by Tasha Black
She realized her phone was buzzing and handed it to him.
“What does it say?” she asked.
“Twenty-seven missed calls from Tabitha Barnes,” he read back. “This is not a bad little piece of magic. It allows you to summon your friends?”
“Oh no, I left it in the car while we were getting our coffee,” she moaned.
She continued up the driveway and pulled into the circular portion in front of the house.
A white pick-up truck was already there, and Tabitha’s little Audi was parked beside it.
Tabitha came running out to meet them.
“Oh my God, Sara, they were here when I got here,” Tabitha said.
Sara looked up at the house to see that two men were wrapping caution tape around the doors.
“They already padlocked the cellar stairs and I think they’re planning to do the rest,” Tabitha said.
“No,” Sara breathed. “The mirror…”
“We can’t get back in,” Tabitha said. “I already asked. They said it’s marked for demolition and considered a safety hazard.”
Sara sighed and looked up at the sky.
“Oh,” she said. “Hey, it stopped raining.”
“Wow,” Tabitha breathed. “Look.”
A brilliant rainbow stretched in a cheerful arc over the house, as if framing it.
“Hell’s bells,” Dorian muttered.
“What?” Sara asked.
“The worst thing ever is happening,” he said.
“We will figure it out, Dorian, I promise,” Sara told him. “We can still find a way to stop this.”
“It’s not the house,” he said.
“What is it?”
“He’s here.”
“The King of Light?” Sara asked, but she already knew the answer. She could feel the radiance of his presence all around her.
“Ladies,” Dorian said, his face drawn up in a grimace, like he was trying to eat a whole lemon. “Prepare to meet the most infuriating being ever to walk this realm or any other.”
Something stirred in the tree line near the house, heading their way.
“Prepare to meet my brother.”
***
Thanks for reading King of Midnight!
Are you ready for more steamy fae king action? Do you want to find out what happens when Tabitha meets Dorian’s hunky brother, Tristan, and the two of them set off on a wild adventure to find a magic violin in time to stop a dangerous banshee?
Then keep reading for a sample of King of Light, or grab your copy now:
https://www.tashablack.com/kingoflight.html
King of Light (Sample)
1
Tabitha
Tabitha Barnes had found herself smack in the middle of a wild adventure, and she knew it.
She stood in the shadow of an ancient Welsh castle. The castle had been painstakingly moved, stone by stone, from Wales to its current position, which was exactly a ten-minute walk from her home in southeastern Pennsylvania.
She watched as a heartbreakingly beautiful rainbow stretched over the house in a perfect arch.
Her best friend Sara stood at her side, lips parted in wonder as she gazed up at the rainbow. And beside her, stood Sara’s new boyfriend, Dorian.
He wasn’t just Sara’s boyfriend though. As impossible as it sounded, the enormous, raven-haired man was the fae King of Darkness. Sara had released him from centuries of imprisonment behind a mirror in the castle, where he was forced to relive the same midnight party over and over again.
Dorian’s arm was draped around Sara’s shoulders, and his expression was as grim as hers was awestruck.
Workmen padlocked the doors of the castle and secured caution tape around them, as the three friends waited for the King of Light to arrive.
Dorian’s arrival in Rosethorn Valley had brought darkness to the tiny village. Literal darkness and thunderstorms had marked the last few days, but also a sort of sadness that had weighed down the spirits of the residents.
Now that the light king was coming, the skies had cleared and there was a rainbow overhead. He was already balancing out Dorian’s darkness. And to cap it all off, Dorian had just informed them that not only was their new visitor another mysterious fae king, he was also Dorian’s brother.
A welcome feeling of happiness rose in Tabitha’s chest like a helium balloon, threatening to carry her away. She clenched her fists and fought the urge to grin stupidly at her friends.
Something incredible was going to happen - she just knew it.
Tabitha had grown up in a family of quiet, dignified people. An almost indecent amount of family money meant no one had to work too hard or worry too much. Her father was an economics professor and her mom was a patent attorney. Her twin sister was into solving math proofs from a young age and majored in accounting in college.
Tabitha had always been the wild one.
As a child, her nose was always stuck in an adventure book. In her teen years, she’d been a bit more of a party girl, prone to staying up too late watching scary movies, and sneaking out with her friends. It had been all her parents could do to convince her to major in history instead of going to film school.
Tabitha had always believed there was more to life than crunching numbers and making spreadsheets. Although her family lived firmly in the concrete here and now, Tabitha had always known to her core that there had to be more in the world to experience than what was right in front of her.
Until this moment, she had always found her excitement in studying the past. The idea that she was breathing the same air and standing in the same space as men and women who had lived completely different lives was absolutely magical to Tabitha.
It had never occurred to her that there was another realm of existence running in tandem with this one.
A realm of magic and chaos…
“Brother,” Dorian called out in a deep masculine voice.
At first, she had no idea what he was talking about as the fae king gazed at the tree line between the meadow and the woods.
