by C. R. Jane
Forbidden Queens
The Fated Wings Series Book 3
C. R. Jane
Forbidden Queens by C. R. Jane
Copyright © 2018 by C. R. Jane
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Dedication
For all my wonderful readers, thanks for taking this journey with me.
Table of Contents
Forbidden Queens
Dedication
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Forbidden Queens
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Definitions
Author's Note
Other Books by C.R. Jane
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Forbidden Queens
Eva Taylor is a queen…or at least she's been told she's one. From the first moment that she's woken up by the captivating and mysterious Prince Aiden, Eva knows things are more than what they seem. As he helps her to discover long locked away powers, strange dreams plague her new world. Who is Prince Aiden, and why do inexplicable, but familiar voices haunt her every time he gets too close? Will Eva uncover her past before it's too late, and will her forgotten loves Damon, Mason, and Beckham ever find her? There's a reason she was once called a forbidden queen….
A long time ago, in a far away land
There was once a maiden most fair
And a King took this maiden by the hand
Giving her a wedded crown to wear
She quickly won the peoples heart
Oh what a Heavenly angel she was
She held them captive from the start
Her breathless beauty forever in awe
Many the day she sat beside her King
Caring for him with a wifely mien
But never a spark did his love bring
Oh, what a lonely heart had the Queen
Many were the idle hours she spent
Wondering if in time her heart would die
Always praying for a love most content
Many were the lonely tears she cried
Then one morn on the brightest of days
A new Knight pledged himself to the King
Avowing his service in a most loyal way
How strong and true his voice did ring
She watched intently with a lady's virtue
The sun shining on his armor so bright
Her heart grew wings and to Heaven it flew
His was the name love whispered at night
Desperately she wanted to love the King
Only to him did she want to be true
Yet twas for another her heart did sing
And oh, how her love for him grew
Yet In this world and in this time
Some things are just not meant to be
She was assuredly going out of her mind
Oh how her heart yearned to be free
Terrible is the pain of a lonely heart
How wretched and forlorn the ache
Yet a heart with love dared not impart
Can do naught more than shatter and break
Now her heart drowns in sorrows so dark
As her broken crown falls to the ground
Never in love shall her heart dare embark
For the Queen has lost her crown...
― Sheri Walters, The Queen Has Lost Her Crown
Prologue
The aisle is immeasurably long. I never imagined it being this long when I thought about what my wedding would be like. I suppose if Beckham was waiting at the end, it wouldn't feel like this. But it's not Beckham, it's him waiting for me. Even now I can feel Beckham's angry, hurt, devastated glare wrapping around me. His anger is tangible in the air, so much so that it's hard to breathe. I wish he wasn't here, but he told me if I was really going to do this, I had to do it knowing he was watching, and that he would take me away the minute I asked no matter the consequence.
I can't think about that though. This isn't something I can back out of.
One step, another step. I glance backwards at the doors that have been closed behind me. They are most likely locked as well. You don't capture a queen everyday after all. I get the insane urge to laugh. A captured queen. That's exactly what I am.
I feel a small squeeze on my arm. I look over and my father motions with his eyes for me to get on with it. For a minute I want to curse him into oblivion, but I take a deep breath and try to calm myself. No matter how wretched he is, this wasn't his choice. It was mine.
A swell of music from a hidden orchestra fills the air. It's playing our people's wedding march. I used to love this song as a little girl. I would sway to the lilting beat and admire the beautiful brides and how radiant and happy they looked staring at the love waiting for them at the end of the song. It's funny that it sounds like a funeral march to me right now.
One step, another step. I can sense that Beckham is just ahead of me. I'm afraid to look up, afraid that what I will see in his eyes will somehow make me change my mind. What if he's crying again? Can I really take the sight of that again?
I hold off as long as I can before the weight of his stare, coupled with my longing to see his face again, makes me look up. I lose my breath for a second looking at the sheer sorrow written all over him. Despite the pain his sadness fills me with, I devour him with my eyes. He is so beautiful. It seems like the light streaming in from the stained-glass window that covers almost the entire front of the room is solely focused on him. He glows even more than usual somehow. He's dressed in all black, the only one in the room wearing the color. It's a high break in protocol for him to be wearing black to a royal wedding, or any wedding at all for that matter. I understand why he's wearing it though. There will be a death today. The death of us.
