by Queen, Nyna
Contents
Cover
Praise for the Trueborn Heirs Trilogy
Also by
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
WHAT’S NEXT
Newsletter
About the Author
Praise for the Trueborn Heirs Series
"WOW! This Book is EXACTLY why I fell in LOVE with the Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Genre!" — Read Between the Lines
"I absolutely loved this book! Once started, I just didn't want to stop reading." — Elbcrout
"This book has a totally different take on magic than any other book I have read. Alex is an amazing main character and Darken a wonderful protagonist. Can’t wait to read the next book."— Fantasy Fan
"After just a few pages you immediately feel like a part of the world, as if you are observing from within, watching the events unfold." — the_survivor
"Nyna Queen does an exceptional job diving deep into the minds of her characters, and her imagery and use of metaphors are at the expert level." — T&S M
"I’ve put Nyna Queen on my author watch list. This is superb storytelling." —Tiella150
"Ms. Queen has positioned herself as one of the best new authors I have ever read. Excellent work." — Colleen
"I couldn't put this book down. It has a really unique group of characters and a fresh story." — Amazon Customer
"The story is brought together with seamless writing and world-building. The author brings familiar together with the unfamiliar to where everything seems normal. If you want a book with a mystery interwoven with suspense and a sprinkling of a romance then this book is for you." — Tabby
"I enjoyed every page of this hidden gem!" — Tome Tender Book Blog
ALSO BY NYNA QUEEN
The Trueborn Heirs Series
#1 By a Thread
#2 Web of Lies
#3 Kissed by Death
Levire Publishing
Levire UG (haftungsbeschränkt) & Co. KG
Christoph-Probst-Weg 4, 20251 Hamburg, Germany
http://www.levire.com
Copyright © 2021 by Nyna Queen
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Levire Publishing, Levire UG (haftungsbeschränkt) & Co. KG.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover illustration and design by Teodora Chinde.
ISBN: 979–8-535-02966-5
Version 3
To you, my readers …
… for sticking with me on this glorious journey!
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
Kissed by Death completes the Trueborn Heirs Trilogy and will therefore forever have a special place in my heart. Yet once again, I couldn’t have done it without a lot of help.
First, a big thanks to Teodora Chinde for creating yet another beautiful cover! Also a big, big thanks to my editor Kelly of Spirit Editorial, who did an awesome job at tracking down all those nasty little typos, straightening a lot of wrinkles and just generally making sense of what I was trying to say. And again, tons of gratitude to the Levire team for believing in my books and doing the layout, the publishing, and the marketing. Finally, there my usual Nyna Queen Support Group, all the people who make sure that I stay sane during the writing process: Nadja and Simon Klose, Karen and Holger Kunigk, Daniel Kiedrowski, the White Pearl Gang and the entirety of my family.
And, finally, once more: Thank YOU. It means the world to me that you are still with me on this exciting ride.
Buckle up and … time to dive in!
CHAPTER ONE
THE steps echoed along the dimly lit corridor, the sound loud in the oppressive silence hanging between the naked stone walls like a heavy mist.
Alex clenched her jaw and pretended to be walking all by herself instead of being frog-marched down the corridor by four fully armed palace guards forming a tight knot around her. It wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do when your elbows kept brushing against the tarnished black armor of the men on either side of you and you could feel the breath of the one behind you on your neck.
She might have considered running had it not been for the drawn spellgun of the guard at the rear and its capacity to stun the hell out of her before she’d taken two steps. And then, of course, there were the tempering rings which they had placed upon her wrists when hauling her from her suite and which usually contained enough narcotics to put a charging boar to instant sleep.
No, the only thing she would achieve by running would be getting tasered, pummeled, and then being dragged on like a limp rag.
Alex’s jaw clenched harder. No sir! She had always sworn to herself that she would walk up to her doom with her head held high, and she had no plan to swerve from that now.
The corridor split before them and they took the right fork, the echo of their steps getting lost in the distance. They were somewhere deep below the Royal Palace of Crona, inside a complicated maze of uniform corridors whose heavily warded doors guarded the Jester only knew what.
Man-sized stone statues watched them from solemn faces as they passed, their pale eyes following them with a mixture of scorn and pity. Alex’s hackles rose in response. Her hands felt clammy and her heart was pounding in her chest like a giant funeral bell.
Another sharp turn and they finally stopped by a reinforced steel door. It was inlaid with several activated arcane glyphs suffusing the corridor with an eerie white-blue glow. Even out here, Alex could feel the heavy press of potent magic tingling over her sensitive skin. Her stomach flipped. Inside the darkness of her core, the spider hissed and bared its teeth.
