Chapter 1
VALANCE
My fingers caressed the hilt of my sword. How quickly could I draw my weapon and drive it into his face? End this. Be free. See him—
Never.
I could never hurt him.
Fingers off the hilt, I gazed at the flames as Kormac roasted the rabbit he’d killed earlier.
The carcass was skewered on a makeshift spit made of sticks from the forest floor.
The smell of cooking meat wafted across my senses.
Made my stomach rumble, my mouth as wet as the ocean.
Hunger really held me in its grip today.
“Won’t be long,” the human said.
My eyes moved to him, feasting on his handsome profile. The firelight danced across his olive skin, highlighted his strong jaw, the stubble as his beard started to grow back. He pushed a curl of his messy brown hair behind his ear as he worked the rabbit.
Those beautiful azure eyes…
Damn this retched soul bond.
What a twisted dealing of fate to bring me to this clearing in Rosestar Forest. To be at the side of this human I wanted to offer my purest hate, yet denied such emotion because an old woman of many parts decided to bind us together.
For some reason, we had to go north for my becoming at the heart of Winter—the lost lands.
The realm of shadows and former home to the long-dead Tuatha fae.
What could possibly await me up there but the cold and the terrors within those dark lands? More darkness? More hate?
Vengeance…
The old woman couldn’t tell us much, only that Kormac and I were now bonded together. We couldn’t hate, only protect, only serve our destiny. Not even deliver an insult to one another without feeling guilt.
I have seen you both in the stars, connected to serve a great becoming in the north.
Curse the stars! I’d rather see Kormac dead, bleeding from a sliced throat by my hand. Me standing over him as the ground soaked with his blood.
I’m sorry, I told him in my head.
No negative thoughts. No loathing. Only concern and care for this man stuck to my soul.
Even if he had ruined my life, been partly responsible for the death of my beloved friends—intent counting as much as the devastating blow of another.
He’d come to Summer Palace with Ren, his dead friend.
That Fomorian shadow sorcerer had poisoned Boyd with his magic, cursed me with berserker rage.
A curse designed to destroy me. It had succeeded.
It’d upturned my life, forced me to kill Maeve against my will, even my father, the king—despite him betraying me in his own cruel way.
Dead. All dead.
Maeve and Boyd. Two pieces of my heart lost forever. And my father…
…my father.
The king was dead.
Danu. This was nothing short of a nightmare.
You cannot be apart, you cannot harm one another, you must be companions in order to succeed in your quest…
I should be back at the Summer Palace, being the Crown Prince, heir to the Faerie Throne.
Living my life with Maeve and Boyd, fucking and drinking and fighting the unseelie-aligned scum who polluted our world.
Inching closer to winning the war against them.
Burn their banners, purge that retched unseelie court from history.
Or at least crush it to nothing.
Yet here I sat, on this log before this fire this unseelie-aligned human had made. Within the trees, heading for the White Wastes and the next part of the old woman who’d bound us together.
With each part encountered, the old woman would give new guidance until we reached Winter—where the real answers lay. At least, I hoped so. Maybe she was lying. And maybe we wouldn’t get that far north—she wanted to see if we could. I wanted to see if we could.
But why us? What made the human and I so special? My inner darkness? I harbored so many shadows, a plethora of grief and rage. Some called me a dark soul. Did that count?
The human lifted the spit, the meat ready.
I stopped myself from drooling, watching him cut up the meat with a small dagger.
“Want some bread?” he asked.
“Yes. Let me slice it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure.” I fished a loaf of bread from one of our big packs.
There were two big packs provided by the old woman. They held supplies—potions, salves, poison, blankets, and some food. Dried meat and hard cheese, and stale bread. Enough to get us started, but not enough for a long journey north.
The night was cool, a significant change from the searing heat of the day. Sometimes the nights in the lands of Summer could be so bitter, an extreme contradiction to the days. Not like the cold of other lands, but cold for a Summer Sidhe fae like me.
We’d been on the road for a week, keeping as hidden as possible from seelie patrols hunting us (my own people!) for my killing of the king. And unseelie hunts lead by Lasair—leader of the unseelie and poisonous thorn in my side.
