Crown of Blood and Ruin: A dark fairy tale romance (The Broken Kingdoms Book 3)

My hands were bound. The brothel guard led me out of the stables with enough time to give Siv and Kari a quick look, a silent signal to get free, to get our people. To get Valen.

This was not in the plan. We’d studied when the selections began at this brothel. It took place in the main room, where patrons could inspect their potential pleasure mates, then make their purchases. We were to slip away and make for a blot of spindly trees before we stepped foot in the main house. There, Stieg and Ari would meet us and take us away.

I couldn’t get away when it was only me.

Certainly not with big, meaty hands on my arm and ropes on my wrists.

Plans would change. No doubt they’d draw blood and death soon enough. I was not a damsel to be rescued, and Valen did not see me as anything weak or helpless. Warrior blood flowed in my veins, but my husband knew better than most how to succumb to bloodlust. Even with the curse lifted, he had—more than once—admitted the draw to blood, violence, and slaughter tugged at his soul like a disease he could not cure.

Perhaps it was more he did not wish to cure it.

This guard—this gods-awful fool—did not know what he was doing and the lives he’d put at stake.

I told him as much.

He laughed and tightened his grip. “You’ve been sold as a pleasure mate, Love. You think anyone is out there willing to fight for you?”

“You deliver me into that house, I vow on all the gods, on all the fates, it will not stand long.”

“You’ve been requested personally.”

“How? No one has seen me?”

“You’re a feisty one,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t ask questions, Lovey. I do my job and deliver the pleasures is all. A new, blue-eyed Timoran was asked for, and you fit the bill. Almost like he knew you’d be here.”

My insides coiled, hard and fast.

If anyone knew I was here, then they were no friend of ours. All hells! What did that mean for our folk in the trees? Valen, did he know? Was he surrounded and about to be ambushed?

I had no time to wonder before the guard shoved me inside a narrow doorway at the back of the house.

Inside the air reeked of pungent herb smoke and heavy ale. Laughter rose as patrons gathered in the great hall engaging in their own self-important debauchery before the pleasure mates were even brought inside.

“Put this on,” said the guard. He held out a thin pearly sheet of lace. When I did nothing but stare at it, he made a gesture like placing a hat on his head. “Put it over your bleeding head. To hide your face. You’ve been bought. No one else gets to see you. Rules of the house.”

Think Elise. On my leg, the dagger burned my skin. All in my mind, but the heat became a reminder of a promise to Valen. I’d fight and defend myself. I promised long ago, and I’d keep it. But to grab the blade now would be reckless. Too many patrons, too many guards, too many enemies stood around.

With a long breath, I slipped the lace over my head.

In the room, alone with the bastard who thought he could buy my flesh, I’d deal with it swiftly. Wooden floors would run red by the time I finished.

The guard led me into the hall. All around tables were stacked with men and women. All of different status. Most appeared to be stone workers. Bulky shoulders with arms thicker than my waist. So close to the peaks, folk up here were used to harsh winds and hard labor. Scattered throughout, though, were a few finely dressed people. Likely travelers or traders from other kingdoms or townships merely stopping through.

Vulgar shouts roared in my ears when I was brought into the room. Men barked, some pretended to reach for my skirts, others commented on my shape and figure.

The dagger scorched my leg. What I would give to dig the point in each chest.

Through the filigree on the lace, I took note of a table in the corner, of familiar faces. My heart leaped into my throat as I strode past Axel and Frey, drinking nervously, scoping out the space, waiting for any signal the plan had gone awry.

Covered, they wouldn’t notice me. They were too focused on the far door, or the windows.

Think Elise.

I did what I could and fell forward. Nothing graceful, and utterly disruptive.

“Cursed hells, Lovey.” The guard reached for my arm. “Clumsy little thing. Best tell your buyer the night ought to be spent off your feet.”

The guard pulled on one arm, and with the other I used the edge of Frey’s table to help me find my feet.

Discreetly, my hand covered the warrior’s. I squeezed once.

