Her vision sprawled wide, and he’d move mountains to achieve it with her.
“Besides, after our lifebond, I’ve never felt stronger in my life,” she said brightly as they entered the building.
He snorted. “I didn’t expect it would be such a thrill to a mortal, but… again, I don’t question blessings.”
“With this one, neither will I.” She leaned in, and they headed toward the east side of the library, where the first panels of stained glass had already been put in. They depicted a rose, a shared beauty between the humans and the dark-elves.
She looked up at it, sunlight pouring through reds and greens, then at him, and his breath caught. Her face glowed with the dazzling colors, and when she smiled, she was a goddess in the flesh. “Veron, I’m with child.”
His eyebrows shot up, and he scrambled for breath… and words, any words. But alas, all he could muster was inhalation, exhalation, frown… inhalation… pause, a word—no, false alarm—
She stifled a laugh, but her eyes were half-moons. Her hand squeezed his.
He pulled her into his arms, kissed the top of her head. “I was already the luckiest man alive when you said you loved me, Aless. And somehow, by Deep and Darkness, you’ve given me a fortune more.”
A quiet gasp, and she leaned into him, clinging to him as she sniffled softly. “I didn’t know if it could happen—I wasn’t sure. But then my moonbleed didn’t come for the second month, and when I went to Xira, she said… She said we’re going to have a baby.”
What he wouldn’t have done to be in the room and hear the news with Aless. “I can’t wait to meet her, my love.”
He dipped his head down and raised her mouth to his lips, stroking away the tears rolling down her cheeks, teasing her tongue with his, coaxing her passion. His heart had swelled with love, and he hadn’t thought it possible, but with her words, it had expanded all the more.
Soft footsteps echoed closer—Gabriella’s—and he broke away with a grin. Did Gabriella know? If she didn’t, he couldn’t wait to see her reaction—
“Your Highness,” Gabriella said, holding out a missive to Aless. “It’s from Archmage Sabeyon in Courdeval.”
Aless’s brow furrowed, but she accepted the sealed parchment from Gabriella. “I haven’t seen her since… Why, it’s almost been a year.” She cracked open the seal and read. “She… She asks if we can help perform a lifebond—”
A lifebond? Courdeval was the capital of Emaurria. A human kingdom. Humans had long sought the secrets of—
Aless gasped, her face paling. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, steadying her. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
She blinked, gaped at him, the shock of her open mouth widening to a grin. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled. “Veron… She… She says a friend of hers freed Immortali locked in a sea prison, and among them was a dark-elf… He says his name is Mirza… He says he’s… He’s your father.”
Swallowing, she took his hand.
Mirza… Ata…
He licked his lips, shook his head. No, Ata had died. He’d died. They all knew—they all—
He sucked in a sharp breath. They’d been told. They’d been told by the light-elves that Ata had been killed. They’d never seen or received his body.
It was…
His heart skipped a beat.
It was possible. He wouldn’t question it, not when there was hope.
“Veron, are you…? Is everything all right? Your father…” She huffed a disbelieving sound.
He breathed deeply, steadily, gathering his composure, and met her teary, gleaming gaze.
His father was alive. Ata was alive.
The love of his life, a child, and his father back in his life… At this rate, his heart would burst. And he’d welcome it with open arms. “Will you go with me, my love? I know you have the library here, and it’s your dream—”
“That you’re part of, Veron. The construction will continue while we’re gone. We—as in, of course I’m coming with you.” She beamed, her palm on her belly, and nodded. “To the ends of the earth and to eternity.”
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THE END
Thanks for reading No Man Can Tame! If you enjoyed the adventure, please consider leaving a review. The review rating determines which series I prioritize, so if you want more books in this series soon, review this one!
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Ready for the next installment in the Dark-Elves of Nightbloom series? The next book is called Bright of the Moon, due for release in May 2019! Until then, you can turn the page for a snippet of my romantic epic fantasy series, Blade and Rose.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading No Man Can Tame, the first fantasy romance in the Dark-Elves of Nightbloom series. If you’ve read my Blade and Rose romantic epic fantasy series, you’ll notice that those books and these interweave. Aless and Veron will be showing up again in The Dragon King, coming this March. And the next book of The Dark-Elves of Nightbloom will feature his brother Dhuro and will be out in May 2019. The cover, sneak peek, and preorder should be out around February!
If you’d like to keep up with news about my books and other updates, you can sign up for my newsletter at www.mirandahonfleur.com. As a thank-you gift, you’ll get the prequel story to the Blade and Rose series, “Winter Wren,” featuring Rielle’s first meeting with a certain paladin.
All my books are only possible with the help of many people. No Man Can Tame is no exception! I’d like to thank the ladies of Enclave Authors—Ryan Muree, Katherine Bennet, Emily Allen West, Emerald Dodge, and Nicolette Andrews—for their help in critiquing this book. I’d also like to thank editors Deborah Nemeth and Laura Kingsley for their insight, and extend my condolences to Laura Kingsley’s loved ones. I only knew her for a short time, but she was a sharp mind, an intelligent editor, and a kind person, and she’ll be greatly missed.
