Betrothed to the Moon

by Wynter Boudreaux

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  And thank you so much for checking out my beloved series! Following is an excerpt for Bound to the Wolf, the first book in the story—it dishes some serious dirt about the Sun Court! Not to mention the kinky adventures of Maddox, the Alpha werewolf, and how he has to bind his beautiful spritely princess in a sexy menage scenario… But don’t take my word for it! Check it out on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited now!

  Excerpt from BOUND TO THE WOLF

  Prologue

  Trust me. I know how this is going to sound.

  I can almost see the face I would make if some dumbass walked up and started telling me a story like this… But the problem, in my case, is that I know for a fact everything that follows is one hundred percent true. The good as well as the bad. The great and the terrible. The fairy freakshow and the wolfish tale.

  So listen, it’s not my fault—I was just born this way, and it’s not like I can reverse it. I just live with it, and if you’re listening to my story, you’ll understand why sometimes it’s awesome to be me, and sometimes… It can be a challenge.

  In the human world, anyway.

  Because that’s the big problem: I’m not.

  I’m a fairy princess.

  Yeah. You heard me right. I’m a damn fairy princess. And even though I’ve been stuck in the Ohio suburbs forever, it doesn’t change the fact that because I’m a damn fairy princess I am also naturally, permanently mischievous… Naturally, permanently flirtatious… And naturally, permanently cursed to spend eternity married to an elven geezer back in Fairy Land.

  Barf.

  Chapter One

  Ohio isn’t a bad place to grow up, or so I hear. I spend most of my days trapped on a half-acre plot in the furthest reaches of suburbia, so most of my knowledge is second-hand. I did manage, at the age of seven, to convince my Pixie nanny that the neighbors were going to wonder why I never went to school, and this managed to convince Shrentun, in the end, to send me. Small victories. I had to take what I could get.

  So when I was seven, Jexu, my nanny/warden/parental stand-in, set me up with what we call a glamour and sent me on my way. She picked a random face from television, but fortunately for me it was a perfectly ordinary, if slightly cuter than average face: brown skin with chubby, dimpled cheeks, two perfect braided pigtails, wide brown eyes. I chose my clothes the first day, and when I got home I explained to her that they were too fancy; we figured out, together, that looking human required a certain humility. They didn’t just walk around in their fanciest everything. They had clothes that had jobs. My school clothes needed to be a bit more… Practical.

  So we ditched the tiara and the full-length ballgown (yes, at seven) and I went to school the next day and was able to actually talk to a couple of kids, now that I actually looked like a kid.

  I was so excited. I was so, so lonely.

  My dad is old fashioned. He bartered my marriage before I was even out of my mother’s sprite womb, and if she’d had any idea what he was cooking up with the elves she probably would’ve hidden me somewhere very different from Briar Woodlands—the name of the suburban nowhere my dad dumped me. At least, that’s what I tell myself about my mom; I’ll never know for sure, because she died right after I was born.

  I know there’s not much sympathy in the world for bratty undergrad fairy princesses, but if anybody ever had The Poor Little Rich Girl experience, it has to be me. I’ve got the whole dead mom subplot, and the evil, absent father. It’s practically pre-packaged.

  I’ve lived my whole life in the isolating sub-existence of nowhere, Ohio, and the enchantments my dad put on me guaranteed that no one—not my well-meaning neighbors or a thousand curious moms who never seemed to be able to arrange a play-date with my endless stream of “nannies”—could penetrate the bubble of loneliness he deliberately created around me.

  I was alone for two decades, with a string of vanishing Pixies and my dad’s awful goblin toady checking up on me. I had fake friends at school that had no idea what I really looked like, and nothing else but a big empty McMansion.

  But then I turned twenty. And just like that, being a fairy princess suddenly had its perks.

  Well. It had a perk. One. Named Maddox.

