Court of Shadows
Page 1
Court of Shadows (Blade and Rose #3)
Miranda Honfleur
Copyright © 2018 by Miranda Honfleur
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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Mirela Barbu
Proofreading by Patrycja Pakula at Holabird Editing
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9994854-4-6
http://www.mirandahonfleur.com/
Contents
Author’s Mailing List
Map of Emaurria and Surrounding Lands
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Author’s Note
About the Author
Also by Miranda Honfleur
Author’s Mailing List
Click on the image above or visit www.mirandahonfleur.com to sign up for Miranda’s mailing list! You’ll get “Winter Wren” for free.
Map of Emaurria and Surrounding Lands
Chapter 1
If dirty looks were daggers, she’d be a pincushion.
Forcing a smile, Rielle reached for her wine goblet. She sipped the full-bodied red, glancing away from Duchess Caterine’s cold smile to Nora’s piercing glare across the gleaming purple heartwood table.
Warmth rested on her knee, Brennan’s palm, even as he remained still and entirely at ease next to her.
Just get through dinner. Get through dinner. Just dinner.
His youngest sisters, Caitlyn and Una, were better, at least. Their looks weren’t pointy, or at least pointed elsewhere. Twirling a curly lock of dark hair, Caitlyn feigned interest in her wild-mushroom soup, her perfectly shaped eyebrows raised. Her tight-laced teal gown, much like Nora’s, cinched in a tiny waist, so feigning interest in food was likely an everyday practice.
Una wore a mischievous grin as her gaze slid from the duchess to Nora to Brennan. Other than those Marcel hazel eyes and her beautiful face, she couldn’t have been more different than her sisters, her hair pulled back in a tight bun at the nape of her neck and her clothes the height of fashion—men’s fashion, just like Brennan. At least she’d left her sword behind for dinner.
All three Marcel sisters had done little more than scrutinize her, although she’d done nothing more than the same herself. But since she’d arrived, it had been nothing but cold glares, whispered gossip, and bitter silence from everyone, even the help. She sighed inwardly.
“An autumn wedding,” Duchess Caterine declared, her full smile in no way matching her bitter green glare. Her face was cold and unblemished like ice, with but the finest of lines daring to mark her classic beauty. She exhaled a light breath and waved a jewel-encrusted hand. “It’s been a very, very, very lengthy engagement, hasn’t it?”
Nora huffed a half-laugh, staring Rielle down across the table. Somehow she made even such an ugly expression effortlessly beautiful. “Some length was needed to allow for distractions, wasn’t it?”
Brennan’s eyelids lazily hooded his bored eyes as he exhaled slowly, sprawled in his high-backed chair like a jungle cat. A tall, well-muscled, criminally handsome jungle cat. “Nora…”
A grin. “I didn’t mean yours, dear brother. Although that list is lengthy, too, isn’t it, Bren?”
More wine. Definitely more wine. Rielle tipped the goblet and eyed the half-empty decanter. Her lifeline from this torture was quickly diminishing as the meal dragged on.
Two weeks ago, Brennan had been the one with the fever, and yet she’d been the one to suggest complete madness. Maerleth Tainn, home of the Marcels. Why not? What could possibly go wrong?
“Are you enjoying the wine, Favrielle?” Duchess Caterine asked. “Should you be drinking so much of it while with child?”
Coughing, Rielle set down the goblet and drew the napkin across her mouth. Divine’s flaming fire—
“What poise,” Nora mumbled, while Una chuckled under her breath.
“W-with child?” Rielle cleared her throat. “Your Grace, I am—”
“A wedding—my son’s wedding—in but a few months,” Duchess Caterine said matter-of-factly with a disinterested sniff. “There’s no doubt—”
“She’s not with child, Mother.” Leaning back in his chair, Brennan swirled his brandy slowly, then took a drink. His voice was dismissive, apathetic, although he blinked slowly, staring into his glass, wistfully almost.
Castle Tainn’s great hall was massive, its twelve-foot-high double doors far, far from this dinner table. And the harpist was either hard of hearing or well practiced in letting no reaction show on his face. Did he ever consider tossing aside the harp and running as far and as fast away as his slippered feet could carry him? Rielle swallowed. If he did, she might follow.
“Not with child? Why not?” Nora crossed her slender arms over her chest and raked her with a disdainful once-over. “Are you barren?”
