To Catch a Prince (Age of Gold Book 2)

by May Sage

  Aleria. He talked of Aleria.

  Vincent winced on his behalf. He had his work cut out for him there.

  “Welcome to the club.”

  That was exactly what had occurred with Talia - he didn’t quite comprehend it. By gods, she’d only been in the Kingdom three weeks, and now, his world began and ended with her.

  “One thousand years, and I find myself not knowing what to do.”

  To make things simple for him, Vincent asked, “Do you have a choice?”

  He spent most of his day reading, although he did it in Talia’s company. When he’d expressed his wish to read, and offered to arrange for her to visit low-town, or anything she pleased to amuse herself, she dismissed his idea.

  “I’d love to get my hands on the books you talked of.”

  So, he returned to Nathos’ office, to steal a book this time. And yes, perhaps he could have asked, but that would just have removed the fun out of it.

  Immersed in tales of old dragons and Riders as he was, he might have forgotten to eat or order a drink, if Talia hadn’t been with him. She was, though, so occasionally his dragon growled to demand his attention and he knew it was time to see to her needs.

  Ringing a bell, he ordered tea.

  How comfortable they were, just in silence.

  During one of their little breaks, he shared, “You know, I believed you might have bespelled me when you first came. Turns out, I was right.”

  Talia lifted a brow.

  “Instant bonds. Dragons and Riders form them two ways - the sisterly bond that linked Xandrie to Demelza, and the bond she formed with Rhey from the very beginning. As you’re of the same blood, you have the same latent ability to form both.”

  “Something Nimue said made me think all of us - Xandrie, Aleria, and I - might not be so very different, despite our different skills. She said I descended from what they called Dragonlords in the past. That got me thinking that perhaps it was another word for Riders.”

  Vincent inclined his head. “No doubt. If I could pin down that woman, I’d have her write a damn history book,” he grumbled.

  Talia laughed, and there was nothing in his mind, save for peace. Now, he had to tell her that.

  “I’m grateful. Grateful you walked into my life. I was lost for a long time. My dragon and I would never have mended our differences without you. I believed him to be a monster, I gave up on him, and, in doing so, he was lost to me. I owe you everything for making me see that.” He had to smile. “He adores you, you know.”

  Talia beamed.

  “As I adore you. It’s not normal, it’s not logical, but from the very first moment I saw you, I knew you were mine. I’ll know it when I draw my last breath.”

  How awkward he was, with words such as these. “What I meant to say-”

  “I know perfectly well what you meant to say. And I love you, too, Pretty Man.”

  Miles away.

  If he’d ever spared a thought on how death would come at him, Ash would have imagined dragonfire, blood, surrounded by a thousand enemies. Not this. Not this slow, agonizing decline, tainted by the taste of betrayal. He wasn’t dying here, alone, because of his sworn enemy; no one even knew he’d left his castle yet.

  No one, save for his kin, the man he’d trusted above all others.

  It was no coincidence when the raids had started, following him wherever he went, but he’d brushed it aside. The lands were perilous, he knew that. It meant nothing.

  He couldn’t lie to himself anymore, after the Royal Warlock had blasted the town where he’d stayed into oblivion. He recognized his own magician’s spells.

  The magician was attacking him on enemy territory; if, no, when, the dragons of Farden saw what had happened to their people, they would declare war on Absolia.

  Ash had no clue why anyone would wish that. It was insanity. There were as many dragons in Farden as there were in Absolia, according to their spies; fighting against them meant the potential extinction of their kind.

  Ash could have flown out. He was quick enough to change and get out of the way. But there were children about, bears and little dragonlings, frightened and crying for their mothers, so he’d done what he could. He’d shifted and flown, not away from the danger, but right to it, meeting it head on, and taking the worst of the blast.

  Gragnar’s blow had been fire and Shadow. A lesser dragon - one less versed in protection spells, or with a weaker bloodline - wouldn’t have survived it. Ash was still breathing now, but only just. If aid came to him now, he might see another morrow; but he’d fallen in deserted lands, unknown to anyone who might wish him well, so, instead, he was dying, thirsty, broken, and despairing for his people.

