by Cara Wylde
THE HANGED MAIDEN
RISE OF THE ASH GODS, BOOK 1
- reverse harem romance –
Copyright © 2019 by Cara Wylde
Cover by Otilia Jakab
All rights are reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Have you read the Prequel?
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
More Books by Cara Wylde
About the Author
Have you read the Prequel?
Dear reader,
It will take Valentina four books to find all her nine mates and build her harem. And this is only book one. If you want to find out who her mates are before she does, then make sure you read The Test, a short Prequel that is available for FREE everywhere. Enjoy!
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Valentina has prepared for this all her life. She is ready. Just one test to pass, and she’ll finally become a Keeper of the Spades, and a proper member of her coven. Born a witch, sworn to protect the Mysteries of the Tarot, Val will not fail and will not disappoint her family.
But something goes awfully wrong. When she gets lost in the intricate multi-dimensions of the Test, she loses control and gets thrown from one time-space to another. And that’s how she meets them. She doesn’t know who they are, but what she knows for sure is they are not just men. Ghosts? Angels, or demons? Gods?
Fate is playing tricks on her… She only wants to pass the Test and serve her coven, not figure out why she was meant to meet nine strangers who seem just as confused as she is.
CHAPTER ONE
“What was that?”
Startled, Valentina dropped her tarot deck, and the cards scattered on the marble floor. Her friend, Dante, helped her pick them up.
“I don’t know. It sounded like it came from the altar room. I’ll go check.”
She slipped the cards into the leather box that hung from her belt and went after him.
“Wait! I’ll come with you.”
They stopped in their tracks when a scream penetrated the unusual silence that had settled after the initial sound of broken glass. They exchanged a glance, and Valentina could see fear dancing in Dante’s green eyes. Her hands started shaking, and she curled them into fists at her sides. This was bad. Dante Conti was never afraid. For three years, he had been her biggest competition, a worthy rival, and one of her dearest friends. He was a stronger and more experienced witch than her, and if he was terrified, then what chance did she have to face whatever was currently thrashing the altar room, and get away in one piece?
“Stay here, Val. I got this.”
“N-no...”
With a swift flick of his wrist, Dante threw the door open and disappeared down the narrow corridor. Valentina saw he was already working on a sphere of blue, sparkling energy between his hands. The High Keeper was in the altar room, wasn’t she? A bunch of other Keepers should be there, too, and they were all powerful witches. So, why did the sounds of energy blasts and broken things, the screams, thuds, and crashes made it seem like the battle was already lost?
“What’s wrong with you? Don’t just stand there. You’re a Keeper of the Spades. Act!”
The voice in her head was right. Yes, she was scared, but if there was anything Valentina could trust with her own life was the voice of her Higher Self pushing her forward. She grabbed the sides of her long, heavy robe, pulled the thing up so she could actually use her legs, and ran down the corridor and into the altar room. The sight of fallen Keepers and flames bursting everywhere made her heart freeze in her chest. She blinked and tried to get a hold of herself. If she wanted to help, she needed to understand what was happening.
The High Keeper was lying motionless on the ground, in front of the altar. Above her, Dante was fighting something that looked like... dark smoke. Whatever it was, the thing didn’t have a physical body, and it could easily dodge Dante’s spells, chants, and energy spheres. Between flames and broken furniture, the other Keepers were battling a small army of smoke entities, and they were losing. Witches were falling one by one, and the smoke beings were advancing toward the altar.
“The cards!” Dante yelled. “You have to save the cards!”
He was getting tired. Valentina knew he couldn’t hold the smoke thing off for much longer. She closed her eyes for a second, centered herself, and let the energy run through her body and gather in her palms. When she opened her eyes, a big sphere of green energy was crackling between her hands. She threw it at the enemy, then drew a quick blocking sigil in the air and pushed it with a gesture inside the dark smoke, giving Dante a moment to breathe. As he fell to one knee and took the High Keeper’s limp body into his arms, Valentina drew more sigils, one after the other, as fast as she could.
“Your grandma... is she okay?” she asked.
Dante shook his head. When Val stole a quick glance at him, she saw that he was crying. His despair only lasted for a moment, though. Virginia Conti had been much more than the High Keeper of the Spades and the head of the coven. She’d been Dante’s grandmother and Valentina’s role model. And now she was dead. With rage in his eyes and power flowing through his veins, Dante rose to his feet and took on the smoke entity one last time. He would tear it apart, or he’d give his own life trying.
“The cards, Val! Save them before it’s too late.”