I’d also like to thank my proofreaders, Patrycja Pakula and Charity Chimni, who caught the many, many, many typos in this manuscript. Any left over are mine. Lea Vickery, thank you for being an awesome assistant and helping me stay organized. I couldn’t do this without you! And a special thanks to Erin Montgomery Miller for her help and her eagle eye.
And as always, my husband, Tony, and my mom. Your love and support has meant the world to me as I pursue this passion that impossibly is also my career.
Thanks go to my amazing street team, the Queen’s Blade, as well for helping spread the word about my books and bringing a smile to my face! I am so happy we found each other, and I’m excited to keep having fun in 2019!!!
And you, my readers. Without your support, I wouldn’t be releasing a fifth book. Thanks to your messages, reviews, and sharing the word about my work, I get to do my dream job and be an author. I love hearing from you, so please feel free to drop me a line on: www.mirandahonfleur.com, Facebook, Twitter, and [email protected]. Thank you for reading!
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Sincerely,
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Miri
About the Author
Miranda Honfleur is a born-and-raised Chicagoan living in Indianapolis. She grew up on fantasy and science fiction novels, spending nearly as much time in Valdemar, Pern, Tortall, Narnia, and Middle Earth as in reality.
In another life, her J.D. and M.B.A. were meant to serve a career in law, but now she gets to live her dream job: writing speculative fiction starring fierce heroines and daring heroes who make difficult choices along their adventures and intrigues, all with a generous (over)dose of romance.
When she’s not snarking, writing, or reading her Kindle, she hangs out and watches Netflix with her English-teacher husband and plays board games with her friends.
Reach her at:
www.mirandahonfleur.com
[email protected]
https://www.patreon.com/honfleur
About Blade & Rose
A kingdom in turmoil or the love of her life. Which one will she save?
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When whispers reveal mercenaries have killed the king, taken the capital, and that no one is coming to help, Rielle can’t leave Olivia in peril. But as infamous mages and deadly assassins hunt Jon, she can’t leave him unprotected either--especially as she finds herself falling for his strength, his passion, and his uncompromising goodness. Her past returns to haunt her, a werewolf stalks their steps, and an ancient evil is gathering, yet the restraints forbidding their love strain and snap one by one.
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Saving Olivia and the kingdom means defying orders and sacrificing her every ambition, and could mean losing the man who's become so much more to her than a mission. Which will she choose: her best friend and the kingdom, or the love of her life?
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If you like the fantasy romance of A Court of Thorns and Roses, the dark intrigue of the Black Jewels series, the epic adventure of Game of Thrones, and a heroine who never gives up, you’ll love this heart-wrenching romantic epic fantasy series.
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Enter Blade & Rose and dive into a medieval world sensual and dark, full of magic and greed, love and blades, where factions vie for influence and there are no easy choices...
Out the fifth-story window, or not at all.
It was her only chance to sneak out unnoticed. Rielle sprang from the bed and grabbed a coat, white wool with the master mage’s four-bar chevron, and fastened the double rows of buttons from neck to hip.
Gloves next. No glow of spellcasting to give her away. She slipped her hands into the wool-lined leather and flexed her fingers. A new pair. The heat of her pyromancy last mission had ruined the previous set.
With a flick of her wrist, she extinguished the fireplace and every candle in the room, willing the flames away until only darkness and the faint glow of the gibbous moon remained.
She tossed her braid over her shoulder and opened the window latch. Her boot perched on the sill, she peered at the ground. Dark. Quiet. Empty.
Farther from the Tower, torches illuminated the walls of the inner bailey, dotted the outer bailey and the gates. Beyond them, white pines challenged the midnight sky, their peaks silvered by the moon. The forest—that was her destination.
If a guard on wall duty looked at the Tower of Magic instead of out at the gates and the surrounding wilds... Well, a mage jumping out her fifth-story window would not go unreported.
And yet, Olivia’s silence—and the capital’s—went ignored. On her desk was Olivia’s latest letter, which she’d read a dozen times already and replied to three weeks ago.
No response.
She’d told the Tower’s Proctor, asked about the capital… Nothing. Either no one knew, or no one cared. She curled a fist.
Tonight, she’d get her answer.
She tapped the window frame.
An early autumn wind riffled her coat. She shivered, eyeing the five-story drop as she climbed onto the sill.
If she got caught, she’d be punished into the next life, and Brennan—well, a werewolf was the kind of monster thought to exist only in fairy tales. The kind of monster that incited mobs bearing torches and pitchforks. And yet—
With a curl of her index and middle fingers, she called an updraft strong enough to catch her and held it. This better work.
She jumped.
The spelled wind pushed against her boots, her coat, her, as she descended, the force strong enough to keep her from breaking upon the rough white-marble courtyard.
Suspended just above the ground, she uncurled her fingers, dispelling the aeromancy.
Her boots clicked upon the courtyard’s flagstones. She caught her breath. Divine be praised.
