Dark Caress The Complete Series

Chapter 1

VALANCE

The whispers crawled from the trees as if made of flesh. I could almost see them, feel them in the forest air. Dark voices. The voices of those who came to harm, to slaughter. To rebel.

Unseelie scum, Lasair their leader. Holding the north of Autumn—the last piece of Faerie out of royal jurisdiction—and sending her followers to disrupt and kill.

A despicable fae. The day she lost her head, I’d sleep better.

Faerie would breathe better. For too long, the world had suffered under this war of seelie and unseelie.

The sooner the latter were dispensed with, the sooner a better future could begin.

Yet that dream was always out of reach, Faerie in the grip of a stalemate.

The seelie court was strongest, yes, but those aligned to the unseelie court were determined.

Determination sometimes made for a powerful weapon.

I listened to the feeble attempt at stealth from these whispers, picking up some significant words in the not-so-shrouded conversation of my apparently oblivious enemy. Two figures hunched together with their backs to me.

I lifted a hand, commanding my two guards to halt. They obeyed and moved from their flanking positions to cover my front and back. Awaiting my next order. My personal guards. My best friends. My chosen family.

The three of us had moved through the forest under silence, our boots muffled by moss grown from my magic.

My fingers danced as more moss spread across the forest floor, quietly spawning as a green carpet to aid in a surprise attack.

At least until the enemy noticed us. I considered manipulating the leaves in the thicket that barely cloaked the two dark-haired figures.

To create more of a shield in case they turned their heads and spoiled this surprise.

But where would be the fun in that? My guards and I were no amateurs in the art of stealth and stalking and liked to make a meal of these things when we could.

Whenever I embarked on an unseelie hunt, the rush of excitement never failed to engulf me.

There was often a lightness in my chest—a blend of eagerness to fight combined with fear.

Fear got the blood pumping. Never a bad thing, never a hindrance.

That would be a lack of fear. To have fear was to be smart.

Without it, there was arrogance and failure.

I listened, keeping still.

“We must circle the palace as instructed,” one of two male voices said. “Find this doorway.”

“I can’t do this,” the other male voice responded.

“You can. We need to be brave now.”

Doorway? In the palace? I almost howled with laughter. I turned back to smirk at Maeve and Boyd, elves and personal guards. Maeve rolled her eyes. Boyd shook his head, both of them with their own smirks of mocking.

The two unseelie continued to discuss this supposed secret doorway on the ocean side of Summer Palace.

It was the first I had ever heard of such a thing in all my twenty-six years as a prince.

I’d spent a childhood exploring every inch of the palace, playing hiding games with Maeve and Boyd, occasionally my siblings, hiding from my mother and father and nurse maids when they called for dinner or bath time or to scold me for being a naughty child.

I knew all the secret doorways and tunnels.

This one the unseelie invaders spoke of did not exist.

Once the conversation became tiresome, I gave the order to move forward.

Maeve and Boyd continued to cover me—the former taking point.

They were never too far from their future king, dutiful in their jobs and friendship.

Despite my frustration at having to allow them to take charge to protect me, I never hindered their efforts.

I wanted them to keep their jobs, after all.

My fingers danced as if controlling a puppet on strings, creating more moss carpet, my boots kissing sponge. Inching closer to the trees. The unseelie still whispered, tried to reassure each other they could do this. That the tide was about to turn, that the seelie would see our downfall at last.

Dream your foolish dreams, I thought.

I still wasn’t sure if these were Fomorian or human. They weren’t Gentry fae because of not having red hair. No fae could change hair color or appearance through any means.

I drew my silver sword, steel glinting in the sunlight piercing the forest’s canopy. A deliberate move to get some attention. It was time to fight. Because stabbing an enemy in the back didn’t harbor the same pleasure as face-to-face combat.

Only, the unseelie bastards didn’t react, continuing with their huddled discussion.

Interesting. Time for a different tactic.

“Good morning to you,” I announced.

Still no reaction.

Now that should have stirred them into action. But their bodies didn’t jolt, no yelps of surprise from either of them.

This boiled my royal blood.

“Face us,” I said. “Immediately. You are trespassing on seelie land.”

Those aligned to the seelie court had no cause to sneak and hide in this forest. A fair and accurate assumption, then, that these were enemies.