Valentina took a few steps back. Even she was blinded by Dante’s angry retaliation. She tripped over a heavy tome that had fallen off the altar, regained her balance, and pulled her cards out of the leather pouch. She turned toward the wall behind the altar and took in the Suit of Swords in all its glory. The cards were distressed, the characters arguing and yelling at each other. The King of Swords was pacing back and forth, like a lion trapped in a cage. The Queen was holding her hands in prayer, although Valentina couldn’t even begin to imagine to whom she could be praying. True to his nature, the Knight of Swords was yelling commands, words of encouragement, along with curses at the Keepers still standing and fighting. They couldn’t do more than that. Without the High Keeper, the Suit of Swords was mostly useless, and Valentina didn’t yet have enough practice and experience to use the cards in a fight. Her mom and dad did, though. Where were they? She turned to look around but couldn’t see them anywhere. Maybe they had been la
te, as usual. Maybe they had decided not to stop by the temple today. Val could only hope.
“You know what you have to do.”
Valentina looked up at the Lovers card and caught Iseult’s blue eyes. While her Tristan was swinging his sword to no avail, frustrated that he was being left out of a real battle, the beautiful, blonde Iseult was waving at her relentlessly and pointing at the deck in her hands.
“Remember your training, Keeper of the Spades.”
Valentina could feel sweat gathering at her temples. Yes, training. She’d been training for three years now, but no one had thought that La Congrega di Spade would ever be under attack. In theory, she knew what she had to do. Practice was the problem. With trembling hands, she started shuffling the cards and whispering the chant. She knew it by heard – every word, every inflection, every emphasis. As she chanted the last verses, she drew three sigils on top of the deck, then pointed it at the cards on the wall, starting with the Ace of Swords. One by one, the pictures on the tall, wide cards swirled and turned to glowing dust that was absorbed by Valentina’s deck. She moved from one card to the next until she reached the Lovers, or better said, the copy of the Lovers, and the fifteen canvases were completely blank, as if the artist had intended to paint them but had given up and hung them just the way they were, as white and empty as his dreams.
Valentina went through her deck quickly, checking to make sure the Suit of Swords and the Lovers were now living inside their respective cards. “Looks good,” the voice in her head said. “Good job, Keeper.” Val ignored it and slipped the deck back into its protective pouch, then covered her belt with the robe of her coven. She was wearing normal clothes underneath, – tight blue jeans, a sunflower-print shirt, and leather boots, – which the High Keeper and her parents would have thoroughly disapproved of. She turned back to the battle with the intention to help Dante, and found herself staring into the sneering face of the smoke monster. Or, one of the faces... It looked like the thing had two, although they were hardly distinguishable through the thick, dark fog surrounding them. For a split second, Valentina could swear she saw the vague shape of a lion’s head staring down at her, but it was just a flash and then it was gone. Her heart raced, green energy poured down her arms and pooled into her palms, her witch instinct took over, and she threw two spheres of green light at the thing, which gave her enough time to draw a couple of sigils in the air and push them into the entity’s body. The bind and block sigils wouldn’t last long, though, so she did what any Keeper of the Spades who had the original, magical cards she was supposed to protect on her would have done: she ran. She ran down dark and narrow corridors, dodged smoke beings that were coming at her, threw doors open and banged them shut behind her, then started floating when she couldn’t run anymore.
“Told you that you should’ve taken up running.”
“Shut up,” Valentina yelled out loud at the voice in her head. Why her Higher Self was so smug and sarcastic in moments of crisis, she’d never understand.
Floating three inches above the ground was faster, but not easier. When her focus faltered, she resumed running. Luckily, the back exit was just ahead. A few more long strides, and she was pushing her whole weight against the heavy wooden door, shielding her eyes from the intense June sun setting behind the mountains, and trying to get her bearings. She ran through the field of sunflower behind the temple until she reached the main street, then she walked briskly West, toward the first bus stop. She didn’t have a better idea. The temple of La Congrega di Spade was not far from the small town she, her parents, and all the members of the coven lived in. Leavenworth had been the best place to hide the Suit of Swords, along with the whole coven of witches entrusted to protect it. Not anymore. She looked behind her, but no one, or rather nothing, had followed her. She saw the bus coming, and she started running again, afraid that she might miss it. And then what? No, she couldn’t think like that. She was already clutching the steel bar, hauling herself through the folding doors, and looking for an empty seat, like any normal person would do.
“Err... it’s a costume,” she said to a middle-aged lady who was staring at her blue robe. “I’m an actress... in a stage play...” She smiled and thanked all the goddesses of all the pantheons she knew when the woman looked away.