Another squeeze on my arm tells me that my look has not gone unnoticed. I reluctantly tear my eyes away from him. The image of him holding my ring against his heart seared into my soul.
One step, another step. The walkway is lined with flowers and I flinch at the waste considering the land is dying and taking all its beauty with it to the grave. I wonder where they even found them. I certainly didn
't grow them for anyone. Not that anyone knows that I have that power now.
We're getting to the end of the song. I take a deep breath and finally look at my soon to be husband. He too is beautiful. The dark to Beckham's light. But the stain on his soul ensures that his beauty will always disgust me. The same way that the black widow, despite its beautiful crimson belly, will always fill me with dread.
He's staring at me, his black eyes sparkling with pride. I know I must present quite the sight. I am the perfect queen. My golden hair shimmers behind me, brushed to such a perfection that I imagine it appears to be real gold. Iridescent pearls are threaded throughout the waves and even I couldn't help but admire my image when I first looked in the mirror after my handmaidens were done preparing me. My crown of sparkling diamonds sits atop my head, reminding the gathering that with the death of my mother, I am now Queen.
My dress is equally as stunning. Made from lace that appears so lovely and delicate that I feared the dress would rip just by touching it when I put it on, it fits my every curve like a glove. A long train trails behind me, held perfectly in place by my rock, Lexi, who solemnly walks behind me in support, despite the fact that she hates today almost as much as I do.
He gives me a smile that somehow lacks any warmth and holds out his hand. One step, another step. I'm finally there. Taking one last look behind me, I almost can't believe I made it down this aisle that looks even longer than it did at the beginning. I take a deep breath, and my eyes can't help but seek out Beckham's one more time. Our eyes meet and I gather courage from the love I see still exuding out from them. I finally face forward at last, and place my hand in his still outstretched one.
I am the Queen and today is my wedding day.
Chapter 1
Damon
I stare at Lexi in shock for a second before I stand up and rush over to her, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her for a second inadvertently before she sends an electric shock racing through me which sends me crashing to the ground.
"Don't touch me," she responds coolly, the slight flicker of electricity still visible at her fingertips.
"Well hello little witch," I tell her sarcastically. "Did Eva know about this?"
"She found out right before she disappeared," Lexi tells me stiffly. There's definitely no love lost between her and I, especially now that I can see that how she has acted this whole time was fake. However, I'm going to try and play nice, I would work with Lucifer himself if it helped me to find Eva.
"We can chat about how I'm a witch and you're an angel later," she says, surprising me with her knowledge of what I am. "Right now, we need to get Eva."
"How do you know where she is?" I ask.
"I don't know exactly where she is, just the general area. She doesn't seem to be conscious though wherever she is."
"What do you mean, and how are you able to do this?" I ask impatiently, ready to rip her head off if she doesn't give me information soon, and worrying what it means if Eva is unconscious.
Lexi looks uncomfortable, as if she doesn't want to share how she knows.
"I'm tethered to her," she mumbles under her breath.
It's only thanks to my supersonic hearing I can even make the words out. Tethered. I try to go through my supernatural databank of knowledge to figure out what I know about it, but I can't come up with anything. I've heard that souls can be tethered together, but surely that's not what she's talking about, right…?
"Explain how you are tethered to her?" I ask her, feeling like I'm just repeating myself over and over again.
"I tethered our souls," she explains hesitantly. "So that I could always find her."
I cringe and feel strangely jealous. I want my soul to be tethered to Eva's.
"Why exactly did you do that?"
"I lose her in every life that she's had. I made a promise to her when this all began, that she would never be alone. I've broken it now more times than I can count. Sometimes centuries upon centuries in my life have passed before I find her. I don't even know how many lives I've missed where she's been all alone. When fate finally brought her to me in this one, I needed to make sure that I didn't lose her again. She's my queen…and my best friend," she says vaguely. "I had to find a way to keep my promise."
I'm frozen, my mind having a difficult time comprehending the clusterfuck of facts she just laid on me. Past lives? A Queen? I feel like I've gone down the rabbit hole and entered Wonderland. I move towards Lexi again, tempted to grab her and shake the answers out.
"Ok, I'm going to try and take the craziness you just laid on me and take it apart piece by piece. We'll start with tethering, what does that entail?" I spit at her, wishing, not for the first time, that I had Beckham's patience.
