Chapter 1
Chapter One
FINLEY
SOMEWHERE IN THE KINGDOM OF CRESIN
There was nothing better than a good brawl.
Except for maybe good sex.
Sometimes they went hand in hand.
But Finley wasn’t in the mood for sex right now. Maybe later if the right opportunity arose. She was in the mood for a brawl.
Which was a good thing considering she’d just launched herself at a wolf shifter and was punching the shit out of his cocky face.
One moment she and her best friend Ai had been letting off steam in a friendly tavern squabble.
In the next the royal guard oh so rudely interrupted them and Finley passed out into her cursed sleep in the middle of her escape attempt.
Now, she’d woken up next to none other than Rafe.
The shape-shifting wolf who killed Princess Rose’s grandmother, Renata, the Minister of Eral Forest. They all had thought Rafe was their friend — or at least Rose’s friend. But apparently, they’d all been wrong.
Finley was never wrong, and the betrayal along with now being separated from Ai and on her way to prison, she needed someone to let her anger out on.
“You! Killed! Rose’s! Grandmother!” She shouted with each satisfying smack across his head.
Not that she wasn’t getting her fair share of hits back.
Rafe’s yellow eyes glowed and fur and muscles threatened to force themselves out of his skin and transform the man into his wolf form.
The beginnings of his claws scratched at her arms, tearing at her shirt and painting it red with blood.
At first glance, Rafe was slim and shadow-like.
But there was sheer raw muscle and power hidden within.
“Let me explain!” Rafe snarled. He bared his fangs that could swipe through her skin as easily as a shark’s fin in water then flipped her over onto her back with a loud thud against the prison wagon’s wooden floor, emphasized by the wagon hitting a particularly rough bump in the road.
The impact roared through Finley’s body, and she held in a groan. He didn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing that had hurt. Instead, she bared her teeth and gripped his shirt to pull him closer until they were nose to nose. “There’s nothing to explain. You’re a murderer.”
He raised a single brow. “And you aren’t, pirate?”
Finley wiggled her leg between them and kicked him so he tumbled off her onto his side. “That’s different. I don’t go around killing my friends’ grandmothers. But clearly, you’re not her friend and you’re not mine.”
Rafe growled and pounced at her. “I had no choice and am commissioned to carry out Stula’s wishes. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Stop acting like a moody adolescent. There’s always a choice.” Finley rolled over before he was able to land on her body again and he slid across the wagon and crashed into the wall on the other side.
Something banged on the outside wall of the wagon, making them both pause. A small window slid open to reveal thin bars and a pair of dark eyes peering in at them. “Quiet down back there! Unless you want a real beating when we arrive.”
The window snapped shut, and the moment was enough for Finley to get her bearings and sense of self-preservation back.
Rafe tilted his head to the side and glanced over to the window. “Who was that?”
Finley tossed her wavy hair over her shoulder and returned to the pile of hay she’d woken up in a few minutes ago.
A prison wagon, she’d been in enough of them to know where she was right away.
But to which prison she was headed this time, she had no idea.
With the way this day was going, it was leading her farther and farther away from Ai.
her crew on The Mystic and the goddess Gallis’ Chalice.
What could cure her sleeping curse once and for all.
“Whatever scum someone scraped up to escort us to our new residence. I hope you’re in here because of Renata,” she told Rafe as she attempted to make herself comfortable.
Her clothes were a disaster and her long blonde hair had fallen out of its plait and parts of her body that she hadn’t even known existed were sore.
It was no easy feat, but she’d been in worse spots than this before.
Granted, they’d always been with Ai. So maybe she hadn’t been in worse spots.
The thought made her chest tighten and she swallowed a lump in her throat. Where was Ai?
Rafe gave her an odd look out of the side of his eye.
As though there was something he knew that she didn’t.
But he ultimately seemed to have the same idea and settled back down in his corner of the wagon as far away from Finley as possible to tend to his minor wounds.
