Lady of The Lake (Fey Spy Academy #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

C laret-tinged moonlight slants through the palace windows, casting an otherworldly glow on Talan’s body from behind. Russet light sculpts the hard angles of his muscled arms.

For one breath in the cedar-laced warmth of the room, the world fades away, and I am alone with the divine, breathtaking Dream Stalker.

In the next breath, I remember he’s a sadist. And he wants me to be his wife.

The worst person I’ve ever met is so fucking hot. So hot that I forget how to form words when he’s near. Forget how to think around him.

Forget that I’m here to end his life.

He steps closer, moving at an unhurried pace. In the firelight, droplets of water gleam on his broad shoulders like liquid gold. Shadows and light glide over his features: the masculine jawline, high cheekbones, and sensual mouth of a true voluptuary.

His eyes lock on mine, smoldering with a dark intensity. “Nia? I need to get you ready for our wedding. Now. I sent for the dressmaker the moment I heard you were riding back into the kingdom.”

I’m sure he knows the effect he has on others. His beauty is a weapon, a poison he uses to disarm his victims before he strikes, a sedative before a lethal blow.

And me? My thoughts are a raging storm. In the hollows of my mind, my voice screams at me to run.

But it doesn’t help that he’s only in a towel, or that his earthy, jasmine-tinged, smoky scent wraps around me.

“Our wedding,” I repeat. My voice sounds a million miles away.

I’m not sure if it’s the fatigue, or if it’s just him , but my thoughts can’t seem to catch up with the reality of the situation.

Our wedding?

I scan the room. His clothes are laid out on a mahogany table beneath towering, mullioned windows. His wedding clothes?

I wonder if he plans to drop that towel and get dressed in front of me.

“I didn’t say yes to a wedding,” I finally manage.

Days ago, we were on opposite sides of a battle, but he doesn’t know it. He has no idea his soldiers slaughtered my friend Viviane, or that I was still spattered with her dried blood when I crept back into my bedroom here. He doesn’t know I’m the one who ruined his battle plans, who leaked his attack.

He’s talking about marriage, and I’m here to kill him. My life has reached new depths of absurdity, wrapped in layers upon layers of lies.

As I stand, dripping with melting snow in my room, I struggle to wear the mask of my Fey persona. Here, in Castle Perillos, I’m Nia Vaillancourt—a farm girl, a fake mistress to the crown prince of Brocéliande, not the Nia raised by a human mom in LA, someone who spent her twenty-first birthday singing bad karaoke in a dive bar. I’m a lifelong subject of King Auberon and his son, the prince.

Talan’s molten copper eyes drink me in. “I don’t have much time before I’m supposed to marry Arwenna, and you, farm girl, are my only way out.”

This man is a flickering flame in the darkness, and I’m the moth drawn to his fire. I know he’ll singe my wings, but I can’t resist the light.

My mind offers up a memory of Talan the first night I spoke to him, torturing a servant. His victim writhed in pain on the floor, half-mad with agony. Broken. A more recent memory flares to life: Viviane’s body, shattered on the wintry Scottish earth, her jaw slack, eyes vacant, staring up at the gray skies as if hoping for an explanation, some answer to the glistening pool of gore beneath her head.

Emptiness carves through my chest.

Talan’s work.

He’s an artist, and violence is his medium. Doesn’t matter how gorgeous he is, I can’t ever let my guard down around him. Not for a single moment.

But I’m still here, standing before him, listening to him talk about marriage.

Mentally, I’m scrambling to put a thought together. At last, I manage, “Not much of a proposal, is it? This isn’t how I imagined my wedding, rushing into marriage so another woman doesn’t get there first.”

“Would it help if I got down on my knees to propose?” His voice is a soft purr.

“No.”

He gazes into my eyes like he’s trying to read my thoughts for just a moment, still holding his towel in place. “Then perhaps we should get on with it.”

Back when I worked in the bookstore—both a year and a lifetime ago—I’d sometimes flip through the wedding books to look at the gorgeous images of women in white, cream, and pale pinks. I’d pour over the beautifully set tables blooming with flowers and flickering lanterns, so gorgeous they might as well have been put together by the Fey. Perhaps I let myself dream once or twice of what my own wedding would be like, but never in any of these daydreams did I imagine I’d be planning to kill my husband soon after our wedding day.