The guard in front of Alex placed his palm against a bright blue panel, keying the magic ward with a spark of his magic. The door opened.
Magic spilled out of the room in an invisible wave, almost making Alex sneeze. Her heart was hammering so furiously by now, it was a surprise that her breastbone didn’t just split open.
Please, my ass! Alex took a deep breath and entered.
The door immediately closed behind her and locked with a faint metal click.
Great! Trapped! How about something new for a change?
The room before Alex was about as oppressive as any interrogation chamber in a good detective story, though perhaps not as seedy. The entire place, from floor to ceiling, was covered in glowing magic wards sneaking along the walls like shimmering silver cobwebs. They pulsed in a soft rhythm and sealed the room from any interference from the outside world.
More armed guards occupied the corners of the room, completely motionless, much like the stone statues out in the corridor. However, Alex saw no pity or scorn on their faces. In fact, she saw no expression at all. It made her vaguely wonder if they received a poker face training during their military education.
Above them, Echeranion Spheres hovered below the ceiling, spinning madly in place. Energy threads quivered around their small metal bodies, recording a three-dimensional rendition of the room and everything happening inside it.
A too bright overhead lamp spotlighted a black metal table with a chair on either side, making the rest of the room appear gloomier than it really was.
Alex swallowed as she took it all in. Was this depressing room where she would die?
The soft rustle of paper caught her attention. A man was standing in the shadows behind the desk, halfway averted from the door, studying the contents of a slim leather file. Instead of the tarnished black body armor of the palace guard, he wore a long, fine, black coat and a black silk tie with a silver clasp—a stylized cross made up of a branch and a sword. He had to be around forty, with thick black hair and a precise beard framing his chiseled jaw.
When he turned, Alex’s gaze was immediately drawn by the small black triangle tattooed below his left eye. An Empath. Ah shit!
Taking notice of her, the man indicated the chair on her side of the table. “Please, sit.”
Alex sat.
The Empath slowly lowered himself into the other chair and rested his elbows on the table, watching her over his folded hands. Alex felt a gentle trickle of magic licking her skin, and she couldn’t help shuddering.
Empaths were extremely good at reading a person’s emotional status—a bit like what she did with her shaper senses—and they were almost as good at detecting lies as Augurs were. The perfect interrogators.
Whatever it was the man was receiving from her, it put a slight frown on his face. Well, he had to be feeling the quiet terror and desperation churning inside her. Why it would surprise him, though, she had no clue.
The Empath cleared his throat. “Would you care for something to drink?”
Alex’s gaze swiveled to a small round table at the back of the room, supporting a carafe and several glasses. Likely something to loosen her tongue. Yeah, I don’t think so! She would be damned if she made this any easier for them than she had to.
“No, thank you.” There. Polite. And that despite the situation. Heloise would have been so proud of her. Then again, maybe not. She hadn’t added ‘sir’.
The interrogator braided his long fingers together as he studied her, his frown deepening.
Alex lowered her eyes, trying against her better knowledge to evade his scrutiny. The tempering rings on her wrists rattled against the tabletop, making her flinch.
“My name is Chief Interrogator Davignon,” the Empath said at length. “Commissari Majorae of the central guardaí Department.” One of the guardaí’s top dogs. Well, wasn’t she honored?
“I apologize for the rather rough treatment, my lady, but considering the circumstances, I am sure you understand that we must take certain … precautions.”
Oh yes, she understood. She understood very well. So well, in fact, that—
Wait a minute! Lady? Had he just called her ‘my lady’? What was he playing at?
Alex shot him a furtive glance. Was he messing with her?
His face showed no sign of mockery, nor did she feel any through her sensory threads.
What in the name of—?
Then something clicked inside her head and her entire body went still as a new thought invaded her mind.
What if she had been wrong? What if she wasn’t the reason for all this kickup?
The moment Governor Robert Ferhus had bitten the dust in the middle of the Great Hall, the mass of civilized lords and ladies inside the palace had transformed into a raging mob in five seconds flat, screaming bloody murder and causing a heel-and-boot-stampede of the finest kind and quality. Before everything could spiral out of control, however, the palace guard had shown up in full force and, with frightening professionalism, had dispersed the crowd and herded them all back to their assigned suites, locking them in both physically and magically.
And that’s where Alex had spent the last twenty-four hours, all by her lonesome, waiting and waiting and fucking waiting.
