King of the Wilds: Rosethorn Valley Fae #3 Read online

  He looked thoughtful.

  “Believe me, Bron, no one here will share a history like yours,” she told him. “Dorian and Tristan are desperate to find you. They love you.”

  A smile split his handsome face. “Well, let’s go find my brothers then.”

  She smiled back and wondered if anyone had ever looked forward to such an unusual family reunion: three brothers, three kings and their queens, a triumvirate formed in desperation, tempered by invisible fire, and reborn on a beautiful spring morning, when it seemed that anything was possible.

  As the trees spread their branches once more, she saw that the entire hillside of rhododendrons had blossomed around them. The sky was brilliant blue overhead, and the birdsong seemed to carry a deeper meaning.

  Like they were celebrating the return of their king.

  25

  Bron

  A few days later, Bron waited in the rose garden outside the mansion, with his brothers by his side.

  He felt buttoned up and sweaty in the formal suit of human clothing, but Tristan and Dorian had assured him that Miranda would like it, and he was determined to do all he could to make this day special for her.

  He looked at his brothers, each resplendent in his own fine suit, all of them looking as happy as he felt.

  Chairs had been set up in the rose garden for friends and family. Bron didn’t recognize many of the faces, but Officer Dale Evans and his wife were there, with Helen Thayer and her boyfriend seated beside them. The woman who ran the grocery store, and Carl from Le Sucre had joined them as well.

  In time, Bron knew, he would get to know all the people who were important to their circle of friends.

  For now, it was enough to be spending his time volunteering with Miranda, Sara, Tabitha, and his brothers to get the mansion back in shape.

  With the help of Jack Harkness, a carpenter from Tarker’s Hollow, Bron was learning to be an excellent woodworker. “You sure have a way with wood,” Jack would say, shaking his head in wonder. Jack didn’t realize Bron had a serious advantage with anything that had to do with trees.

  They hoped to have the place ready for tours and history lessons in the next year. Miranda and Tabitha were working with the local school district to plan a Rosethorn Valley History summer day camp.

  It was good to see Miranda happy. When Bron first met her, she had seemed as buttoned-up as he was laid-back.

  Now she laughed easily, and he saw a wild side of her that he hadn’t dreamed he would be able to set loose so quickly.

  His new friend, Jack, began to play the acoustic guitar softly, which Bron knew was the signal that things were about to begin.

  Tristan and Dorian straightened up and their friends in the chairs all turned to look as the freshly polished doors of the mansion swung open.

  Sara came out first, her long dark hair swirled in a loose bun and topped with a lace veil. Her gossamer gown trailed behind her as she walked slowly past their friends to stand beside Dorian, whose expression was steely. Bron knew him well enough to know it was because he was trying not to cry.

  Tabitha came next, in white satin with a tiny, box-shaped hat over her glossy hair. Tristan smiled and Bron hoped their friends didn’t see the slight glow that emanated from his brother’s body as he joyfully watched his betrothed arrive at his side.

  Bron held his breath as he waited for one more queen to grace the doorway.

  Miranda stood in the threshold for just a moment, then time seemed to stand still as she moved toward him.

  Her fiery hair fell in loose cascades down her back. She wore a simple cotton dress, her only adornment a circlet of baby’s breath in her hair. Her feet were bare. She was just as he loved her best - completely herself.

  He felt almost gutted with love.

  The mayor of Rosethorn Valley came forward and began to speak the words of the ceremony, but Bron could hardly hear them.

  Miranda was beside him, gazing up at him, her eyes hazy with love.

  He managed to say his piece when it was his turn and slide a ring onto her finger.

  The ring and the ceremony were extraneous, of course, his promise to be her king was older than the custom of rings and saying words by rote. And they had already shared the true ring that would mark their bond forever.

  But he wanted to belong to her in every way, to express his love in every ceremony that might carry meaning for her and her kind.

  Suddenly, everyone was cheering and he knew it was time for their kiss.

  Miranda flung her arms around his neck and he lifted her up and swung her, pressing his lips hungrily to hers.

  “Easy, Bron,” she giggled after a moment.

  “I’m the King of the Wilds,” he growled teasingly.

  “Yes, but we don’t need to show them,” she teased back.

  “You have five minutes to make your excuses,” he told her. “Then I’m taking you into the woods to have my way with you, lass.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But I’m going to need more than five minutes. We have a party to throw.”

  He glanced over to where his brothers and their wives were laughing and greeting their friends. Someone had turned on light-hearted music and it was playing through a set of speakers on the porch. A BBQ grill was going on the lawn in front of the mansion and he could already smell a delightful assortment of charring meats. The smoke curled upward toward a sky that was growing pink with twilight.

  “You know what?” he said. “I actually like that idea.”

  It was incredible to think that there was anything he might like to do that involved other fae and humans. He had spent an eternity trying to make his excuses and get back to the woods.

  “Are you getting domesticated on me?” she teased.

