“Are you going to kill me?”
“Oh, I would if I could, dearie, but unfortunately you are the root from which we all sprang. If I kill you, I kill me. So I’m doing the next best thing. I’m taking all the portion of our lifeblood and Gift that you had poured into that wretched Morrigan creature.” The thread gleamed black and red and glimmered with power.
Aeval tried to lift her head, but she was too weak—and growing weaker. “You’re taking my Gift?”
“No, I can’t take that.” The old woman’s voice was bitter. “But I can take your memories from when you were queen, all the things that made you powerful. I can take everything from you from the moment you created me.”
The room spun. “What have you done?” Time slid away from her and into the threads on the wheel. Her wins against her son, Kian. His adulthood. His childhood. Her fear and anger at his father. How much she hated the Golden King for what he’d done to her. The abuse. The rape.
The memory of her own father glamouring her into a human slave and sending her to the Golden Court to be abused. It all went. Even the memory of being a princess.
She moaned and lifted her hand to stop it. “No, not that.” But it too was gone and she slipped into blackness.
When she woke again she didn’t know who she was. Wait, she did. She knew her name. Aeval.
“Who am I?” she whispered. “Who are you?”
The strange old woman bundled a gleaming ball of yarn into her pocket. “Shhh dearie. You don’t need to worry about that. Just sleep.
“Mmmm...” Aeval curled on her side, her face pillowed in her red curls. Her hand by her face.
“Sleep dearie.”
The old woman looked at the form on the bed. What had once been a woman in her prime was now a young fae girl. Defenseless in sleep she looked innocent. And she was. She didn’t remember ever being raped, or having sex, or killing anyone. Even her own father.
The crone had taken it all. And she would use it to survive and thrive. All she had to do was make sure this one stayed safe.
She went down the stairs and left the old building, using her Gift, now reinforced with all the Morrigan’s magic, she encapsulated the building in a stasis spell. She left via the old broken gate pulling it shut behind her. It wasn’t enough. Someone could still come and wake the princess. And she couldn’t have that.
She waved her hand. The forest listened to her. It grew into a net of thorns and ivy, winding around the stone wall and hiding it from sight.
When she was done she examined her work with a critical eye until she was satisfied. It was good. Better than good. Foot-long thorns with razor sharp edges protected the branches as thick as a man’s arm. The hedge rose high into the sky, tall and fierce. The leaves and vines were an inky green, so dark as to be almost black. And it went all the way around the old cottage. No way in. And no way out.
Nothing and no one would dare penetrate something this formidable.
She used the last of the power in the blood she’d swallowed and her shape shimmered and shifted. She pulled a mirror from her pocket and admired her work. Black thick hair curled down to her waist, full soft lips and her own gleaming violet-black eyes. She stowed the mirror and opened a portal. She couldn’t be a girl. She’d left their youth with the princess. But who wanted to be a powerless young chit? Not her. She knew what happened to the powerless. She remembered.
She entered the portal. No reason to stay here anymore. She had places to go. She’d be the strong woman she’d always been. The one who could take the pain. The one who could exact their revenge.
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DEAR READER,
Thanks so much for reading ENCHANTED. Bosco is the kind of man I like to write best—a wounded hero—a bad boy with a heart of gold. He’s had a rough life but meeting Cassie turns it all around. Don’t you just love happy endings?
Me too!
Twisting the Frog Prince into something new and different has been so much fun, and it ended up leading somewhere I never expected to go—straight into the world of the White Queen.
When I wrote ENCHANTED, I absolutely intended to write BESPELLED—the story of Aeval, the Black Queen, and how she get’s her happy ever after. BUT...in writing ENTRANCED, I’d accidentally left Bosco’s sister frozen in the lands of the north. And I had to get her out.
That’s how CAGED came about. Totally unexpected, but it’s turned into one of my favs, and I know it will be yours too. And Bonus! It’s leading into an entirely new series about dragon shifters in Underhill. Love it!
Oh! I can’t let you go without thanking you for reviewing my books and giving other readers the opportunity to discover new stories. Each and every one of your reviews helps readers find new authors, and new books to love—so keep spreading the word of what you like to read, because your reviews matter.
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Thanks so much for reading!