Twice they had brought her a tray with food, but each time the servant had left again before she even had the time to open her mouth.
So she had kept waiting, counting the nerve-wracking minutes that seemed to stretch like viscous honey, pacing until she’d trudged a permanent path into the lush, pearl-gray carpet. She had let the past events run through her mind again and again and again, conceiving more and more harebrained scenarios, in most of which her true nature was revealed, and she ended up dead as mutton—shot, flash-fried, hanged, or killed in another quite as gruesome way.
Twenty-four hours was a long time to be alone with nothing but your thoughts, and every passing minute only spurred her morbid creativity.
Of course, Alex had tried to contact Darken through the door that connected their rooms, but she soon had to realize that whatever magic shields they had put around the suites made any kind of room-to-room communication impossible. Those shields also stretched across the windows at the backside of the rooms. Despite that, Alex had caught herself contemplating doing another little climbing stunt to Darken’s neighboring window, just as she’d climbed to the Sauniers’ suite, but even if she could physically penetrate the shield without harming herself and alerting the guards—which she somehow doubted—the palace security was on full alert and restlessly patrolling the grounds below. It was too big a risk and would most likely result in her instant exposure. Something she’d still hoped to avoid at that point.
But when they had finally stormed her room with four armed guards, wordlessly handcuffing her and dragging her from her suite, Alex had assumed that during their investigation of the events, they must have figured out who—and more specifically what—she was, and that they were about to put her through the mill. After all, why else would they treat her like some highly dangerous criminal? It hadn’t occurred to her once that this might actually be standard procedure. Now, however…
Drawing a quiet breath, Alex gently unfurled her spider threads a little wider, taking a taste of the guards scattered around the interrogation room. They were tense alright, but none of them felt particularly agitated. There was no feeling of disgust, or wariness, or even fear, the feelings she associated with people who had found out what she hid beneath her human shell. Everything felt like … routine.
With some effort, Alex swallowed the snarky reply that had been hovering at the tip of her tongue for the past couple of seconds and instead decided to test the waters.
“Of course, my lord,” she said meekly—or, at least, she hoped it sounded meekly. “I completely understand. It’s just … a lot to digest.”
The Chief Interrogator nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure the whole situation must be very distressing for you, Lady de Nuy.”
Lady de Nuy! Sweet Jester, she was right. They hadn’t caught on—yet.
Mr. Commissari Majorae of the central guardaí Department over there must have felt her ‘distress’ but had attributed it to the wrong reason. Which made sense, all things consid
ered. Apparently, for him, she was still Alexandre de Nuy, sweet little debutante from boondocks-Bouldershore. Innocence written in big letters. Surely the cold-blooded murder of the governor must have knocked the wind out of her, unsavvy little country flower that she was.
Well, it had knocked the wind out of her. Just not for the reasons that he thought.
Anyway, now she had an angle to play this and with a little luck, she might yet get out of this room with her head still attached to her shoulders.
Alex allowed her voice to audibly shake as she spoke. “A man is dead, my lord. ‘Distress’ is hardly covering it.”
She flashed him another glance from below her lashes. Laid on too thickly?
The Empath just nodded again. “Perfectly understandable, lady. But that is also why an ounce of prevention is due at the moment.”
Alex decided to push her luck. “Am I—” She swallowed. “Am I under suspicion?”
That actually caused the interrogator to smile. “Not more than anybody else in the palace, lady.” He hesitated for a second as if deciding something. “Though, if it relieves you, after what my colleagues from the Department and I have ascertained so far, I have no inkling to believe that you are involved in the assassination of the deceased governor. However”—he put his hands together—“I must ask you certain questions.”
A little bit of the tension that had clamped Alex’s body in a steel-vise since the guards had shown up on her doorstep drained out of her. She attempted a brave little smile.
“I am fully at your disposal, my lord.”
After informing her of her rights and of the dire consequences of lying to a guardaí officer—Alex kept her smile firmly in place, immensely glad that shapers didn’t easily sweat—he started out by asking her a couple of questions about her relationship with the Dubois family and how it had come to be that she had been at the Summerball in the first place. Alex was pretty sure that these ‘easy’ questions were aimed at making her feel a little more comfortable and she fed him the entire Alexandre-de-Nuy story as she’d practiced it during her preparation for the ball—poor, orphaned country girl lucky enough to be acquainted with one of the highest royal families—acting as though she had nothing to hide, when really, hiding was all she did in life.