I turned to the witch beside me. “Do you ever get tired of being here, Tess?”
She was quiet for a moment, as if she were considering my question. “Not really. This is my home, and in here is safer than out there. Sometimes I’ve thought about putting my name in the hat to be a Traveller, but…” She shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t get it. I don’t have much training in combat.”
“Surely you don’t need combat training to pick up resource deliveries,” I said. The team of Travellers was in charge of collecting our food, our shampoo, and our firewood from all over the country. They weren’t fighters. Or, at least I didn’t think they were.
Her raised eyebrows said it all, but I didn’t have a chance to question her more. The unmistakable sound of a horn, followed by the cranking of the drawbridge chains, yanked our focus away from our conversation. Suddenly, Tess went hyper alert, and she shifted her body in front of mine, a move that I neither expected nor understood.
Why would she throw her body in front of mine? Why would she need to protect me when all that horn meant was that some of our resident witches had returned?
When the drawbridge hit the ground, a small crowd strode into the courtyard. There was only one witch I recognized, with flowing blonde locks that whispered against her waist, dark brown eyes that sparked with danger, and a smile that made every man she met melt under her gaze. She was one of the witches who lived here, Rebecca Valentine, and she’d always been nicer to me than most. That wasn’t saying much though. While the Queen and a handful of others were kind to me, many of the witches at Dreadford practically radiated their disdain.
They didn’t like a powerless human living amongst them.
I didn’t recognize any of the others with her, which was odd. We usually didn’t have visitors. And when the crowd of women began to disperse, glancing around the grounds with curious interest, I gasped out loud. A lone male strode out from among them, his eyes locked on my face. Silver-flecked violet eyes almost hidden under wind-swept hair. Thick biceps that bulged through his thin shirt. And a sultry smile that dimpled his cheeks. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was the first man I’d ever seen.
Chapter Two
“Time to go back inside,” Tess said as she turned quickly to me, grabbed my elbow, and practically dragged me back into the Great Hall. Her steps were hurried, and I swore I could hear the thrum of her racing heartbeat. Though that was impossible.
“Why?” I jerked my arm out of her tight grasp and stopped in my tracks, my entire body yearning to head straight back outside and see who our new visitors were. Okay, time to be honest. I just wanted to gape at the guy. I’d never in my life set eyes on a man, and I wanted to drink him in until I’d memorized every inch of his face. Because I knew it would be a long-ass time until I’d ever see another.
“It hasn’t been an hour yet,” I argued. “I still have thirty more minutes outside my room, at least.”
“I’m sorry, but not today you don’t,” she said, grabbing my arm again. “We have visitors. Strangers. Come on, Rowena, you know what that means. Please don’t fight me on this. The Queen will have me strung up if I don’t follow orders.”
With a sigh, I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. We have to go into defensive mode. We don’t know who they are, what they want, and if they do something shitty, we have to be prepared. Even though they came with Rebecca.”
Another set of lines I’d heard all my life, though I’d rarely seen them put into use. We never had visitors at the Dreadford Castle, probably because no one could see the place with the naked eye. The witches had warded the castle up tight and had even once made a deal with the fae to cast an illusion around it, making it invisible to anyone who didn’t call this place home. If I ever left, I’d be able to see it and make my way back inside. But if a stranger walked past it, they’d see nothing but the English countryside.
“Exactly. We have to be prepared. Since you can’t fight, we need to lock you up where you’re safe, just in case,” she said. “I’m only trying to keep you from getting hurt, Rowena.”
Lock you up.
“Yeah, I know,” I muttered. But even though I understood, I still yearned for a small taste of adventure. Something new. Something different than the same old stone walls I stared at every day, the same statues that I passed on my hour-long daily walk outside, the same gargoyles who sat hunkered in the corners of my room.
“Excuse me, love.” The deep melodic voice that called out from behind us caused a chill to sweep down my spine. It was a voice unlike any I’d heard before. Much darker and throatier, almost like the bass chords of the grand piano the Queen played every night.