-Jessica
P.S. If you loved ENCHANTED, then I know you’ll really love CAGED, BESPELLED and the rest of the FAE MAGIC fantasy romance series. Every full length novel is full of magic, adventure, and romance... and I can’t wait to share them with you. Enjoy!
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Now for your taste of
CAGED
Chapter One
One hundred years ago...
Siobhan stared up at the impossibly high sides of the outer walls of the Winter Court, her stomach twisting in fear. In the dark, the tiny blue lights of the frost fairies were only deep purple flickers reflected in ice refrozen so many times that even the smallest bubbles of air were eliminated and the surface became as slick as black glass.
“I must be crazy. It’s twenty feet tall.” She turned to the five tiny fairies floating in tight formation next to her like a small flock of night birds. “You sprinkled the sentries with sleeping dust? Right? Good. While we wait for that to work, show me again why I’m sneaking into the compound of one of the most powerful fae queens in Underhill. Maybe I’ll see something that can help us. Doubtful, since I’ve watched it over and over again, but I’ll take any help I can get at this point.”
Freelana moved in front of her three sisters. The minor fae were perfect miniatures of the larger elvatians, but their structure was more brittle and their features sharp. Some in her village had hated them, suspicious of their sharp teeth and wider than proportional eyes. Siobhan had always loved spending time with them and they’d never hurt her. In fact, they’d become her fast friends.
Her narrow pointed face frowning in focus, Freelana moved her wings almost too fast to see. Hovering a few inches away, she opened an ice bubble in the air. It glowed a pale, luminous purple in the dark and Siobhan ducked a quick look up at the sentry. But the shield she’d erected seemed to be working because he didn’t move so she gave all her attention to the bubble.
Inside, a miniature image of her little brother formed. Bosco hadn’t been away from home very long, maybe a year, but already he looked more adult. Maybe it was the fear that sharpened his face. Maybe it was the skimpy high court attire that spoke of rooms well heated in the middle of winter.
She’d been shocked at the changes the first time she’d seen this, but now she looked closer. His long, snow-white hair was pulled back into ornate court braids, threaded with jewels, that showed off his delicately pointed ears. Her mother would die at the sight of her baby’s precious ears pierced with long silver hoops. His eyes, the very rare black that few elvatians besides their family had, were full of dark desperation as he whispered his plea.
“Please, Siobhan, come get me. This isn’t what I thought it was going to be. I’m scared.” His adolescent voice quavered, breaking on his last words. “I want to come home.”
The bubble popped, fragmenting into tiny pieces of frost that blew away on the night wind. Siobhan pressed her lips together. “I still don’t understand. What could possibly have gone wrong? The queen herself crowned him the current King of Winter. He was thrilled.”
It had broken her heart, but she’d never expected to see him again. None of the queen’s cosseted boys ever returned to their villages, even after they’d grown up and their stint as the Winter King was over.
Freelana shook her head vigorously, the tinkling sound of ice bells chiming with each shake.
“I know there are rumors, Freelana, but every time we see the boys she crowns, they seem happy. Just think of the few times we’ve caught a glimpse of Ardan.”
Happy, yes. But now that she thought about it, she’d only seen them from a distance, riding with the hunt or attending the queen. They never visited their families, once they set off in the white sleigh of the queen, pulled by two elven steeds with hooves that could cut ice.
Freelana chimed again, her sisters joining in.
“What can I do?” Siobhan stared back up at the top of the wall where a sentry light gleamed. “She’s a full queen of the fae. She holds this keep. Hell, she holds all the lands of the north. Her power is the reason our village doesn’t fade into the mists of Underhill. She’s the reason we have a home at all.” She shook her head at the insistent fairies. “And she’s surrounded by all her lords and ladies. And don’t forget the guards. Even the least of them is more powerful than me, more powerful than anyone in our village.”
She’d never regretted her small amount of magic, until now. Country living in a land of winter suited her. She skated during the long winters on lakes of frozen glass, making Jack Frost patterns in the ice with her tiny friends. She formed lovely flowers for feast days using snow and water and magic. No, she couldn’t join the courts, but then, who would want to?
