by Ella Fields
The Stray Prince
Copyright © 2021 by Ella Fields
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, resold or distributed in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, without permission in writing from the author, except for brief quotations within a review.
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Editor: Jenny Sims, Editing4Indies
Proofreading: Book Nerd Services
Formatting: Stacey Blake, Champagne Book Design
Cover design: Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
STAY IN TOUCH!
ALSO BY ELLA FIELDS
For my children.
The most magical of all my creations.
You are the reason I keep going when I feel as though I can’t.
Thank you for always finding me in the darkness and bringing me back to our beautiful life.
Also, if you ever see this, stop right here and put the damn book down.
I mean it.
A storm won’t calm
until the damage is done
Audra
The blistering ice unfurled beneath my feet, spreading toward the pink tinge upon the horizon. Stars began to wink out, the moon a fading ember in the lightening sky.
My breath shook from my lungs, clouding the air before me. My feet traversed the ice as though it were nothing but a cool slab of concrete. A slab of concrete that stretched farther toward the changing sky with every step taken. On either side of me, rolling waves lapped by, their salt-misted spray ricocheting off the frozen barrier.
Perhaps they were here, buried and veiled by the Gray Sea. Perhaps he would reveal himself to me, so I kept my gaze firmly upon the ice that grew inches at a time, seemingly out of nowhere.
But no, that wasn’t right.
Or maybe it was. Maybe I was nowhere, and whatever path I was paving was leading me somewhere. Somewhere with creatures with bright red eyes, vibrant green hair, and long, slender hands. Soft, those hands. Softer than I’d have ever thought possible for a creature who could supposedly peel the flesh from the bones of men before using those bones to pry said flesh from their razor-sharp teeth.
I snorted, even as trepidation knocked at the base of my spine and dragged shadowed fingers over my vision. I told it to go away. For although we were all flesh and bone, I was no mortal.
I was a queen, and if they’d planned to make a meal out of me, then surely they wouldn’t have wrapped those strangely elegant hands around my slashed open limbs to preserve what little life I’d had left. To help me survive all those months ago.
So where were they, I wondered, pursing my lips against the gust of wind that howled before me.
A thud, and then a crack to the left of my feet. Slowing, I tilted my head and spied a long shadow beneath the frosted ice. It darted away before I could make out what it was.
And then it came.
Not a mermaid, but a male.
A male I knew all too well—a male whose face I’d recognize anywhere. Staring back at me through the glass, his expression blurred and shifted but those eyes... such unmistakable eyes.
Like burning gold, they were clear and easy to see but not so easy to read.
And wasn’t that so often the case. Zadicus Allblood, the infamous lord of the east, my lover turned linked one, gave only what he wanted you to see, and one of his many skills was concealing that of which he did not.
Only now, his face might have been the same, as far as I could tell with half of it veiled in shifting shadow, but his hair was not. Bending low, I splayed my hand upon the ice. “Zad?” I asked, and then he was gone.
And darkness took hold.
The sun was melting the burning glass beneath my cheek. A gull’s shriek pierced the wintry air, and I startled, pushing upright. My hands slapped at the patch of ice I’d been asleep on, my eyes protesting the harsh glow of early morning as I blinked, taking in my location.
Water. I was in the middle of the water, halfway to the looming mountains that gave entrance to the mass of sea beyond. Squinting, I absorbed the castle in the distance, the giant mountains at its rear—the entire city of Allureldin small enough to make my stomach churn.
Onlookers, tiny little pinpricks back ashore, were likely gawking, and then there was the male racing toward me. His hair was disheveled, shirt too, as though he’d woken and thrown himself out of bed, out of the castle.
A tremor raced through my stiff hands as I slowly forced myself to my feet to backtrack over the frosted path of my own making.
Zad met me in the middle. “Audra.” Warm hands clasped my face. His breath as he said my name was a plume of welcoming heat. Frenzied golden eyes held a feral gleam, soaking me in. “What,” he started, his throat bobbing before he tried again, his hold on my cheeks tightening. “What in the darkness are you doing out here?”
I didn’t know. I did, but I didn’t, and my heart became a thing with scales and weapons, trying to defend itself from the beating given by my flaring panic. “I... I don’t know,” I said, my voice hoarse. I repeated myself if only to be sure I was truly awake and that he was real this time. “I don’t know.”
Zad’s brows hovered low over his eyes, his jaw flexing. Flicking a glance at the gently lapping water, he released a breath that seemed to carry too much weight, yet his shoulders were still taut, as was his voice. “Come, let’s get you home.”
With his arm around my waist, we crossed the melting, cracking ice, being mindful to watch our step.
“You’re not wearing shoes,” he said, so soft and almost as if to himself.
“I know, but I’m fine.” My skin did not burn or stick or slide. If anything, it warmed, and he knew that.