  “No, I just want cake,” he laughed. “But maybe you have tamed me, just a little. I would follow you anywhere, you know that, don’t you?”

  “I do know that,” Miranda told him, her beautiful eyes serious now. “I love you, my king.”

  “And I love you, my queen,” he told her. “I will love you forever.”

  ***

  Thanks for reading King of the Wilds!

  Are you ready for more steamy fae king action? Do you want to know exactly what Cullen Ward saw on the other side of the veil that made him smile and give up the fight? Do you want to learn about the heartbreak that led him to become the King of Pain, and find out if he can redeem himself when he gets an unexpected second chance?

  Then keep reading for a sample of King of Pain, or grab your copy now:

  https://www.tashablack.com/kingofpain.html

  King of Pain (Sample)

  1

  Cullen

  Cullen Ward roared and pushed his magic to its limit.

  He felt the strain on his mind as well as his muscles as he brought an army of shadows to life around him to hold strong against the light.

  A bead of sweat stung his eyes.

  All three of his brothers and their queens stood before him, furiously gathering their forces to oust Cullen from the human realm. The King of Light assaulted him with magical bursts while the King of Darkness smothered him in an inky cloak of midnight. The King of the Wilds was burning the very life force from the surrounding forest to bolster their attacks.

  Seeing the three of them work together was almost more painful than their magical onslaught.

  Almost.

  Cullen himself had once been the King of Order, but he had learned to feed on pain, an endless fuel source in this miserable realm.

  And yet even with so much power at his fingertips, he still felt himself inexorably pushed through the veil between the mortal realm and the fae.

  How can they stand against me at all? I should be able to demolish them with a thought.

  But somehow, his brothers were willing to drain themselves to push him back into Faerie. They were pushing harder than he’d ever imagined they could.

  Cullen glanced around at their queens, fighting their own hearts out
beside them, and he understood.

  His brothers had something to fight for.

  It was only a matter of time before they bested him. He could already smell the forest around them burning with the invisible fire of his youngest brother’s life essence. The fool was willing to sacrifice himself for these mortals.

  As the veil between worlds opened to suck him in, the faintest hint of another scent slipped between realms and caressed his senses.

  Cullen froze, all thoughts of the battle forgotten.

  Jessica…

  The redolence of tea roses and vanilla sent his memory reeling.

  He reclines on a soft blanket in the shade of a mighty oak. She sits beside him, legs curled under her, jotting notes in a leather bound journal. The scratch of her pen against the paper tickles his senses.

  Suddenly he had no strength left to fight his brothers.

  And more importantly, he had no desire to resist.

  If any part of Jessica was on the other side, he had no more need of the mortal realm after all.

  His brother’s invisible fire was expanding now, licking at the stone wall that separated the garden and the mansion from the woods.

  Cullen was barely holding on. The power was almost too much for him to resist.

  But it also proved too much for his little brother.

  The King of the Wilds fell onto his side, the last of his life energy spent. His queen wailed in agony.

  Her pain was exquisite. It surged into Cullen, filling him with all the power he could handle - more than enough to defeat his remaining brothers and end the short lives of their mortal queens.

  He knew exactly what he needed to do next.

  For the first time in decades, a genuine smile graced Cullen Ward’s stern features. He took one final look at his brothers.

  And then he let go.

  2

  Cullen

  Cullen landed hard on his ass on the checkerboard floor of an empty ballroom.

  He knew where he was immediately - his brother Dorian had spent centuries wasting away in this glorified prison.

  Cullen had no intention of doing the same.

  “Your majesty.” A familiar voice floated across the room, cloyingly sweet and groveling.

  He turned to see a woman in a bird mask and ball gown approaching, bent practically in half with delight as she bowed and curtseyed her way to him.

  “Golda,” he said dismissively, recognizing the fae handmaid.

  “I see it worked,” Golda said. Her voice was soft, but clear as a bell.

  “What worked?” he asked.

  “I tricked the human girl into breaking the mirror,” Golda laughed.

  “Why?” he asked.

  Had he not sensed Jessica’s presence in this place, he would have murdered Golda where she stood, simply for starting the chain of events that landed him in this wretched place. As it was, he was still undecided about it.

  She shrugged. She didn’t need a reason - chaos was in her blood.

  Oh, how quickly he had lost track of the folk and their ways. He had almost forgotten the root of his own careless treachery.

  But there was no time now to reminiscence.

  He glanced at the window but saw only his reflection against the darkness outside.

  This mansion was the same as the one in the real world, except that here each day was exactly the same - a loop of repeating time that ended each night with a midnight ball in this very room.

  The king of this mansion could not leave its walls.

  And now that duty fell to him.

  He glanced at the throne in the corner of the conservatory, where they would expect him to sit and overlook their endless revels.

  The room was already beginning to fill. A group of musicians in rust-colored uniforms squabbled over their instruments until they saw him and went quiet.

  The rustling hush of ballgowns in motion poured in from all three doors.

  “Your majesty, allow me to accompany you to your throne,” Golda purred.