She squinted her eyes and suddenly he was just there - she wasn’t sure how she had possibly missed him.
A huge man with long dark-blond hair and soulful brown eyes gazed back at them from the trees. As he stepped toward them, the generous muscles in his bare chest flexed like a stalking tiger. A shimmering haze seemed to outline his body, though when she tried to focus on it, it disappeared.
In spite of the feeling of levity he had brought with him, his expression was serious.
His eyes met hers and she a shock of electricity jolted through her, as sure as if she’d touched a bare wire. Her whole body surged with life and awareness like she’d never felt before. It was all she could do to stay on her feet.
Dorian and Sara headed over to him, offering greetings.
Tabitha hung back, still reeling from whatever had happened when he’d looked at her. Clearly, he hadn’t had the same effect on her friends.
“Hey, lady,” one of the workers called to her from the house. “We’re leaving, but you can’t go in there, you know that right?”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Tabitha told him. “My friend is a realtor.”
She’d said it with total confidence, hoping they might think it meant something.
It must have worked. The first guy nodded and the other tipped his cap to her.
They hopped in the pick-up truck that was parked next to her Audi in the circular drive and drove off just as Sara, Dorian and the King of Light appeared on the porch.
“Tabitha, I’d like to present my brother, Tristan,” Dorian said formally. “Tristan, this is Sara’s friend, Tabitha Barnes.”
Tristan’s expression was cold and distant. He didn’t look into her eyes this time.
“Pleasure,” he said.
Tabitha glanced at Sara, who only shrugged at her.
“Ditto,” Tabitha replied.
She wasn’t going to bow and scrape just because he was a king. They were in her r
ealm, not his. The least he could do was make eye contact. Although maybe that was a good thing. She still wasn’t sure what happened to her the last time he did.
Tabitha had noticed right away that he was striking, but he was even more beautiful close up. His big body was lean and powerful, and a shiver of energy seemed to hover in the air around him. And then there was the fact that he was wearing leather pants and no shirt, like some kind of off-duty rock star.
“I’m glad you came, brother,” Dorian admitted gruffly.
“You obviously needed my help,” Tristan replied.
Thunder sounded in the distance in spite of the now sunny day.
Was that from Dorian?
Sara gave Dorian’s arm a little smack.
Tristan smirked.
“Now, what do we do about this?” Sara asked, turning to the padlocked doors and the caution tape. “We can’t get back inside.”
“Does this have something to do with your pet monsters?” Tristan asked Dorian, one eyebrow delicately arched.
Dorian sighed.
“When I broke the mirror to release Dorian, I didn’t realize I was setting the creatures free too,” Sara said quickly. “It’s my fault.”
“Don’t apologize to him,” Dorian growled.
“What kind of warding spell is this?” Tristan asked.
“What do you mean?” Sara replied.
“This,” Tristan said, gesturing toward the caution tape. “You said we can’t get inside. Is it protected by a short-term spell whose effects we can live with, or will it turn you into some sort of amphibian?”
Sara opened her mouth and closed it again.
“That’s caution tape,” Tabitha said. “It’s not cursed or enchanted or anything. It’s alerting us that entering the property is prohibited.”
“So it’s just… stenciled ribbon?” Tristan asked dubiously.
“Pretty much, yes,” Tabitha replied.
“Then let’s go in,” Tristan said, pulling the tape off the door before anyone could stop him.
“There’s a lock,” Sara pointed out.
Tristan took the padlock in his palm and closed his eyes.
Tabitha knew these guys were supposed to be magical. Sara had explained all about how she had rescued Dorian from the enchanted mirror.
Tabitha had felt the magic herself, and had even seen a fae creature trapped in a piece of that mirror in the middle of a stormy midnight.
But something about watching the padlock spring open in Tristan’s hand in the middle of an otherwise normal sunny day gave her the shivers.
“Let’s go,” he said, dropping the padlock at his feet.
The four of them headed into the shadowy entrance of the old castle. A decrepit old grandfather clock was the only thing decorating the interior. A puff of wind from the door scattered dry leaves across the black and white checkerboard floor.
Sara led the way into the conservatory, and the others followed.
“We have to work fast,” she said. “If I get caught in here, I could get into big trouble at work. We’re technically breaking and entering right now.”
“I’m not sure what we can really do, my love,” Dorian warned her.
“Let’s just take the frame off the wall,” Sara suggested. “Then we can reassemble it somewhere else. That would work, wouldn’t it?”
Dorian didn’t answer, but he did try to help her lift the frame of the mirror off the hooks that held it to the wall.
It didn’t move.
Sara stepped back and Tristan wordlessly took her place.
The two huge men tried to lift the mirror but even without most of its glass, it wouldn’t budge.
“I can grab some tools from my car,” Sara offered.
Dorian turned to her, shaking his head sadly. “The portal to Midnight is tied to the house,” he said. “The mirror won’t come off the wall. And even if it did, it wouldn’t work anywhere else.”