A moment passed, and a sheet of ice cracked in two near the shore. More appeared with a jumbled thought, connecting the pieces, and we crossed to the sand with ease.
Mercifully, there weren’t as many people gathered as one would think, likely thanks to the early hour. Still, I kept my head low, allowing Zad to answer the questions shot our way.
“What was her majesty doing out there?” a young child asked. “It’s too cold to swim.”
“Is she all right?” another asked.
“Is she fevered?”
“She is fine,” Zad responded, tone curt enough to curb further questions.
When we reached the city streets, he bent down, and I didn’t protest as he hefted me into his arms. I clung to him, exhausted and confused, as he trudged through alleyways and dodged puddles upon the cobblestone.
Low, he murmured, “Sleepwalking?”
No other explanation existed for how I’d wound up asleep on a path made of ice in the early hours of morning in the middle of the bay. Or the other two times I�
��d found myself in odd places.
“I suppose I did,” I said, frowning at the collar of his shirt, which curled under the fabric as if he’d dressed with extreme haste.
The tension leaking from every facet of him was enough to make my eyes close and withhold the befuddling truth. That I couldn’t understand it. It was as though another shadow had joined my own, and I struggled to make sense of what was happening. I loathed the idea of admitting so out loud.
A weakness. A queen easily tricked and lured.
I’d vowed to figure it out on my own before I gave voice to something that already held too much power. For the smothering feeling that still clung to me warned that to do such a thing without proper knowledge and a plan was to invite more trouble than we could afford.
Zad didn’t allow me to remain silent for long, though. Ignoring Mintale’s concern and barking at him to wait when he suggested he’d call for Truin, he stalked into my rooms and laid me upon the bed.
Listening to the sound of the bath being drawn, I peeled off my nightgown with unfeeling fingers.
Zad returned, but I was already walking to the bathing room, my hands hitting his chest. “It’s okay.”
“It’s okay?” he repeated, as though I’d just lied through my teeth.
For I had, but I didn’t care to allow myself the room to worry so much that I’d disappear inside it. “Plenty of people sleepwalk.”
“Royals do not sleepwalk,” he stated, rough and matter-of-fact. “Monarchs with powers such as yours do not sleepwalk.”
I kept my eyes on his chest, watching the way it rose and fell, sharp and harsh with each breath. He stepped back, and my hands dropped.
Shaking my lavender-scented salts into the rising water, he gestured for me. I traipsed over the mosaic floor, not rebutting his touch as he reached out to make sure I was okay climbing in.
“You are too calm,” he said, grabbing a cloth and dousing it in water. “Too quiet. This has happened before.”
Steam rose into the air, the warm water doing little to thaw me. The ice inside my veins turned leaden, so heavy and still that for what might have been the first time, I felt cold—chilled to the marrow of my bones.
I swallowed, knowing I should’ve known better than to think I could keep that from him. And why I’d want to... I wasn’t yet ready to dissect that. Perhaps I wanted to know why it was happening first. Perhaps the extreme lack of control mixed with the desire to find out what these dreams wanted was reason enough for me to hide it. To keep it to myself.
Of course, keeping anything to oneself when you had linked—formed a bond of both the heart and soul—with another was virtually impossible.
He could feel my unease as surely as I could feel his worry as if it were a second skin blanketing us.
Zad’s silent fury filled the room as he washed me. “When?” A short, clipped word.
“Four nights ago,” I admitted.
“And before then?”
I’d have rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t muster the effort after spending too much energy creating ice strong enough to keep the sea at bay. I stared at the faucet, hardly feeling the rough fabric of the cloth as Zad gestured for me to sit forward and washed my back. “Two weeks ago.”
He stilled, water dripping as he leaned away. “So it’s becoming more frequent.” Again, he’d seemed to mutter the words to himself. “Where did you wind up those times?” He began to wash me again, his gentle touch a stark contrast to the brittle anxiety darkening his eyes and tensing his limbs.
“In the kitchens. I was in the pantry,” I said, almost smiling as I remembered the shock on Foelda’s face when she’d opened the doors and the abrupt explosion of sunlight woke me.
After long breaths of silence, Zad wrung the cloth out, then offered it for me to clean my face. “I thought you’d risen before me. Yet you came to the dining room looking as though you’d just gotten out of bed.”
I’d still been in my nightclothes. “The time before that, I was on the balcony at the end of the hall from my rooms.” No one had found me then. Alone, I’d stumbled back inside and straight to my chambers to wash the fear and confusion away.
He cursed, vicious and violent, and I finally smiled, gazing up at him while he rose, turning in half circles over the damp floor while raking his fingers through his unkempt hair.
“Zad,” I said, but he seemed to need a minute. Frowning, I gave it to him and climbed out.
He snapped out of his furious trance then and quickly unfolded a towel, wrapping it around me and then carrying me to bed.
“I can walk just fine.”
“Quiet,” he said, a loaded exhale coating the word.