"I connected our souls using a spell," she tells me with a sigh, acting like this is everyday knowledge I should already have. "You use a piece of hair, or other bodily fluid, along with something that is precious to the person for the ingredients. After the spell is done, if it's worked, I can get a general idea of where the person is at if I don't know, among other things."
I don't even want to know how Lexi got Eva's hair, "bodily fluid," and belongings, or what 'the other things' entails. Hopefully it didn't involve creeping into her room in the middle of the night and watching her sleep, but I wouldn't put it past the witch. I suddenly get the image of her taking Eva's blood while she's comatose, and I cringe. I get the feeling that she's omitted quite a bit of details from what "tethering" actually entails, but I've got a lot of other things to untangle. I can research exactly what tethering is later on.
"Ok, moving to the next batch of craziness you dropped on me. What kind of other lives are you talking about?"
"It's a long story," she says grimacing. "And I can't really tell you very much. I don't even know everything, and she bound me that I wouldn't be able to talk about most of it."
"She bound you? Are you saying that Eva's a witch too?" I ask.
Lexi shakes her head, her eyes wide. "My Queen is much more powerful than a witch. Binding me was part of the magic she used to protect the land," Lexi starts, her eyes and voice taking on a dream-like quality as they remember whatever she's talking about.
"He had cursed it all, summoning magic so dark that even Eva, with the infinite power she possessed couldn't do anything to combat it. He took everything from her, had her under his thumb to the point that he controlled everything about her. He was killing the land. Draining it of its magic in an attempt to bind her to him forever. We found an ancient spell after months and months of searching. It required..." Lexi's voice chokes up. "It required a great sacrifice."
I'm standing in front of her now, gripping her shoulders. "What sacrifice did Eva have to give?" I ask, gritting my teeth.
Lexi promptly blasts me into the wall, sending sheetrock scattering everywhere, and I'm sure scaring the building's other tenants into thinking an earthquake is hitting New York City. All I can do is stare at Lexi in shock. She must be pretty confident if she's willing to blast an angel of my stature and power level. I stand up and casually dust myself off, refocusing on what's most pressing in everything she's told me tonight.
"That was your one opportunity to do that. I hope you got it out of your system," I tell her calmly, advancing towards her. I can see her eyes fill with a bit of fear at what I'm going to do to her, and I admire the fact that she is trying to keep a stiff upper lip despite the fact that she's shaking.
"Let's start again, and this time I promise not to touch you. We'll discuss all my other questions at a later date. Right now, you're going to tell me where Eva is and how I can get her back."
"I think you should call Beckham," she responds. "From what I remember, he will know pieces that I don't."
I'm confused. How would Beckham know anything more than I do? She must see the confusion written on my fa
ce and then she seems to get very uncomfortable.
"Not to get involved with the little competition you have going right now with the other dudes, but Beckham was her very first love. He was her fated match in Eva's first life."
Dread is spreading throughout my entire body. Fated match? That could be the worst phrase I've ever heard in my life. I know all about fated pairings, and I know that the thing about them is you only get ONE. Fated mates are so rare that it's not even a sure thing that you will find yours if you have one. Even eternal beings can go thousands of years without finding theirs. I've been so sure that Eva is my fated mate. Lexi has to be wrong. She doesn't know what she's talking about. Beckham would have said something at the very beginning if he knew Eva. He would have been a bit more angry about her dating Mason and I if she was his fated mate. I certainly can't even think about her with them without falling into an internal jealous rage. We'll call Beckham and get him over here and he'll set Lexi straight.
"Fine," I finally tell Lexi. "I'll call him right now and then you're giving me more answers."
Chapter 2
Beckham
I'm in an alleyway, about to enter the club that Eva and Lexi went to the night before she disappeared to see if I can find out anything, when my phone rings.
"What!" I snap at Damon, annoyed that he's bothering me when I'm actually attempting to do more than sulk.
"You need to get to my place now, Lexi says she knows where Eva is."
I almost drop my phone.
"How does Lexi know?" I ask, thinking of Eva's airhead friend that always seems to be hanging around.
"Evidently the little red-headed devil is a little more than she seems," he says, sounding annoyed and suspicious at the same time. Damon's always hated red-heads. I'll have to ask him why sometime.