  He nodded his head in assent and followed her without meaning to.

  He even stood on the dais.

  In twos and threes, the denizens of the mansion, who fancied themselves his subjects, went quiet as they entered and saw him.

  The magnificent clock in the foyer struck once.

  They all scurried off, as if getting into place for their nightly dance.

  “No,” he said.

  They all froze, looking back at him.

  The clock struck again.

  He still surged with raw power from the battle with his brothers. He would never have a chance to resist once he let that magic fade. Nothing in this palace of apathy could ever feed his hunger like the pain he’d caused his brother’s mortal queen.

  Miranda…

  Of course she was more than just his brother’s consort. She had been Cullen’s own loyal servant for years before turning on him. And now she knew the price of her betrayal.

  He pushed the thoughts aside and steeled himself for the task at hand.

  “I will not be your King of Midnight,” he told the gathered crowd. “There will be no ball.”

  “What?” an older lady in an emerald gown asked. “What did he say?”

  “He says there won’t be a midnight ball,” her partner whispered back loudly as the clock struck a third time.

  “Why not?” the woman whined “He wouldn’t be this way if that Jessica was still here.”

  “What did you say?” Cullen asked, allowing the glint of danger into his voice.

  The clock sounded again.

  “N-nothing,” the woman answered, her lavender eyes widening.

  “Did you say if Jessica were still here?” he asked, his voice cutting through the fog of ballgowns, cutting her with icy cold.

  The clock sounded again as the woman shivered miserably and nodded.

  “Where is she?” Cullen demanded.

  “I-I,” the woman stammered.

  The clock sounded for the sixth time.

  Cullen leapt from the dais and strode through the stunned crowd.

  “Where is my Jessica?” he asked her.

  The clock struck again and the woman cringed.

  “Speak, mongrel,” Cullen spat, his patience at its end.

  But the woman was paralyzed with terror.

  “Are you a woman or a statue?” His voice was light, teasing. But as he spoke he reached for her with his mind.

  She glanced down at her feet, now rooted into the floor as solid stone.

  He watched as the stone traveled up her body, overtaking her knees.

  The clock struck again.

  He had to get out soon.

  “Th-the Queen of Silence took her,” the woman managed as she watched her legs turn to granite.

  “Took her where?” Cullen asked calmly.

  The clock struck for the ninth time.

  “T-to the countryside,” the woman stammered. “Please, your majesty.”

  “I don’t have all day,” Cullen said briskly. “And you have considerably less than that. Where in the countryside?”

  The stone inched up her torso.

  “The north, your majesty,” the woman’s partner told him hurriedly. “She didn’t say where, only that she would bring her to a cottage in the north.”

  The clock struck for the tenth time.

  But Cullen knew where she was, at least roughly. It would have to be enough.

  He flicked his wrist, ceasing the spell just as the woman’s chin turned to stone.

  She tipped into her partner’s arms, and he nearly toppled under the weight of her.

  “Please, your majesty,” the man wailed. “Please turn her back.”

  The spell would wear off in a few hours, but for now their pain was feeding him, replenishing the energy he’d used for the spell, giving him what he needed to make it out.

  The clock struck for the eleventh time.

  Cullen turned back to the throne.

&nb
sp; “So, are we going to dance?” Golda asked flirtatiously, following him.

  He could see the fear in her eyes and it fed him, adding to his fuel until he felt almost sick with the excess.

  “Do whatever you want,” he murmured to her, moving faster now.

  As the clock struck twelve he grabbed the throne in both fists and heaved it with all his might, expelling all the magic he had collected with a crash like thunder.

  For a horrible heartbeat he was afraid he was wrong, that he had carried none of his heightened powers across the veil.

  Then the throne exploded through the back wall, revealing a moonlit patch of garden and the darkness of the forest beyond.

  Cullen launched himself through the hole in the wall before it could close up behind him.

  “Your majesty,” Golda’s voice was plaintive.

  He turned back and eyed the ball guests derisively.

  “Wh-what should we do?” she asked.

  “Whatever the hell you want,” he said, turning away from his would be subjects.

  He placed two fingers in his mouth and let out a loud, low whistle.

  At first, only silence greeted him.

  He felt the rumble of the ground even before he saw the pale shape of his ethereal stallion galloping toward him, glowing in the moonlight.

  Nyx was all muscle under his snow-white velvet coat. The long, silken hair on his mane, tail and fetlocks floated backward as he moved, almost as if he were underwater, exaggerating the effect of his already frightening speed.

  “Nyx,” Cullen said as the beast thrust its massive forehead against his chest in greeting.

  He stoked the pale cheek once, as the stallion snorted and pranced.

  “Let’s go,” Cullen said, swinging onto his broad back.

  The steed knew instinctively which way Cullen wanted him to go. He ran swiftly, hooves striking the loamy earth in a hellish cadence.

  Cullen felt his body rhythm adjust to Nyx’s stride until they were moving as one, as they always had.