  Chapter Two

  “Who is this?” I recognized Shrentun, my father’s right hand Goblin, before I even turned the corner. His shadow loomed through the doorway as he paced back and forth in the living room; I’d know that shape anywhere. I’d seen it a million times—every time one nanny disappeared and I got a new one, every time I earned another scolding for who-knows-what, every time my dad needed to remind me that my hymen was some kind of sacred contract. When I walked in I realized he wasn’t alone, but it was difficult to see much of the stranger standing in the corner, wrapped in robes and shadow.

  Shrentun never brought anyone with him on his regular visits. He just appeared out of nowhere, poked around, asked me if the nanny was nice—the answer was almost always no, with the single exception of Griselda, not that he cared—and then opened the basement door, stepped inside, and disappeared.

  The portal to the Brightworld only worked for him. I know, because when I was younger I used to open and shut the door, over and over, in the hopes that my mom would be on the other side. The Pixies told me she was dead when I turned ten years old, but I still tried to use the portal. I wanted to be transported back to my family, any family, or just to freaking Fairyland… Until I turned fourteen, when I gave up and stopped speaking to Shrentun unless I needed something, and began to assume my family hated me. Why else would they dump me in Briar Boringwoods?

  Shrentun forged every piece of paperwork associated with my human identity, signed every permission slip, and magicked away all my detentions. But I didn’t care about having an easy life; I was horribly lonely. Where did I belong? Every attempt I made to run away ended with a fuming Shrentun standing over my bed, warning me he would put me in irons if I kept trying--and when he did, it hurt so bad I knew it wasn’t worth it anymore… But I still tried. I spent more than a few nights shackled and burning in my bed, my skin only healing enough to scrape off beneath the iron, over and over, until he decided I’d learned my lesson.

  I had to learn it a few times. When he told me my mom was dead, I knew there was no one who cared where I was; no one cared that he was burning me alive, my skin like fire beneath the iron cuffs. No one cared about me at all, except as part of a trade.

  When I was fourteen, I tried the basement door one last time. By then I knew the truth. I knew the door didn’t work for me because my own people didn’t want me anymore. Any decent fairy could do a spell to reverse it… But they made sure I didn’t know anything about magic, and I was shrouded in enchantments that made it practically impossible to do almost any spell. I was trapped here, basically alone.

  Forever.

  I tried the basement door one more time, and then I never tried it again.

  I decided to start paying attention to the human world instead. I decided to teach myself whatever spells could sneak under the enchantments, and have a decent version of a life. Any life, even a human one, even if I wasn’t really human.

  No one really paid any attention to me; my fairy nannies, all pixies, took advantage of life in the Ironworld to do novel things like sleep with pizza boys, drive suburban soccer moms crazy, and shop. They got such a kick out of the way humans used leather, in particular. Among the Fae, a pair of Nikes will get you more than just three wishes. Human items were novelties. One of my nannies was dismissed because she started smuggling burgers into the Brightworld. No kidding. Also: ew.

  Except Griselda. She was the only person that ever loved me. She was my nanny for exactly six months when I was eleven years old, and Shrentun made sure to dismiss her with his typical leering face looming over our final hugs. She was sent away because she slept with two pizza boys, so he tol
d me, and I say: who cares? Do you really think they were sad about it?

  I think if the pixies really wanted to stick around in Ironworld, all they had to do was spend a little extra time with Shrentun, if you know what I mean. But Griselda was smart. She liked pizza boys better.

  I still miss her. In the three years between when she left and when I tried the door that last time, my resolve was growing.

  When I started high school in the human world, I knew two things: I wasn’t like the other girls, and I wanted to be. I wanted to be the best at being a perfect, human girl. All I wanted was to belong somewhere, with anyone. The more of anyone, the better, in fact. So I mastered their mannerisms, and maybe just through sheer desire I was able to conjure simple glamours that made me look more like them—perfect fingers and toes, even a belly button. I designed a new look for myself and worked really hard on sounding human when I spoke. French tip manicure. Long ebony hair that swished around my shoulders just so. Designer clothes—nothing haute couture; they stood out and made me a freak. But nice clothes from the pricy stores in the mall? They destined me for a place at the Cool Kid Table.