Her brother, Bosco, that’s who. And, all the adolescent village boys who saw the court riding by on their fine horses and in their fine clothes, each of them wielding more power in their fingertips than her whole family could muster. She remembered the celebration years before, when the queen swept into the festival and took Ardan, Siobhan’s childhood sweetheart, to be the Winter King. That had been fifty years ago when Bosco had been little more than a baby. Ardan had taken one look at the beauty of the White Queen and climbed into her sleigh. And he’d never looked back at Siobhan again. Not even to wave goodbye.
The fairies chimed.
“I know. I know. That sentry should be out by now. And Bosco’s waiting...” She checked the sheath of the sword strapped tight to her back, pulled her ice shoes out of her pack and strapped the metal spiked soles onto her boots. Before putting the pack back on, she dug out her emergency escape globe.
The marble-sized ball was cold as it rolled in her palm, its colors swirling together as it moved. One use, that’s all it was, but if she needed it, she’d want it somewhere easy to get to. If it worked at all. None of this magic was her strength. She was an artist, a creator of frost flowers and designs in ice. But even she knew better than to go into the Winter Palace without an escape route. She tucked the ball into her left side pocket, then double checked that the leather straps of the shoes were tight.
Her stomach churned with nerves. This was it.
“I’ve never climbed anything this straight and smooth before. Can you help me?”
The fairies swarmed with her over to the wall. She handed them her climbing rope, its end tied with a viciously sharp hook. It took all five of the fist-sized fae to haul it up and secure it to the top. Siobhan took the rope in hand and started up.
The climb was worse than she’d thought it would be. The shiny surface resisted her spikes, and she slid and slipped with only her arms to hold her up. Several times she thought she’d never make it, but she finally pulled herself over the top and collapsed next to the concerned fae, her fingers cramping.
“I’m fine,” she panted. “We made it.” Arms shaking, she unstrapped her ice shoes and tucked them back into her pack, shrinking it down and stowing it in her right coat pocket.
Pack in the right, escape globe an icy presence in the left. “Lead on, ladies.”
Keeping low, she followed the fairies as Freelana sped ahead, dowsing the lights as they approached. The purple glow of the fairies’ inner light a beacon, drawing Siobhan down a set of stairs and into a quiet courtyard.
A hand grabbed her elbow and fingers covered her mouth, preventing her scream from escaping.
“Shh, it’s me.” Bosco’s face appeared, illuminated in Freelana’s light.
Her heart thumping in her ears, she wrapped her arms around her brother and squeezed tight. Tears rose to her eyes. “Oh, it’s so good to see you. Are you well?” She kept her voice low as she ran her hands down his arms. He’d never been heavy, but now she could feel his bones sticking out like fence railings under her hands. “Aren’t they feeding you?”
She stepped back and really looked at her l
ittle brother.
In a few short months he seemed to have aged. It wasn’t something obvious. Anyone else would say he was still the same lanky adolescent, definitely thinner. Maybe a little taller. But there was a maturity in his face that shouldn’t be there. A knowing look that said he’d seen too much. And it made her blood chill.
Elvatians rarely had more than one or two children over their very long lives. Some lived for ten thousand years or more and never had any. But her mother had been blessed with two, mirror images of each other: Siobhan in her youth, and Bosco merely one hundred years later, the gap between them making her a young adult by the time he’d been born. She’d loved every minute of helping her mother raise him. Until this year’s Winter Solstice, when the queen had come to town and chosen her beautiful baby brother out of all the young boys competing at the festival.
“Not now. I’ll tell you everything later.” He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. “We should go.” He took her hand and pulled her back the way she’d come.
“Wait. This is serious. What do you think would happen to the village if I steal the Winter King?” Visions of a furious White Queen and her soldiers rampaging through the quiet streets searching for Bosco made her cringe. “No one leaves the queen’s service, Bosco.” She squeezed his hand. “I can’t take you home. You know that.”
“Oh gods.” He let her go and stepped back, betrayal written all over his face. “Then why did you even bother to come?”
“To understand. This is what you’ve always wanted. You were so happy to come here. Why would you want to leave all this?” She waved her hand, indicating the fancy embroidered vest he wore over bare chest and arms and on down, to his low-slung leather pants, all the way to his velvet slippers. “I mean, they aren’t very practical clothes for winter, but they are pretty and I assume the queen keeps the fires hot.”
Enchanted: A Fae Fantasy Romance (Fae Magic Book 3) Page 24