I stall. “Surely a commoner can’t marry the prince.”

“She can if I fucking say so. And as I said, if you don’t marry me, you’ll likely end up dead.”

I bite my lip. “I’m not sure the threats are improving this situation for me.”

“I’m not the one who will kill you. If Arwenna gets her claws in my army, she’ll have your head delivered to her bedchamber on a silver platter. Probably gilded just for the aesthetics.” A disarming smile. “She can be very theatrical. But if I marry you today, it will solve my problems. So, that’s what we’re doing. And you get to spend more time with the most devastatingly seductive man in the kingdom. We both win.”

I wrinkle my nose. “At what point in your life did you start referring to yourself as ‘the most devastatingly seductive man in the kingdom’?”

He shrugs. “You hear it enough times in people’s dreams, and it sinks in.”

“And why me, exactly, and not a noblewoman?”

He goes still, one hand on his towel. Water slides down his skin, trailing over his dark tattoos and his abs. “Why you? Because as far as everyone knows, you’re my mistress. I’m refusing to marry Arwenna, but my father is desperate now. Our army just took a terrible blow. My own plan of beating the human military failed spectacularly.”

My blood goes cold. “A military loss? That’s a shame.” I clear my throat. “Do you have any idea what went wrong?”

He shakes his head. “A traitor among us. Someone alerted the humans of our invasion plan. But I will find the cunt, and I will crush his bones into dust, then hang his head from the castle door as a reminder to anyone who fucks with me.”

My lungs feel tight, my head dizzy. Fuck. “Of course.”

“It’s part of why my father is desperate to marry me to Arwenna. With our treasury empty, the nobles are starting to rebel. There’s unrest within the commoners as well. Father is taxing them to death, and they’re ready to light this palace on fire. My father needs money desperately, and he can get that easily from my marriage to the countess. According to our laws, the king can force me to marry even if I refuse. I don’t even need to be at the wedding. He threatened to keep me in the dungeons until it was over. The only thing that can stop him is if I’m already married.”

“So, why not just marry Arwenna and get the money?”

He arches a dark eyebrow. “That woman? I’d sooner burn the kingdom to the ground myself.”

“Fair point.”

“And trust me, my darling mistress, if Arwenna becomes my wife, her power will only grow, and it will become harder to protect you. The first thing she will try to do is murder you. Do you know what she did once to a woman she mistakenly believed to be my lover? When I was away on a hunting trip, she had the woman stripped, covered in bacon fat, and eaten by wild dogs in Corbinelle Square. I may not show it, Nia, but my hatred for that woman runs deep.”

I swallow hard. “I admit that it doesn’t sound like it would make a great marriage.”

“I’ve brought you into this castle, and I told you that I would protect you, didn’t I? The best way for me to protect you is for you to be my wife. No one will touch a princess.”

My heart slams against my ribs. She’d already tried to kill me twice. If she did manage to marry Talan, I wondered if she’d demand my death from Auberon as a wedding gift. “But that’s not really what this is about, is it? Keeping me safe? What’s your real motivation?”

He leans in, his voice rich and edged with steel. “My father is losing control, and I intend to take what is mine before he drags us all into ruin. And you, my little rustic poppet, are going to help me do it.”

Talan turns away from me and drops his towel. I stare at his perfect ass, the network of smooth muscles, and force myself to look away.

When I glance at him again, he’s sporting a pair of black underwear. He lifts one of the candles to a lantern, and my breath speeds up as the light washes over his abs. My cheeks flush. I may be here to kill him, but I can’t take my eyes off him.

He grabs his trousers and pulls them on. “Instead of staring at me, my little farmer, why don’t you do what I tell you? Remove your clothes, wash the dirt off, and get ready for our wedding. You get to be a princess, and all you have to do is stand beside me and pretend you want me.” His gaze slides down to my throat like he’s watching my pulse. “Though I’m not sure how much you need to pretend.”

“I don’t want to be a princess. Not when the prince…” I bite my tongue.

Not when the prince is my enemy, a target on my kill list—and on top of that, a temptation I’m not sure I can resist.