Briefly closing her eyes, she chanced an inward glance. Her anima’s inner luminosity remained bright. As long as she kept her spellcasting limited to her innate elemental magic, she probably wouldn’t need to find another mage for resonance later.
In the shadows, she crept to the eastern edge of the white stone inner wall, watching for patrolling guards on the battlements. Thankfully, they guarded against intruders and not escapees, but tonight, they were nowhere to be seen. Slacking off?
She shrugged. No matter. If they weren’t here, her escape would be all the easier. In the cover of the inner wall, she sidled against it until she reached a stack of hay bales.
Scanning the battlements for patrols, she climbed over the sweet-smelling hay, prickly even through her gloves. Near the top, she stilled, holding her breath.
Not a single guard.
Something wasn’t right.
She listened for something, anything, but heard only her own heavy breaths. Perhaps she’d see something from a vantage point on the wall.
With a grunt, she dragged herself onto a crenel, waited for any sound, and hearing none, emerged from between the merlons. Crouched, she scanned the length of the stone wall in both directions.
No one. There should have been at least two guards here, two more near the corner on the southern inner wall, but she couldn’t see any.
A distant shout. She darted to the nearest merlon on the wall’s outer face.
About five hundred feet away, just inside the outer bailey by the western gate, spells lit the darkness. Flashes of brilliant color popped in disarray. A skirmish.
A small group clustered around a single armored intruder. Torchlight glinted off his blade as he dueled a mage guard, evading, defending, attacking.
Her eyes widened.
Wildfire. He moved like wildfire.
Armor of massive plate—sage tinted. She knew it. Arcanir.
He had to be a warrior-priest of the Order of Terra. A paladin.
What was one of them doing here?
She counted the guards—six. All of them? No one left to even sound the alarm? They engaged the paladin at the western gate. Rainier Valentin fired a purple blur of conjured daggers while the paladin fought another mage wielding a massive scythe.
No, not another mage—another Rainier. All six of them were Rainier. He’d created five apparitions of himself, all of them attacking with ethereal weapons, distracting the whirling paladin. Every strike with the arcanir sword dispelled a conjured blade.
The five other mage guards lay afield, already defeated. Only Rainier and his apparitions remained to protect the Tower.
She spelled her eyes with earthsight. The fallen guards still glowed with threads of bright anima, were still breathing. She dispelled it. If he’d left them alive, the paladin wouldn’t kill Rainier either.
Across the outer bailey by the eastern gate, two small forms crept in the faint torchlight—children? Tower novices, nothing separating them from the intruder but the length of a cobblestone path. Fiery red hair... and a shaved head. Jacqui and Luc. What were they doing out at this hour?
She curled her fingers into a fist. Would he see them as mere children? Or only more mages to fight?
Being mere children hadn’t kept her or her brothers and sisters safe in Laurentine nine years ago. When the pirates had—
No, that’s in the past. She took a deep, cleansing breath.
Rainier would keep him busy until someone from the Tower took notice. After all, they fought in the outer bailey of the Emaurrian Tower of Magic... Over a hundred mages lived here, including a wild mage and a magister.
One paladin. The odds spoke for themselves.
And if no one emerged, well... His luck would run out. As much as she needed answers about Olivia, Jacqui and Luc’s safety came first. If the Proctor reprimanded her for sneaking out, so be it. She could handle another round of his discipline.
The paladin struck Rainier in the face with the pommel of his sword. No, an apparition of Rainier. Violet s
moke puffed, rose. Dispelled.
“I mean you no harm!” the paladin bellowed. Barely a breath later, he breezed through three more apparitions. In a veil of smoke, he elbowed another in the abdomen hard enough to make him splutter and fall. Dematerialized on the ground. Another apparition.
The smoke cleared, and with an arc of golden light, Rainier conjured a fiery blade. No apparitions. Just him. He never did turn away from a fight.
“Let me pass!” The paladin raised the visor on his helm.
Rainier didn’t move. “By order of the Divinity, you are to submit to questioning, paladin.”
They were a little past questioning now. The paladin forged ahead toward the eastern gate.
She grimaced. Rainier’s conjured blade wouldn’t stop a paladin; while he was in his arcanir armor, no direct magic could affect him.
But with the conjured blade, Rainier set upon him anyway.
The paladin parried, his arcanir sword dispelling the conjured weapon, and coupled it with an armored uppercut to Rainier’s jaw with his knuckle dusters.
She winced. Where were the other mages? She needed to get to Brennan. A backward glimpse of the Tower’s doors revealed no activity. She looked back at Luc and Jacqui, huddled across the outer bailey, and then at the fight.
Divine’s flaming fire. She pressed her lips in a tight line.
Rainier fell to the ground but pushed against it with his hands.
The paladin elbowed him in the back. “Stay down.”
He did.
The paladin made for the eastern gate—and for Jacqui and Luc, who cowered together by the portcullis but assumed a battle stance. No. They had no chance of stopping him. But now they were definitely targets.
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