“It won’t?” Sara asked.
“No more than the front door would let you go anywhere if you took it out of the doorframe and put it on a wall,” Tristan said coolly.
“That’s why the whole house was moved in the first place, and not just the mirror,” Tabitha chimed in as she put it all together.
“Right,” said Dorian. “And even then, the house had to be moved somewhere special, somewhere that already held the magic needed to bridge the veil between our realms.”
Tabitha thought about what Helen Thayer had told them, about this whole area being affected by some kind of magical portal. If it was all true, then Dorian’s idea made sense.
Beside her, Sara sighed and leaned into Dorian’s chest.
He stroked her hair unconsciously as he gazed at the mirror frame, his brow furrowed.
Tristan observed them with an expression of open disgust.
“Let’s get out of here,” Tabitha said. “And I say we take out the two pieces we taped in there. That way we have the Gan Ceanach and the naiad with us even if we can’t get back in.”
“Good thinking,” Dorian said, nodding.
Tabitha watched as Sara pulled down the shards of glass and Dorian wrapped them in cloth and stowed them carefully in his pack.
The pieces of the mirror allowed them to see the view through the eyes of the creatures that had escaped when Sara had shattered the mirror and freed Dorian. Using the shards was their best hope of tracking them down before they caused too much trouble.
A few days ago, Tabitha wouldn’t have believed any of this.
The Kings of Light and Darkness were standing right in front of her, and a sense of gloom battled with the bright happiness in her heart.
But that didn’t explain the way it skipped a beat every time she thought Tristan might look her way.
Tabitha had been sure something exciting was about to happen. She was ready for an adventure, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready for this.
2
Tristan
Tristan watched his brother’s intimate interaction with his mortal queen and fought the urge to voice his displeasure.
Dorian had released him from his own frozen prison. He knew he should be grateful.
Instead, he found it impossible to concentrate in the presence of their obvious canoodling.
In Tristan’s experience, humans were fine - mostly harmless, fun to toy with. They could also be cruel in ways that were surprising if you underestimated them. But primarily, they were like animals in a petting zoo - soft and domesticated - wholly focused on their next meal and their next fuck.
They were not equal to the fae.
It sickened him to see his brother wrapped around the little finger of a creature whose existence on this earth was closer to the lifespan of a housefly than to his own.
“Penny for your thoughts,” the one called Tabitha said.
He scowled.
He wanted to be mad at his brother, but the other mortal kept distracting him. It would be easier to ream out his brother for falling for a human if he didn’t find this one so alluring.
He’d felt her essence call to him like a siren the minute he’d come into view.
It was most likely because he had been frozen for so long. All his senses were flowing, and his power seemed to be surging as well. He could feel the warmth and good nature singing between the members of their little foursome.
“I should go to my office,” Sara said. “I can try to find out why they’re locking this place down. Tabitha, maybe you can take Tristan to find some clothes?”
“I have clothes,” he said indignantly. They were nice clothes too - sturdy boots, supple leather breeches and a belt buckle with a copper wolf symbol.
“You, um, need a shirt,” Sara said politely. “And maybe some other clothing that fits in better with what humans wear nowadays.”
“Why would I want that?” he asked honestly. Taking steps to do anything more like humans sounded very unappealing to him.
“They don’t remember us in this world,
brother,” Dorian said.
“Then it’s high time they were reminded,” Tristan declared.
“Humor me,” Dorian said. “Observe them first, my way, then decide.”
Tristan shrugged.
In truth, he had no reason not to let this human spend her coin on his garments. Anything to get him away from his brother.
“Take him to the Gap, by the fountain,” Dorian advised Tabitha. “There’s a squire there called Marcus who will equip him most handsomely.”
“I’m not pulling garments out of some ditch,” Tristan said.
“Oh, it is not an actual gap,” Dorian laughed. “That is the name of the merchant. And look at the pockets. These humans have clever ideas of where to put them. If you purchase cargo pants you will have even more pockets. But Sara preferred these more snug-fitting breeches.”
Dorian admired the pockets in his own trousers, Sara smiling over him like a proud mother.
“This place has made you soft and silly,” Tristan declared. “More so than usual, at any rate. I will help you recapture the creatures you recklessly tried to domesticate. But when that task is complete, I will return to our realm.”
Sara looked up anxiously at that.
Tristan wondered why she should care if he left. He was not about to offer his services as a nanny for their half-mortal spawn, if that’s what she was hoping for.
“Let’s go get those clothes,” Tabitha said briskly.
She placed the palm of her hand gently against the back of his arm.
Twin sensations rocked him to the core.
The first was horror that she had touched him. One didn’t touch a king without an invitation.
The second was slower to land on him but stronger, oh so much stronger.
Pleasure bloomed in him like an entire field of poppies blossoming at once, intoxicating him with their scent and color.
And something unlocked in his chest, making him feel dizzy and desperate, like an inexperienced princeling.
It couldn’t be.