Whispers continued, a conversation beyond the existence of this forest, it seemed.

As if they weren’t really there at all. My senses prickled.

A trick? Possibly. Fomorion magic was weak but had the aid of deceit at its core.

Shadow magic had once been a dominant force, now heavily diluted. Yet not fully.

I relayed my thoughts to my guards with whispers of my own, telling them to keep vigilant.

A breath on the summer breeze, mere feet behind me. I spun, Maeve echoing my moves as Boyd still faced the two figures.

Two dark-haired males, pale- skinned with the scarlet eyes of the Fomorians, charged forward with swords aloft. Resembling the same two whispering men, apparently, still hunched in the thicket.

In a blur of speed, Maeve met the Fomorian on the left’s broadsword with her own curved blade. The clash of metal rang through the trees, stirring birds and forest creatures to scatter and flee.

I parried the strike from the other man. The bastard was unsteady and dropped the weapon. It landed with a muffled thump on the moss.

The man lifted his hands in a pleading stance, reeking of stale sweat and many days spent on the road.

“Mercy, Your Highness,” he begged.

My blade took off the fae’s left hand. He screamed and fell to his knees, blood gushing from his wound. It sprayed my black hunting boots, decorated the moss with crimson splatters. The fae wailed and cursed the royal family and all seelie through spittle and a face of purple fury.

I removed the trespasser’s head and noticed Maeve execute the other.

But it wasn’t over.

Boyd stood still, watching the thicket. Too still. The figures were still there, whispering.

“Why aren’t they dead?” I demanded. “Boyd?”

My friend said nothing.

“Answer your prince,” Maeve ordered, grabbing his shoulder.

Boyd’s head flopped to the side as if the bones had left his neck.

Blood oozed from his left pointed ear. His eyes were…

gone. Hollow pits of shadow. No blood, his face still intact, his dark brown skin still emitting the glow of life.

But no head should dangle between shoulder blades, and a neck resembling a creased sheet was no neck to sustain a living elf.

In the name of blessed Danu! My poor guard!

Maeve tried her best to support Boyd’s head, lifting it back into position.

“He’s still breathing,” she said. “Boyd?”

I turned my attention to those bastards still huddled, still whispering in their own bubble. A cautionary glance to the remains of our attackers told me everything I needed to know.

There was shadow magic at play here. Which meant charging at the figures without care would be nothing short of suicide.

I examined them, tried to ascertain any further details.

They didn’t repeat their movements. I’d wondered if there was some bizarre loop they were caught in, apparitions presenting a falsehood to trick me.

But no, and the smell of days on the road wafted from them, and the one on the left drew in the dry mud with his finger.

“Living flesh,” I whispered to Maeve.

Next time I came on an unseelie hunt, I’d certainly make sure to catch a pixie and bring their magic-nullifying skills with me. Never an easy feat, and often a long and arduous afternoon spent in the thorny pixie groves.

With no pixie solution, I devised a different plan. At first, it began as a simple tossing a stone at a head. It bounced off the skull of the figure on the right, which didn’t stop his flow. Next, I went for something more fun.

I called to the trees with my magic, specifically their branches. I needed them to soften yet remain sturdy, to bend and coil as a rope. This spell would spend all of my magical energy for the rest of the day, what with the moss-making too, but it would be worth every effort.

The branches curled forward as snakes in the air, leaves melting into the bark. They wound down toward their targets, inching closer. I heard a gasp in the trees to my right, a fresh set of whispers. Panicked this time.

Ah, so we were finally coming to the root of the problem.

The first branch lunged, closing the meter gap between it and the man on the right.

It snapped like a whip, snaring him by the neck and closing tight.

I felt it down my bond with its energy, the forest reverberating around me at the kiss of magic.

A familiar sensation. A sensation that pleased me as much as a cock inside me.

No reaction from the man. As the branch lifted the unseelie, still very much made of flesh, it whispered on.

He rotated slightly, dangling, and I caught sight of his face—the same face as the Fomorian I’d killed moments ago.

Lips still moving, fingers drawing at the air as if the mud were still there.

The figure on the left continued to talk to the vacant space it’d previously occupied.

A bizarre situation indeed.