  By the time I was a sophomore, I was definitely in the popular crowd. It made me so happy—it was the closest to kinship I’d ever come. It didn’t matter to me that no one knew what I actually looked like, from my light blue hair to my violet eyes. No one would be sympathetic once my wings sprouted… And I was sure that would be any day. I knew sprites had wings. It was the only gift my mother could give me, but I didn’t know when they would show up. But I certainly didn’t want it happening in the middle of home-room.

  So I worked very hard at mastering glamours to amuse myself, and surrounding myself with chattering, disinterested girlfriends. We did have fun; I’m Fae, after all. But I didn’t understand what love was like. Not any kind of love—not familial, paternal, platonic, whatever your flavor. It meant nothing to me. So I stayed in the center of things, but somehow completely alone. My friends would fall and love and date, they were growing up right in front of me; I could hardly relate. I felt completely isolated. Partly it was my father’s enchantments; I was surrounded by a swirl of ‘don’t notice me.’ But I added to it, by cloaking myself in a mediocre imitation of human life.

  It was less lonely than I’d been before, so it seemed pretty great.

  And then high school ended.

  No one came to my graduation. Not one family member needed tickets ahead of time, no one sent congratulations; no one came through the basement portal. No one cared.

  College was even worse.

  I couldn’t go away to school, of course. That was too “dangerous,” according to Shrentun, although he disappeared through the portal before bothering to explain why in any believable detail. No one would even believe I was Fae if they found out, and I’d finally mastered a glamour that could cover my wings. I couldn’t move away from Briar Boringwoods, because the portal was here and the fairy kingdom is fickle; if I went somewhere else, I could always end up kidnapped. Spirited away by a rogue faction of trolls. One never knew.

  So all the people who liked my pretty, fun façade from high school were gone, and I was stuck at community college, starting over again.

  It was awful.

  I felt just as bad as I had when I’d spent so many hours beating on the basement door that my hands hurt. It was just as bad as Shrentun taking away another nanny, rolling his eyes and saying something I didn’t understand about Pixies never keeping a low profile. They didn’t care about me, but they were all I had. At eighteen, alone in suburban hell, I had no one.

  Two years went by. I spent my time wondering why I couldn’t live my boring, unloved life in the Brightworld; I’d fought like hell with Shrentun just to be able to go to college, but some days it didn’t feel worth it. I’d wanted to be a nurse, but after I registered he made it clear that would never happen. Maybe in the Brightworld it would be worth it to keep waking up, day after day; maybe in my own kingdom I wouldn’t have to be under twenty-four hour surveillance. I wondered when it would all be over.

  I’m a Fairy. We don’t do things like suicide. But… Let’s just say my naturally blue color matched my mood, for a really long time.

  And then Maddox was assigned to be my Guardian, and everything changed.

  “This is your new guardian, Alenya.” Shrentun looked down at his feet in a huff, then back up at me. His quick, dark eyes danced to the shrouded figure in the corner, and I followed his gaze.

  I could tell it was a man, by both the girth of his shoulders and his towering height. A very, very big… Wait, was he a man? Or a Fairy, like me?

  I’d never seen a Fairy so large before. We tend to run a bit small, even with glamours. Shrentun seemed agitated by his presence as well, which was unusual; the old goblin usually flirted with the pixie nannies in a way that I’m sure wasn’t legal, at least in the Ironworld.

  “What do I call him?” I started to walk towards the shadow in order to shake hands, but Shrentun reached out and turned me away from him.

  “Maddox is his name,” he said, squinting over his shoulder at the large figure. “But feel free to call him beast, or brute. I do not care for his preferences.”

  “Why is he here?”

  The old Goblin sniffed and looked around the room in a way I knew very well. Usually, this was when he would tell me to think about blending in, to relax, whatever he thought might shut me up. I hadn’t bothered to ask him three questions in a row for several years, for obvious reasons. Now, he hesitated. “Perhaps you remember your father’s agreement with the great king of Elfaven?”

