Authors: Jessica Aspen
Tags: #fantasy romance series, #fairytale romance for adults, #elven romance, #fantasy romance with sex, #paranormal romance witches, #paranormal romance trilogy
The Dark Huntsman: A Fantasy Romance of The Black Court (Tales of The Black Court Book 1)
The Dark Huntsman
A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court
Tales of the Black Court
Book One
by Jessica Aspen
Published October, 2013
Abracadabra Publishing
Warning!
Enter the dark forest at your own risk. This adult fairy tale contains spicy-hot sex scenes.
BEWARE:
there are ogres ahead.
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Copyright Information
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person living or dead, or any events and occurrences is purely coincidental. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Copyright 2013 by Jessica Aspen
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized editions.
Cover Designer:
Kari Ayasha of Cover to Cover Designs
www.covertocoverdesigns.com
Ebook ISBN:978-0-989958-2-0-5
ISBN Mass Market Paperback: 978-0615891682
Ten digit: 0615891683
To my husband, Jeff. Thank you for your absolute conviction that I could accomplish anything I set my mind to, for the emotional and financial support it’s taken to achieve this, and for loving me. I know it hasn’t always been easy, but you’ve been my rock through all the ups and downs. It’s trite but it’s true, without your faith in me I would never have gotten here. I love you.
To my mom and dad. Thanks, Mom, for being a reader first and cleaning the house second. For always encouraging me to try new businesses, projects, and foods. And for just being my mom. And, yes mom, this one will be a ‘real’ book. And Dad, thanks for all the hugs and help over the years. For that first car loan and for coming to get me in the cold and the dark when the car stalled. And all the love.
And, to my lovely patient daughters, all my friends who encouraged me from beginning to end, and my amazingly supportive beta readers. It’s finally here. And I love all of you too!
Chapter One
Sudden light burned into Logan’s face and his eyes flinched shut. He forced his shaking arm up and hid behind it as he tried to remember where he was. Cold seeped into his aching body from the uneven stone floor as he stayed under his arm and hid from the torchlight, staggered at the realization that he was alive. Weak, wobbly, and defenseless. But alive.
A heavy hobnailed boot kicked him in the side. “Here ‘e is sir.”
He groaned and curled into a ball, peering up through long, matted and tangled hair at a heavyset, chuckling troll with only one working eye. “I got ‘im out of the hole yesterday, but ‘e’s still not in good shape.” Another rusty laugh came from the troll. “But I guess that’s to be expected after fifteen year’n the hole.”
Fifteen years. Had it been so long?
Logan barely heard the troll’s dissertation on oubliettes, prisoners, and rates of death. Had he been in
hibernieth
, the Elvetian form of stasis, for fifteen years? What had happened to his friends and family? What had happened to the prince between now and the day their world had collapsed? The day he’d been stuffed into his tiny damp prison.
He pushed up on burning arms, collapsing in a panting heap. The troll laughed and kicked him again. Logan lay on the hard stone mentally apologizing to his clan and liege for his weaknesses. He had no strength to face whatever death was to come. His fate was sealed.
“Is this the best you could do?” A sharp male voice cut into Logan’s ears, too used to the sound of silence. “He doesn’t even look like a lord, let alone the murderous Huntsman. The queen thinks he’s a fricking miracle worker.”
“Nope. No way.” Another chuckle wheezed out. “If you send me down a healer, might be we could get ‘im fixed up by afternoon, good as new. Then the queen can do with ‘im as she likes.”
“Humph” came from beyond the glare of the torches. Then a sigh. “All right. I’ll send someone. Fix him up.” The voice curled in disgust. “And be sure to wash him. He reeks.”
“Yes, sir.” The troll dragged Logan across the floor by one arm. He hummed a tuneless something that screeched into Logan’s ears but couldn’t cover the sound of Logan’s shoulder joint popping out of place.
Pain ripped through him. He struggled to stay conscious and ignore the excruciating messages shrieking in his arm from being hauled like a sack of grain along the rough floor. The troll dropped him on the stones, paused and opened an ironbound door. Logan tried to make his stiff muscles work, managing only to scrape and bang his limbs on the doorframe as the troll seized him and shoved him into the cell. He landed hard, his face grinding into the slimy stones. Curling instinctively into a ball, he managed to protect his gut from the last hard kick of the troll’s boot landing on his dislocated shoulder. His lungs seized up, his vision went black, and his head exploded into bright white stars.
The cell door clanged shut.
He sucked in slow aching breaths as the heavy footsteps receded down the corridor and reminded himself that he’d be out soon. And then he’d face the queen.
Fifteen years in this hell-hole and the bitch thought he’d bow to her wishes.