With my heart stuck in my throat, I turned toward the voice to find our visitor standing just inside the doorway of the Great Hall, his hand outstretched to…to me.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “but I saw you outside and thought I just had to say hello. I’ve never seen anyone with such silver hair like yours. It practically glows underneath the sunlight.”
“Oh.” I blushed. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “My name is Marcus. And I’m here from the Blood Coven.”
My own smile faltered. That was odd. Blood mages and shadow mages had never been particularly friendly. In fact, the history books I’d read had described fight after fight after fight. In all my twenty-two years in this castle, I’d not once seen a visitor from the Blood Coven, let alone one who looked the way this one did. Curiosity niggled in the back of my mind. What I would give to sit in on his meeting with the Queen, one that was surely coming. Why was he here? What would they talk about? And, more importantly, would he stay very long?
“And you are…?” he asked after I’d stood there for far too long, awkwardly silent and staring at the dimples in his cheeks.
“Oh, sorry. My name is Rowena. Rowena Mortensen.”
“Rowena Mortensen,” he said, curling some of the letters in a thick Scottish accent. “That’s a beautiful name.”
“Rowena is, unfortunately, very ill,” Tess cut in, tossing me a sharp look just before she turned toward Marcus with a blatantly fake smile pasted onto her face. This, I suspected, was the true reason she would never get a spot on the coveted Travelling squad. They needed charm and charisma and the ability to negotiate if things got a little sticky. And Tess’s blunt and rough-around-the-edges approach was one I loved, but one that probably wouldn’t go over very well with a grumpy farmer who didn’t want to trade his veggies for protective wards.
“Oh, that’s terrible.” The smile vanished from Marcus’s face. “You look so healthy that I never would have guessed. I hope whatever you’re suffering from is something you’ll recover from soon, love.”
Now this guy…this guy knew the meaning of charm.
“Fingers crossed,” Tess said with that fake smile of hers before wrapping a too-tight hand around my wrist. “In the meantime, I’m going to have to get Rowena back to her room so she can get some rest. Coming Rowena?”
It was phrased as a question, but it clearly only had one answer: yes.
Tess tugged on my arm, and I twisted away from the handsome stranger to make the short trudge back to my quarters in the Stone Keep. At least, I thought to myself, today’s walk had been much more exhilarating than it normally was, even if it had been brief. For the first time in my life, I’d seen a man. At least that I could remember. Any man I’d seen as a baby was a long and distant memory that had been lost in time. And if they all looked like this guy did…then I couldn’t understand why the witches were so hesitant to welcome them into the castle. Surely they must appreciate those large, thick muscles, those bright and dimpled smiles, and those eyes that held a heat I’d never seen before.
When my feet hit the stone floor of my quarters, I let out a heavy sigh. Regardless of how interesting the walk had been, the rest of my day and night would be boring as hell, my only company the two stone gargoyle statues that squatted menacingly in the corners of my room.
C
hapter Three
“We can’t,” I heard a raised voice say just outside of my shut door. Frowning, I glanced up from my book. I’d chosen a romance from the library collection—one about a damsel in distress lost in time who wanted to be saved by a Highland warrior. I’d really been getting into it—except I kept hoping the heroine would become a little more badass herself instead of relying on the hunky guy to keep saving her—but the conversation happening in the hallway was much more intriguing.
“It isn’t up to you,” a voice hissed back, one that unmistakably belonged to the Queen. I half-stood from my sofa, cocking my head to better hear their words. Why was the Queen coming to see me? “We need to make our guest happy. Nothing will happen to her. She’ll sit between me and Rebecca, who is our best. And you can keep an eye on things from across the table.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I swore I saw a flicker of movement from the stone statue that sat next to my wardrobe, but when I turned my head, it was as still and as silent as always.
The door clicked open. I pressed down the rumpled sweatpants that were stained from the bag of Cheetos I’d been munching on while I gobbled up the story of the fainting heroine on the Scottish plains. The Queen stepped into my quarters, and immediately, her dainty nose wrinkled. She took one look at me and frowned, shaking the dark bob she’d sported for as long as I could remember. The sharply cut strands sliced across her slender shoulders, the color accentuating the paleness of her skin. If I thought I didn’t see much sunlight, she was worse. She practically glowed.
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