The bus drove toward town, and Valentina forced herself to relax against the backrest and breathe evenly. Her stomach was doing somersaults, her blood was still boiling with green energy, and if she didn’t calm down, she knew she’d throw up the carrot soup and chicken salad she’d had for lunch. It was almost dinner time, and her body should have digested the food hours ago, but her digestion had taken a hit when the preparations for the Trionfi Ceremony had started three weeks before. This time, it was supposed to take place at La Congrega di Spade, and the other five covens scattered around the world were supposed to gather here, in the small town of Leavenworth, Washington, but... guess what! The coven hosting the ceremony had just been attacked by dark entities made of smoke! Three days before the party! Coincidence? Valentina started hyperventilating. First order of business: get somewhere safe. Second order of business: figure out what the hell had happened back there.
She got off near her house. The street was fairly quiet, but the few people getting home from work or walking their dogs shot her strange looks. Stupid robe. She cursed under her breath, took it off, rolled it up as best as she could, and dumped it in the first garbage bin she found. Her mom wouldn’t like it, but walking in a witch robe in plain daylight wasn’t a good idea, either. She got off the main street and took the more obscure alleys between the buildings to reach the back gate of her parents’ garden. But when she got there, she stopped in her tracks, frozen in place at the sight of black smoke wandering around the house, behind the wide-open windows and glass doors. She shook her head, forced herself to take a step back, and then another, tried not to think of her parents. They were fine. Wherever they were, at home or at the temple, they had to be fine. Adelina De Rossi was one hell of a witch, and Cosimo De Rossi could cast spells and draw sigils at lightning speed. She shouldn’t worry about them. She wouldn’t. She had the Suit of Swords and the copy of the Lovers, and her job was to take the cards as far away from there as possible. She had to keep them safe. She had no idea what those smoke things were, she’d never seen anything like them before, but it didn’t matter. They were after the Suit of Swords, and she was a Keeper. Probably, the last Keeper standing, but she didn’t want to go there. Dante was alive, too. He had to be. He was better than her, after all. No matter how much her parents wanted her to become High Keeper one day, Valentina had always known there was no way she could beat Dante Conti. And if a De Rossi couldn’t beat Dante Conti, then no smoke monster could.
Finding her courage again, Valentina turned around and ran down the street to her best friend’s house. Piper was what in Valentina’s world was called an Ordinary – someone who wasn’t born a witch and didn’t have magical powers. But Val never called Piper that, and hated it every time her mom did, although she never spoke up to defend her friend. After all, the last thing she needed was for her mom to become super bitchy, as she sometimes did, and forbid Valentina from hanging out with Piper and her three brothers. Since they were six, Pipes had been her bestie. Even though they went to different schools and then high schools, they stayed friends, and now, when she was running from something she couldn’t understand, Val saw Piper as her only salvation. The only problem was... Piper had no idea her friend was a witch.
Valentina burst through the back door, shouted a quick “hey” in Ian Chase’s general direction, and ran up the stairs to Piper’s room. Ian was Piper’s oldest brother, and the only one who hadn’t gone to college. Well, Piper hadn’t gone, either, and hell would freeze over before she heard the end of it. Constantly reminding Ian and their parents that Valentina of the proud and wealthy De Rossi family had decided to skip the college experience, too, didn’t help much. Little did she know that Val didn’t
need to go to college. Her college was the temple, where she’d been a Keeper since she’d turned eighteen.
“Why do you never knock? Why?!” Piper slammed her book shut and threw it under the bed.
Valentina was too confused, scared, and exhausted to wonder why her friend wouldn’t want her to see what she was reading.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry... I didn’t know where else to go.”
Piper sat up in bed and furrowed her brows.
“What happened to you? You look like shit.”
Valentina jumped on the bed and hugged Piper for dear life.
“And you’re shaking like a leaf,” Piper added.
Val started sobbing. She couldn’t believe how good it felt to hold onto someone and finally allow herself to cry. Piper stopped asking questions and just held her for a long while, not saying a word about her tear-soaked T-shirt. She felt so real and safe to Val. Energy was nice, being able to float always came in handy, but actually feeling a solid human body that seemed to absorb the chills and shakes coursing through her better than any spell could... That was a true thing of magic!
“You’re okay, you’re okay...” Piper smoothed down Valentina’s long, raven black hair. There was nothing she appreciated more than having her best friend and first crush in her arms, but she knew Val didn’t feel the same, so it only made things worse. She needed to calm her down soon, so she could put some distance between them.
“Oh my Goddess!” Val jumped like she’d been burned and started pacing the floor in a frenzy. “Oh my Goddess, we’re not safe! I’m putting you in danger. What was I thinking?!”
Piper’s first reaction was to laugh. She’d known Val since forever, but it was still hard not to laugh at her weird goddess thing. Who in their right mind said that?