He worked at unclenching his muscles. First his fists, then his jaw. Then each sore and aching muscle until he could sit up, his left arm hanging at an awkward angle. He guessed he wasn’t as ready to die as he’d thought. His body might be in terrible shape, but his mind was still sharp. He’d do what he had to do. Kill, cheat, steal. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t crossed lines before. But this time…
This time he would take down the Faerie Queen of the Black Court. No matter the price he paid. He reached up with his right arm, got a good grip on his left triceps and pulled. The shoulder ground and popped back into place, and Logan passed out from the pain.
Clean, mostly healed, and doing his best to hide his exhausted body’s shaking from the one-eyed troll, Logan exited the dungeons. He strolled as casually as possible to the first solid patch of sun and lifted his face to the warmth. Closing his eyes in ecstasy, he breathed a prayer of thanks to the Goddess. She must still favor him and his cause, despite his misbehavior, or he would never have gotten out of the queen’s oubliette.
His skin soaked up the heat of the sun like a sponge soaking up a fine wine, but the heady pleasure of it stopped short of reaching the icy cold that lay inside his bones and threatened to never leave. He was out. But not free.
“So, she released you,” a low vibrant voice said behind him and his knees went weak in a surprising rush of relief. He turned, squinting his still sensitive eyes at the shadow that detached itself from the tower’s stone walls and became the form of a beautiful young man with ebony hair and soulful dark eyes.
“Solanum,” Logan said. “You’re here.”
Solanum swept low into a bow, and when he rose, his eyes glowed deep red before flashing back to black, so fast anyone else would have thought it their imagination. But not Logan.
“And where else would I be, master?” The familiar mocking edge of the puca’s voice was razor sharp. “I am your family’s faithful servant, you know.”
“Good. I’ll need you.” Logan threaded his way through the crowded courtyard filled with fae who worked at the prison. Busy Tuathans, dressed in everything from fine seventeenth-century brocade vests to expensive suits and ties, raced back and forth on the business of the Black Court. Large lumbering trolls, the queen’s favored jailers, smacked smaller winged faeries and gnomes of all sizes out of their way. Logan avoided them all and headed for the exit into the town. He didn’t look back. He knew the puca would be right behind him.
“I thought you might need me.” Solanum shadowed close behind, sliding through the crowd with ease and working it like a professional. Winking at those who gave the pair admiring looks and likely evaluating which ones would taste the best.
Logan shook his head. Pucas were rare, hunted nearly to extinction eons ago. He’d never seen another besides Solanum. If the crowd of fae only knew that the docile sexy human servant at his heels was really a creature with the ability to destroy all of them with a single breath, they’d be running for their lives.
“What’s it to be?” Solanum asked. “Are we finally searching for the prince? Are we rousing your mother’s family to war? Are we sabotaging the Black Court with fire and brimstone explosives?”
“No.” Logan turned down an alley heading through the cobbled streets and aimed straight for the town gate that led into the open lands of Faerie. He kept silent until they were far from the prison town, out in the wild fields close to the creeping mist of the outlands where the reality of the queen’s domain was weak, and no one would overhear. “She merely wishes me to kill a few witches.”
“And that’s it?” Solanum’s eyes glowed. “After she took your position, destroyed your life, and imprisoned you in that rat infested hole, you’re going to lick her boots and kill for her?”
“If I don’t, she’ll have me back in the hole before another night.”
“And if you do?”
“She’ll release me forever.” He turned away, a vain attempt to conceal his shaking from the puca. He sure as hell didn’t believe the queen, but it didn’t matter. He had to play her game, for now, or go back into the oubliette. And he was never going back into the oubliette.
“Well, then.” Solanum danced a little jig at Logan’s side, sending tendrils of mist flying. The mist rose, morphing into a vague humanoid shape that wove and danced with the puca for a few steps before dissolving back into the ground. Solanum shimmered, his body dissolved into black mist that reformed around his red eyes into the shape of a tall black stallion. He pulled back his lips revealing sharp teeth in a wicked horsey grin.
“I’m all for death and destruction, even something as weak as witches,” the puca said. “Where do we go?”
Logan whistled out into the potential of Underhill. Nothing happened. A fierce anxiety clenched his muscles, then he relaxed, as out of the coiling mist his pack of giant red hunting hounds swarmed. Emotions back under control, he turned to the puca and said, “Wyoming.”
Trina raced out the door, forgetting again about the broken bottom porch step. The rotting wood gave under her foot. She hit hard on her hands and knees. The heavy duffle bag swung down and slammed into her arm, tipping open, the sacred ritual tools scattering into the dirt.
Her throat swelled tight. She swallowed back forbidden tears, sat up, and brushed off the tiny rocks embedded in her flesh.
“Damn it!”
She didn’t have time for this.