  There ended the line of his ancestors.

  The gods were kind enough as to show him the shape of an angel before he closed his eyes. A beautiful creature with golden brown skin, and those brilliant eyes.

  “Stay with me, Rogue,” said she.

  He wished he could, but he had to go now.

  “Dammit. Sorry, Xandrie, I’m going to have to borrow your strength.”

  Hundreds of miles away, the Queen of Farden cried out in surprise as an acute pain gripped her. Demelza closed her eyes, and recited every healing spell she could recall, to breathe life back into the limbs of the King of the Fiery Shadows.

  Note from May Sage

  I do hope you’ve enjoyed To Catch a Prince. Next in the Age of Gold series: To Tame a Rogue.

  The date isn’t set and will greatly depend on the interest in the series. If you enjoyed book two and would like to know what’s happening next on Eartia soon, don’t forget to leave a review.

  Stay in tune for a short excerpt of Realm of Darkness.

  Realm of Darkness

  Looking up at the tall, decrepit brownstone everyone eyed suspiciously when they passed by, Grayson Marks sighed. Even regulars – boring humans without a drop of supernatural blood in their system – gave it a wide berth, although they were undoubtedly the most unobservant creatures on Earth.

  It stunk. Like a rotten corpse lying underneath a pile of fox shit. Gray’s pup whimpered at his side, the smell assaulting its sensitive nostrils.

  “It’s all your fault, you know,” Ralph informed him.

  Two years ago, Gray might have bothered asking what the hell he was talking about; now, he knew better. Asking any question of Ralph, outside of the basic professional courtesies, was just a recipe for a headache.

  Of course, the man didn’t need any encouragement to share his warped logic.

  “You arrived early this morning, so you could have had your pick of the missions. There’s an enquiry at one of the Wolf’s clubs. A club, Grayson. With sexy women in short skirts.”

  Outwardly, Gray paid absolutely no attention to the dark haired agent walking next to him. They headed towards the barricaded door of the abandoned townhouse where they’d been sent, and Gray knocked, his expression, stern and indifferent. Inwardly, he was kind of wondering why he hadn’t had a look at the assignment board. One of the Wolf’s clubs? Damn.

  “But no, you had to get started on your damn report, instead. By the time I got there, it was this dump, or a report of screams in an attic. In Roxbury. Screams, Grayson. You know how I feel about ghosts.”

  “There’s no such things as ghosts.”

  He’d know. Gray had a perfect understanding of what happened to those who died; they couldn’t linger for long in this dimension. They could be recalled, but the result was a little more alarming than your average Poltergeist whenever that happened.

  “Well, there could be,” Ralph reasoned stubbornly.

  “There isn’t,” he repeated, before calling to the pup, standing a few feet behind him. “Remus?”

  The pup whimpered again, and laid down on the floor, making his intention of staying the hell away from that house known. Gray rolled his eyes. “Stay, then.”

  When he turned back to his partner, the man was still arguing in favor of the existence of gh
osts.

  “Dude, we’ve recently learned there’re a dozen dimensions on this very planet.” That was an oversimplification, but most people liked to think that way. Plus, it was nine, not a dozen. Gray didn’t point it out. He wasn’t supposed to know more than anyone else about the other worlds. Never mind the fact that he actually came from one of them. “Nothing’s impossible. There could be someone else standing right where you are and jerking off in your mouth.”

  Gray closed his eyes, wondering what he’d done in his previous life to be saddled with such a partner. That image? It wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He was going to have to brush his teeth as soon as they got back to the headquarter.

  Quite suddenly, just then, the door he was knocking on disappeared and an ugly, red, extremely pungent worm with long teeth and tentacles lunged at his head. It was just five feet away, coming from the staircase right in front of them. Some greenish slime poured out of a hole that might be its mouth, or its ass; he didn’t want to know. Holy shit. Remus had had the right idea; he should learn to listen to his pup.