A fireball. No, an ice spike—
“It comes as a complete surprise,” Brennan said with a yawn, “that no suitors are fighting one another for the honor of courting you, Nora. Especially when you’re so well mannered.”
Nora slid another smug look Rielle’s way. “I’m still feeling quite contented by my last suitor, thanks.”
He didn’t seem to feel the same way about you.
But Rielle bit her tongue before the words could leave her mouth. Jon wasn’t hers to fight over. Not anymore. Some other woman no doubt claimed him now, as well as all the jealousy that went hand in hand with loving a king. These barbs didn’t matter, and if Nora and Jon so chose, they could “content” each other all they wanted.
Rielle folded her arms in her lap and turned to Duchess Caterine with a smile.
“We want to marry this autumn because, as you said, Your Grace, it’s been a lengthy engagement, and we don’t want to wait longer than is necessary.” Before the duchess could reply, she continued, “I realize it’s an inconvenience, and I beg your pardon. But I ask for your sympathy in this,” she said, glancing at Brennan. At his soft hazel eyes. His long, dark lashes. His warm, subtle smile. His strong, loving arms.
She wasn’t doing this for Duchess Caterine, or Brennan’s beautiful sister with the personality of a lemon. She was doing this for him, for herself, for their future.
She turned back to the duchess. “Your son is an honest, loyal, honorable man. Strong and supportive. Loving and kind. And I don’t wish to delay the moment I become his wife. Not a month longer than necessary. Not a day.”
Duchess Caterine’s eyes widened, their ice fading to warmth as a corner of her mouth turned up.
Brennan cleared his throat. “You forgot charming.”
Rielle pursed her lips.
“And devastatingly handsome.” A completely straight face.
She narrowed her eyes at him even as a grin fought its way out. “Of course, yes, I did forget something… Humble. How silly of me.”
He shrugged, his face schooled to the merest fraction of amusement as he took another drink of his brandy. “Next time you’ll remember, won’t you? For the sake of thoroughness, of course.”
“You two,” Una said with a slow shake of her head and a twist of her thin lips. “You’ll make my dinner return for a visit right here at the table.”
Caitlyn’s shoulders rippled girlishly with silent laughter, but she didn’t look up from her wild-mushroom soup. She was either a fungophile or practiced restraint along with the harpist… Yet not nearly the expert he was, however.
Duchess Caterine sighed and set down her napkin. “On that pleasant note, perhaps it’s best we retire.”
No more sought-after words had ever been spoken.
“And Favrielle”—the duchess eyed her softly—“planning a Marcel wedding in but a few months is a nightmare—”
Rielle winced.
“—but I’m pleased that you two are eager to begin your life together. Perhaps you’ll consider joining us when we summer in Silen, so that we might all get to know one another better.” With that, she stood, as did everyone, and she left the table, gliding elegantly toward the doors and out.
Summer in Silen… This was a small step, but a step, nonetheless, in the right direction. And she wouldn’t miss it.
To go, she’d have to report to the Tower of Magic first and put in for time off.
Time off—
Nora gave her a sharp look, turned on her heel, and stormed off. Caitlyn sketched a curtsy, and she, too, departed, her so-very-interesting mushroom soup uneaten.
Una, tall and lean, adjusted her doublet over her trousers in a crisp pull, and bowed. “If you can give as good as you get, Favrielle, we’ll make a Marcel of you yet.” She offered a friendly smile. The first she’d gotten from any of the other Marcels here.
Rielle returned the expression. “I’m open to tips.”
Una winked. “Here’s one… Always remember there’s nothing in this world our mother loves more than her precious son.”
Brennan shot her a sardonic grimace.
“But you seem to have mastered that tip already,” Una finished with a lilt, then bowed and with a confident stride, followed Caitlyn out.
Una’s bit of warmth was promising; maybe she could fit in with Brennan’s family after all. Even as they traded barbs and cold glares, they were loyal to one another when it mattered, they loved one another, they cared for their own. They never forgot their shared blood, and it was a note of an older song she’d heard around the dinner table with Mama and Papa, Liam, Dominique, Viviane, and Dorian, one she hadn’t heard in ages and now longed to hear again.
As the servants began to clear the massive table, Brennan’s warm hand closed around hers. Around the one wearing a ring with a garnet the size of her eye—a jewel that had been in his family for centuries. An engagement gift.
“She likes you,” he murmured, with a playful half-laugh.
“Well, one Marcel is progress.”
A slow grin. “I like you, too. Or have you forgotten?”