Which was fine by her, the traitorous bastard.
Finley might have been a pirate, but she knew where her loyalties lay.
“I imagine so. I was captured almost the moment I stepped out of Eral,” he answered. “Why are you in here?”
Finley shrugged. “I was in a tavern brawl, but I’m wanted in each kingdom. Any excuse is good enough for them I guess.”
It was odd, though, that she’d been caught so easily and that things had escalated as they did.
A simple tavern fight wasn’t enough to call on a whole troupe of guards and to get her and Ai separated.
If only she hadn’t fallen asleep from exerting herself and her magic so much, they might have been able to escape.
“You were asleep for a while there. Asleep when they tossed you in here too. I’ve never seen anyone sleep so hard,” Rafe observed. “Seems odd to me.”
Finley leaned across the wagon and went to grab her hat only to realize that whoever captured her must have taken it.
Her heart felt bruised at the thought. She then offered Rafe a smile so sweet even bees would have been disgusted by it.
No need to let him see she was upset. “You wouldn’t understand. ”
Rafe huffed, gave the air a sniff, and lay back as though he was bathing in the summer sun. “Fair enough.”
Her arms stung with the scratches Rafe had administered to her, and there wasn’t any water or spare cloths lying around to clean them with.
There was no choice but to ignore the wounds and attempt to make herself comfortable.
It was doubtful they would give her anything for the wounds at the prison, but some were more humane than others so one could hope.
If whatever bruises and scrapes she’d given to Rafe bothered him, he didn’t show it. Bastard.
Finley shifted in her place until she could find a bearable position, then paused.
Something was missing. She patted around her legs and boots to find that all her weapons were gone.
A low curse escaped her lips. It wasn’t surprising they’d removed her weapons.
In fact, she’d be more shocked if they let her keep them.
If they were her personal items, while it would be tragic to lose them, they were replaceable.
Truth be told, the ones she’d been carrying were in fact not hers.
They were the Shadow Slayers. Ancient, enchanted weapons that were only known in legends, and she’d borrowed them from Rose, the new Minister of Eral Forest.
Although she was sure Rose didn’t think “borrow” would be the appropriate word. “Stole” was likely the one Rose and her sister, Eira, would use. But Finley had left a note and promised to bring them back. Eventually.
It wasn’t as though they belonged to Rose either. She’d stolen them from a dragon in the Paravian mountains.
Besides, ancient weapons that came out of legends of old that no one believed actually existed didn’t truly belong to anyone, right?
Regardless of who they belonged to or how they got them, the Shadow Slayers were gone and Finley needed to get them back.
They were the key to getting the Chalice, she just knew it.
She gave herself a pat down again as though weapons would magically appear, knowing full well they wouldn’t.
Maybe Ai was able to escape capture and had them with her.
Even if by some miracle Ai did have the weapons, it didn’t change the fact that Finley was on her way to prison and would be under a close watch by the guards. She’d escaped such circumstances before, and hopefully they were still in Cresin.
Finley bounced onto her feet to look out the small, barred window overhead, making the wagon wobble and Rafe stirred. She gripped the edge of the windowsill and stood on her tip toes to see what lay beyond.
“What are you doing? You’re going to make the whole wagon turn over,” Rafe grumbled.
Finley doubted it, but making the wagon turn over would work in both of their favors so she wasn’t sure why he was complaining. Did he want to be imprisoned? Damn fool. She ignored him and focused on figuring out their location.
There wasn’t much to see outside the wagon.
Fields and the occasional copse of trees scattered about.
Wherever they were, it was in the middle of the kingdom and not near an ocean.
That didn’t mean there wasn’t water somewhere in the vicinity.
She closed her eyes and focused on the water and salt flowing through her veins.
The lull of sleep still wooed her, and it felt good to close her heavy lids.
But she’d just had a long rest, so she needed to push through this.