  In other circumstances, Gray would have been able to do something about it within a moment’s notice, but he’d had a heavy breakfast which was attempting to make its way back up.

  Before the oversize worm got too close, Ralph’s enchanted double headed axe lodged itself in the whirling creature, which exploded in a thousand little pieces, smoking and smelling like fried manure.

  Gray then remembered. He put up with Ralph because the guy was the best agent of the PIA. Except for him, maybe.

  Not that he’d tell him. Every god knew Ralph’s ego didn’t need stroking.

  “I’m gonna be sick,” Gray blurted, heaving.

  Most demonic creatures generally fried when in contact with positive energy, like the spells coating their weapons, and the result was never pretty, but it had been a while since they’d encountered anything half as disgusting as that thing.

  “I’d normally tell you to get it together, princess Gray, but can’t actually blame you today. It there a spell, rune, or artifact intended to lose our sense of smell? We could totally use something like that right now.”

  “There are at least a dozen different kinds of solutions; none of which are at our disposal at the moment.”

  “Well, remind me to add something like that to the shopping list for next time.”

  Ralph was the first to walk in, covering his nose with his sleeve.

  Whoever had called in a disturbance talked of noises indicating squatters, but the local police department had referred the case to the Paranormal Investigation Agency after their men had come back behaving in an unusual manner, and having forgotten their initial purpose.

  It was a minor, routing investigation; the kind that would never have ended up on Gray and Ralph’s workload, if things hadn’t been so quiet recently.

  The PIA investigated paranormal disturbances that weren’t resolved by local sups, in order to protect innocent human beings. That included everything from rogue vampires to stupid teenagers dabbling in magic and getting in over their heads. Gray and Ralph were part of the Alpha unit, the crème de la crème. Rogue vampires, feral shifters, dark object swallowing up entire towns? That was their jam. But for the last three months, the reports of major activities like these had considerably dialed down, so they were passing time with cases like this one.

  “I’ll take upstairs,” Ralph offered, retrieving his axe with a grimace. “And another pair of gloves I’m gonna have to chuck out.”

  They wore their combat suits, soft, malleable materials that didn’t hinder movement, fitted with smart compartments where they could hide weapons. It looked like a super hero costume, but it could still stop a bullet. Each suit cost a clear seven figures, and throwing any part of their apparel out without valid cause was unheard of. Today, Gray was going to countersign on Ralph’s request, attesting that burning the gloves was a necessity. God, it really stunk.

  You could fix it, said a bored, taunting and familiar voice.

  That voice was the one and only thing Gray truly feared, and every day, it spoke to him, like they were old buddies.

  It was right, though. He could clear the room with a wave of his hand. The basic tidying up spell he’d learned in his teens to clean his room would probably do the trick. Alternatively, he could cast one of the spells he’d mentioned to Ralph, preventing them from smelling that dreadful mixture of shit, death and demon. But giving in, tapping into his power, was exactly what the voice in his head wanted. He knew better. Gray would never use magic; not unless it was a matter of life or death.

  Ignoring the voice, he walked to the first door on his right and opened it to find what could have been Miss Harvisham’s drawing room, pulled right out of Great Expectations. It seemed like whoever had inhabited this house had left suddenly, right before supper, leaving their food on the table, untouched; rats had ravaged it, and left trails of poop as a thank you. Spider webs ran from one wall to the next. He closed the door. No one, demon or otherwise, had entered that room in half a decade.

  On his left, the kitchen was left in a similar state. Then, there was a library. Gray frowned, standing in the doorway for longer, this time. It had also been taken over by insects, dust and mold, but he felt something else underneath it all. Walking in, he headed towards the bookshelf closest to him, and found that the steady layer of dust had been disturbed there. Someone had pulled a book out, and taken it.

  Gray scanned the shelf, finding plenty of classics, some romance books, but also something he wouldn’t have expected in a place that screamed “regular” like this house did.