As a big, dumb smile claimed her face, she looked away and shook her head. He was impossible. Completely, utterly, wonderfully impossible.
“Oh, you have?” His voice was a low, seductive rumble. “I’ll have to… remind you.”
The rumble rolled through her, slow, throbbing under her skin, warm and warmer until the heat made her want to fan herself.
Not that she would. At least not in front of him.
His thumb stroked her knuckles in slow, delicious circles that melted away her composure. Why did he tease her like this? Her heartbeat pulsed against her chest, so loudly he would hear even if he weren’t a werewolf. Divine, she was making a fool of herself.
He tucked her hand around his arm. “How about some air?”
Swallowing, she nodded. Where had her voice gone? He walked her out of the great hall and toward the courtyard at a leisurely stroll.
It had been a couple of weeks since they’d left Stroppiata. Since she’d told him about refusing the papers to dissolve their betrothal. All this talk of weddings, events, their future together, and they hadn’t even kissed yet.
And as for their future, everyone seemed to expect she’d retire to Laurentine or Tregarde, stay in the castle, bear one heir after another. Some time off from the Tower was one thing, but give up missions? Give up on using her magic to help others altogether?
It wasn’t in her to sit on her hands when they had the power to help someone somewhere. Brennan knew that. He wouldn’t expect what everyone else did.
And as for heirs—
She crumpled. After losing Sylvie, even thinking about having another child right now was out of the question. She’d told him that and he’d agreed, but—
Footmen opened a set of doors, and then she and Brennan were out in the spring evening, heading toward the circle of nine Emaurrian hazel trees that had stood for over a thousand years. And at its center was a pool, a serene surface over a powerful Vein of anima deep below, reflecting a glittering tapestry of a million stars above.
Tiny white blooms dotted their path. Jasmine. She inhaled their sweet scent as Brennan covered her hand with his.
They’d both agreed to take things slow, but nevertheless, she brushed her fingertips along her lonely lips. Still there.
Since Stroppiata, she and Brennan had been inseparable, spending nearly every waking minute together, even sleeping side by side, but… he hadn’t kissed her. Not even once. Hadn’t pushed for more. No, he’d driven her mad with longing, anxiety, and pathetic, girlish angst.
A part of her still remembered that patience was a virtue. Barely.
When they made it to the circle of hazels, he stopped, turned her to face him, then walked her back under a tree’s canopy until she collided lightly with a trunk. He planted his palms against the pale gray-buff bark on both sides of her face and leaned in. Close.
His eyes searched hers beneath dark, drawn brows, the scent of cinnamon spice, cypress, and him strong, heady, delightful, and she breathed him in, deeper, fighting her needy fingers that longed to touch him, to keep touching him, to never stop.
“Has it been long enough?” he whispered, his voice an octave deeper than his usual low baritone.
Her pulse quickened. “What?”
“Being so close to you every day, every night, sleeping next to you, all the while denying everything I wish to do to you”—he shook his head, his muscular chest heaving beneath his fitted black-brocade doublet—“that’s asking much. But you expect me to watch your fingers brush these lips”—his voice dropped, and his gaze lowered to her mouth—“coy, teasing, provocative… and not take you right here in this garden, hard upon the grass?”
She didn’t breathe. Didn’t move. Kept her
eyes locked on the intensity of his.
“You wanted to take things slow. That’s what you said in Stroppiata.” Tension kept his body as rigid as the hazel she pressed against.
A breeze rustled the leaves, made her shiver.
“Has it been long enough?”
The need charging her fingers—she let it have its way, let them stroke up his firm chest to the warm skin of his neck, up over the bristly stubble of his jaw to cup his face in her hands. The intensity in his eyes turned amber, wild, werewolf, but she didn’t fear him; she only feared not touching him, not continuing to touch him until her fingers forgot themselves and she could no longer tell her own flesh from his.
“Far too long,” she whispered, and she’d barely spoken the last word before his mouth covered hers, seared her lips like a hot brand.
She embraced him as his hard body pressed into hers, as his hands held her to him, their touch firm as they planed up her body, turning her so his own back crashed against the bark.
His fingers buried into her hair, a large palm cradling her head as he deepened the kiss, as his tongue sought hers, devouring her with a fury that made her lower body throb; the need spread to her belly, where she leaned into him, against his hardness, against everything she wanted and shouldn’t yet want and would take with all the greed that had coiled in her body these many nights.