I pinched my lips, rolling them between my teeth as he patted me dry. “Do you wish to brush my hair, too?” I offered with a snide tone. “Braid it, perhaps?”
Stopping, he looked around. “Where’s the brush?”
I groaned. “Oh, for the love of darkness.”
But the lord didn’t seem to hear or pay any notice to me. He’d spied the brush upon my dressing table and swiftly collected it before taking a seat behind me on the bed to detangle my hair.
With gentle worry, he coaxed the bristles through the damp strands over and over, his silent thoughts overflowing and drowning the air with their intensity. Too cold, lost to my own concerns, I stared at the charred hearth, wondering if my soul was so much the same that I was beginning to lose myself.
I was almost too afraid to ask, but fear and I had never seen eye to eye, and I wasn’t about to welcome it now. “Do you think I’m starting to...”
“No,” Zad said, immediate and blunt.
My father had hundreds of years on me before his mind had begun to unravel, but I’d never known him to sleepwalk. I hadn’t really known him at all. “But—”
“It’s not that.”
My teeth clacked as I snapped, “How would you know? What else could it be?”
Zad continued with the long strokes. The coarse hair of the brush trailing over my pebbling skin soothed, even if only a little. He set it down after a time, then turned me to pull my legs over his knees.
I was nearly naked, the towel falling open and draping over one breast, but he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes, molten gold, were hard on mine as he gripped my face. “We’ll fix this,” he said, the words a promise I so desperately wanted to believe.
And I did believe him. For almost seven months, he’d scarcely left my side. He’d not only held to his oath of proving my stance when it came to males and love wrong, but he’d given me something other than myself to believe in.
Him.
My eyes fell closed, my hands lifting to cover his on my cheeks. Warm, unyielding, and huge, I clung to them and drew in a lungful of his mint and winter morning scent. His touch, that scent, and his proximity... I settled deeper into his lap, my arms banding around his neck as the towel fell away.
He knew what I wanted, could scent the way it seeped through my pores and rolled off my skin. Heated breath rushed over my lips, his nostrils flaring. “What do you need?”
Smiling into his hungry eyes, I dragged my nose alongside his, my heart stalling when his eyelids fluttered. “You.”
“You have me,” he rasped, his hands sliding around my waist, squeezing. “Take what you want.”
Freeing him from his pants, I watched his long lashes spread and felt the falter of his heart and the violent hitch of his exhale as I reached between us and impaled myself.
I needed this. Even without the horror of losing myself to dreams that dragged me from him, from the safety of my castle, I’d forever need this.
We were kindling who could only lay nestled close for so long without that spark igniting, the bond between us kerosene that would forever catch fire, no matter what ailed us.
His voice hoarse with desire, those eyes glinting, I seated myself fully and moaned, dragging my lips across his. “Love me.”
A hand returned to my face, a calloused thumb rubbing
over the puckered skin at the corner of my mouth, his own skimming mine. “For all eternity.”
Audra
I woke to find Zad in the armchair with a book open on his lap, but his gaze fixed on the window across the bed. I knew from the absent glow in his eyes that he hadn’t read a single word.
They dropped to me when I stretched my arms above my head, and asked, “Time?”
“Lunch,” he said, closing the book and resting it upon the arm of the chair. “You should eat.”
His hair was deliciously tousled, his shirt missing. My teeth dragged over my bottom lip as I eyed the broad planes of his chest, the muscle that rippled when he stood.
To my dismay, he plucked up his tunic and shouldered it on. “No more. I’ll get you something to eat.”
With a huff, I sat up and threw the bedding back, bypassing him to my dressing room. “I’m not a child.”
“Believe me,” he purred, behind me in an instant, his voice and breath a hot caress over my bare shoulder. “I’m well aware.”
Selecting a burgundy gown with gold threading in the belled sleeves and over the chest, Zad waited for me to quit glaring, his patience unending.
Snarling, I lifted my arms, and once he’d pulled the dress over my body, I found his unreadable expression had changed into that of a semi-satisfied lord. Sinful lips curled, lighting those eyes with a fire that both maddened and endeared.
My annoyance slipped away like water over a cliff, and I wrapped my arms around his waist, fluttering my lashes up at him. “You’re so incredibly infuriating.” The words were venom laced in sugar.
He brushed my hair back from my face, grinning like the arrogant predator he was. “You’re so incredibly beautiful. Come,” he said, stepping back and clasping my hand. “If you won’t stay in bed and rest, then you’ll at least head to the dining room to eat.”
He waited while I slipped my feet into silken black slippers, then tucked my arm into his as we left my rooms. “All this isn’t necessary,” I said between my lips, nodding at Garris as he passed by. He dipped low, smiling, but it didn’t touch his eyes as they roamed me quickly. Undoubtedly, he’d heard about what had happened. I was sure most of the guard and city had by now. That grated, and far more than I cared to admit.