  The Crown, by Rebecca Ann Wright. It differed from the rest of those innocuous volumes because, while it had been published as a work of fiction a long time ago, before the Age of Blood, they now knew it was an historical report written by a warlock at the end of her life so that her knowledge wasn’t lost.

  Plenty of humans owned it, of course, but it had never been a best seller. Finding it in a place infested by demon scums was no coincidence. They were in a sup’s house.

  A curse yelled from upstairs startled him; leaving the book behind, he ran out to find Ralph running towards the stairs. “Move, move, move. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “What?” Ralph didn’t run; ever. It was one of his many problems.

  Gray opened his mouth to say something and regretted it as soon as his nose picked up on a scent.

  Never mind the first tentacle worm. It had smelled like a breath of fresh air in comparison. For fuck’s sake, what did these things eat?

  The monster in front of him was the size of a horse, as long as a whale, and moved faster than a cheetah.

  “We can’t leave that here,” Gray screamed, all the while letting his feet carry him out of the house as quickly as he could.

  “Don’t worry,” said Ralph, instantly making him wonder if it was the end of the world.

  When Ralph said don’t worry, it meant he had a plan. One of his last plans had involved jumping out of a moving plane without a chute.

  They’d almost reached the door when Gray caught a movement on his right; a flash of red, green and white, heading right to Ralph.

  Shit. He launched himself at his partner, knocking him out of the way just in time; a sharp jolt of pain hit him on his back, but he ignored it, helping Ralph back on his feet, before running out as fast as his feet could carry him.

  As soon as they leaped out the door, the entire building went up in flames. Remus ran around in circles excitedly; the puppy was weirdly fond of explosions. Gray groaned.

  “How many warnings are we going to get before you understand the memo? We aren’t supposed to use those charmed explosives unless there’s no other choice, dammit.”

  Ralph laughed. “Tentacles. Teeth. Ten feet high, sixty feet long. Pretty sure the boss will deal.”

  Two hours later, it looked like the boss wouldn’t deal.

  “An entire building? Again?” Patricia Dot
ts screeched, her entire face practically purple. She looked like she might need to use the toilet, which wasn’t unusual.

  Still, Ralph was terrified of the harpy, with good reason. As the head of the field department, she had the power to give them the worst kind of punishments. Gray sighed and did what he had to do to get his colleague out of a week of 4am PT. No one deserved that.

  “It was just that townhouse, Dotty. No surrounding building was affected,” he assured her, his voice soothing, sending her that look. The one that turned her purple face back to a slightly more normal, red shade. “And it would have had to be completely obliterated given the concentration of demonic energy, trust me.” Lies. Although anyone with a bit of sense would have indeed burned it to the ground after sniffing it. “We charmed it, so no regular will see it’s gone until we can get the clean up team to rebuild it. It’s all good.”

  Patricia vaguely resembled her plump, friendly self again.

  Three, two, one…

  “Oh well, if you say so, Grayson. I just wish Ralph here could warn us and log it in properly like you always do, so we can send the right team to ensure no one is disrupted. Ralph, you’re lucky to be paired up with such an outstanding agent. Please attempt to learn from him.”

  She trotted away back to her desk. As soon as she closed the door, Ralph said, “I owe you one. Again.”

  “Yep.”

  “And also? I hate you.”

  The basement where they were tucked away wasn’t anyone’s idea of a prison; for one, there was no lock on the door, and it also contained everything a bunch of twenty-somethings might have wanted. Flat screen, books, computers, and a gym, amongst other things.

  The gym area was where they stood today. Tria, Daphne and Jase were perfectly still and silent, each one of them at one end of the triangle drawn on the training floor. Then, all of a sudden, although no one had given a signal, they all moved.

  An outsider looking in would have assumed that they were trying to kill each other. Jase used every inch of his hulking figure to launch himself at Daphne, who evaded him just in time, drop kicking his head as she was at it. Tria was the vicious one; she let them exert themselves before attacking both, jumping in the air and kneeing Daphne right on the chest, before flipping towards Jase. He was waiting for her, holding a man-sized punching bag that he then threw at her.