  “The great king, huh,” I said, rolling my eyes and going to sit on the couch. “From what the pixies told me, he’s as much a sack of bones as he is a king. So old he’s half dead, and that’s saying something when you’re a damn elf.” I flopped down and picked up the remote, clicking through silent channels behind his back. The shadow didn’t move. Not even once.

  “Your father made you an excellent match, my highness,” Shrentun said in the voice that told me he thought I was probably high, but definitely not his highness. Who knew goblins could be so snobby?

  “I heard he was an excellent match for a toothless grandma,” I countered, still flipping through the channels. I wasn’t even annoyed; Shrentun was just a liar, so who cared what nonsense justification he had for enabling my father’s creepy deal? He’d long ago proved himself indifferent to the suffering of innocents, what with the shackling-eleven-year-old-girls-to-the-bed and all. “What does that have to do with this stranger in my house?”

  “You’ve spent too much time among these filthy humans,” Shrentun said with a little more venom than usual. “In Court, language like that would get a young maid’s tongue cut out of her head and served to her father on a bed of sweetened plums--”

  “—Blah, blah blah,” I said, watching a little bit of CNN and then flipping forward to Jerry Springer. Same thing, really. “I’m not just any young maid, from what I understand. Or I wouldn’t be in this lucky position, stuck amongst the filthy humans in the first place.” I gave him my absolute bitchiest smile. “Right?” Shrentun and I had feuded for years; I saved up all my resentment for him, because I lived with the scars he gave me. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have spoken like this to anyone else in the world, but he didn’t need to know that.

  He scowled at me. “Maddox was sent to your father’s court by your betrothed. He is Chief of the Alphaguard in Elfaven, part of the enchanted lupine division.” The goblin glanced at the people heaving chairs back and forth on the television screen for a second before turning his scowl towards the hulking shadow. “That is your guardian until the night of your wedding.”

  “Oh, wow,” I said, sitting up and paying attention for the first time. Today was full of surprises. “Does that mean my sentence here in the Ironworld is about to come to an end?”

  “On the summer solstice after your twenty-first birthday, you will be wed.” Shrentun gave me an appraising
look as he locked his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels.

  “Oh goody,” I said, grinning up at him. “It would’ve been nice if someone had asked me if I wanted to get married in the first place—especially to an elven dirtbag who’s in his late thousands—but since they didn’t, at least the weather will be nice.” It took me a minute to wonder why my latest nanny—guardian, whatever—wasn’t from my father’s court. “Wait a minute,” I said, and stood up so that the dwarf and I were eye to eye. “Why isn’t someone from my father’s court watching me now?”

  “Someone from your betrothed’s court is here to watch you.” He didn’t even blink. The bastard knew what I was really asking.

  I started to get angry. Really, really angry.

  It was hard to say why. After all of these years with my doomed marriage looming in the future, you’d think I would have adjusted. But I guess something in me was still furious that this was the best my life would ever be. This—the Jerry Spinger on the TV, the big, empty house, the glamour I wore so often I’d practically forgotten what I really looked like.

  But the air began to slowly fill with my anger. Hot gusts of wind began rushing out of me at top speed… And, to my great surprise, it felt good. Really good.

  “Answer my question, please,” I said, and I could tell the room was swirling with magic even though I didn’t know how. Shrentun had the grace to look a little disconcerted, but instead of answering me he just turned towards the shadow.

  “This is what you’ll be dealing with, as we said.” He sneered at me before continuing, and it was everything I could do not to slap him. Magic whirled through the air, making everything echo shrilly in my ears; I felt frozen in place and overwhelmed with blazing heat at the same time. Rage and magic mingled in my breath. “She—and her maidenhead—are to be paramount among your concerns. No consorts with the locals. No letting her escape, explode, or otherwise soil herself or our status in either the Ironworld or Brightworld.” Shrentun turned towards me again and I could actually see the contempt in his eyes. I wondered if it was really so bad for him, coming here and checking in on a lost little girl. Probably, considering he was a dirtbag working for another dirtbag to arrange marriages with a third dirtbag. And maidenhead… What the hell business was that of his… What the hell business was it of my father’s? Or his business associate, the so-called great king of Elfaven?