Without the soul bond, Kormac’s loyalties would be squarely at her feet—if she didn’t kill him for running off with me. After all, she’d declared us dead men.
We’d see about that.
I sliced through the half-eaten bread with one of my small blades. Cutting big slices for craving bellies. Unfortunately, we had no butter. Oh, if only we had a magnificent, salted butter from the palace kitchens.
Perfection.
Kormac must protect the prince and his dark caress and get him there…
My dark caress… Of all things, I longed for an answer to this.
I’d always been called ‘cursed’ for my appearance, for my lack of traditional Sidhe features—namely the bright, colorful eyes.
A reputation for being brutal, a creature of wanton sexual appetites didn’t help my image.
Did they also make up the components to make me the one for this dark caress?
What are you? I wondered for the umpteenth time.
Only time would tell. For now, I embraced the situation as much as my heart could stand. The only choices were to stay and die or try to find something else.
Something darker.
Dark things in the north. Whispers of monsters, of strange creatures lurking at the edges. A cursed place. A forbidden realm.
It could be the perfect home…
I sighed, done with the bread.
Danu. It had been a long seven days.
Dark caress…
My dark cares…
Topping the bread with steaming meat, we ate in silence. The night creatures moved, called to each other, hunted one another. I hunched over my food, leaning closer to the fire as the chilly air nipped at my flesh.
“Are you okay?” Kormac asked.
“Tired,” I responded after swallowing a mouthful of food.
He nodded, tearing into his bread and rabbit. I watched him eat. A far more primal and human display than mine. Less chewing. Faster consumption. Irritating yet fascinating.
I knew what lay beneath his battered, brown leather armor.
That muscled physique, the dark hair on his chest. I’d seen it, wanted it, imagined his big hands around my neck as he fucked me harder than I’d ever been fucked before.
His bulk upon my slender frame. Rough and, yes, primal as well.
Enough to blast through my sorrow, through all my concerns.
My eyes returned to the fire. I didn’t deny an attraction to him, though it was nothing but lust and curiosity. An attraction to never be acted upon. Our bodies would never join. He would never put those hands on me other than to help me with aid I couldn’t refuse.
Nothing else.
You want those hands, though…
I chewed, ignoring my inner self.
More silence followed the food. No books to read, no parchment to write on. I almost used my seed magic to do something with the trees and plants. Make a show, create some pretty night flowers. Anything to alleviate the tensions in my mind.
Only Sidhe fae were seed sorcerers—like me—just as shadow sorcerers were always Fomorian. Seed magic was comprised of the four elements—earth, wind, fire, and water. To use it, the element the sorcerer was skilled in, in my case earth, needed to be around to manipulate. Such as a forest.
My father and brother had used the power of light, a rare fifth form of seed magic. Powerful men with a special gift. Both of them dead along with my sister, Jehanne.
Of my immediate family, excluding my vile grandmother, only my mother remained.
Stuck in her tower at Summer Palace, locked in an endless slumber since my sister’s death.
What would become of her? Would she be slain, put out of her misery now that Lasair and Lord Florent were undoing the Rosestar and seelie regime?
Would my lesser family members, the useless branch, step up and fight back?
I doubted it. The Gentry fae of the lands of Spring were proficient in metal.
So skilled were they that they found a way to use iron without being harmed—a metal toxic to fae and Faerie.
A deadly weapon, a tool for shifting the dynamics of Faerie.
King Oberon Rosestar, my father, had feared it so greatly he’d made a marriage deal.
One of me being wed to Lord Florent, for Spring and Summer to unite.
To share power, for iron-wielding Gentry to not come up against us.
Summer had the strength, the armies, the magic.
Spring had the instrument of mass destruction. Only a fool would not yield.
The king meant to betray Spring, never one to share power.
Goodness, hadn’t that turned out well?
My family would not do the same unless they held some surprises up their sleeves.
Technically, I was now king. King Valance Rosestar. Ruler of all Faerie, highest lord of the seelie court.