His eyes shot to my covered face. The guard pulled me away, apologizing to Axel and Frey. As I left, I splayed my left hand, praying to any gods listening Frey would notice the missing fingertips and know it was me.

The last I heard was the scrape of chairs over floorboards.

All gods, I hoped it had been Frey and his brother taking action.

“As promised,” was all the brothel guard said before he nudged me into a small, musty room, and slammed the door behind me.

With the breeze beating against the walls, wood groaned and creaked. Movement in the corner was the only indication I was no longer alone.

Hastily, I removed the veil and turned to face the patron.

A Raven.

Dressed in his dark tunic with the seal of Ravenspire over his chest and a silver short blade crossed over his back, the man grinned. As if he’d found the greatest prize, he flashed his yellow teeth with each step.

“I hate patrolling in the north. Bleeding cold and boring. But tonight, it would seem, the gods have smiled on me.”

“I will warn you once, do not come closer,” I said.

All the lessons from Halvar reeled through my head. How to duck, how to dodge, how to thrust a blade between the ribs. A dozen scenarios played out in my head. I’d need to survive long enough for Siv and Kari to find a way out, or if my distraction worked, for Axel and Frey to make a move.

As if I’d summoned them, shouting rang out somewhere outside.

The Raven noticed, but his smile didn’t fade. He kept coming closer.

“I wish we had more time. But I’m sure it won’t be long before your fae arrives, so we really ought to be on our way.” He chuckled at my stun. “You think I do not know you? Elise Lysander, traitor of her own people and blood.”

“How . . .” I let the words die. What was the point in asking the guard anything? If he knew who I was, then he was here to take me to my sister. That, or kill me.

My fingertips teased the hilt of the dagger tucked beneath my ratty skirt. I met his viciousness with my own. A sneer curled over my mouth. “If you know me, then you would be a fool to think you can walk out of here alive should you put a hand on me.”

“I do plan to leave here with both of us still breathing.” His body drew closer. I could smell the days-old sweat on his clothes and skin. He reached for my throat. I swatted at him, but he pinned my wrist to the wall, using his hips and body to trap me.

I didn’t blink, didn’t falter. So be it. Drawing so near gave me more opportunity to pierce his body deeper. Truth be told, I embraced my own bloodlust the same as Valen, and as the Raven breathed his rank breath on my face, I imagined a hundred ways I could make my bloody mark.

“Trust me—”

“That’d be foolish.”

He sneered and tightened his grip around my throat. “Your fae friends will be plenty distracted,” he rasped. “Too much to notice us. Then you, my little Kvinna, will be my gift to the king. I’ll never see these bleeding peaks again.”

“Someone told you about me,” I said, giving myself enough time to slide the hem of my skirt up, to reach for the dagger.

“Careful who you trust, Elise. I hardly had to pay anything for your name.” He pulled the short blade from his back. “We’re going now.”

“I’d rather not.”

The sting of his hand didn’t hurt nearly as bad as falling to one side and knocking my hip on the hard floor when the ground rolled like the waves of the sea. The Raven stumbled backward, his back striking the foot of the haggard bed.

Even with the sharp burn of pain shooting down my leg, I laughed and withdrew the dagger from the sheath.

The Raven looked to the door, eyes wide.

I rose to my knees. “Too late.”

He locked me in his glare and took up his sword again. “He won’t reach you in time. If I must, I’ll take your head myself.”

From the knees, I could slice up, strike his belly, his groin. What did Halvar say to do against a larger blade?

My head spun. I studied his feet. Watched his hands.

Vulnerable places in the Raven armor were joints and a small seam over the ribs. Duck at the first strike, then reel back and cut behind the knees. Take him down to my level.

Sure enough, the Raven lifted his short blade, ready to maim me enough I couldn’t run. As the blade fell, I rolled onto one shoulder. Steel split the wood into splinters. The blade caught enough into the floor, I had time to spin back.

My dagger’s edge sliced through the roughly spun trousers. A point above the top of his boot, but below the joint of his leg guarder.

The Raven cried out as hot blood soaked his leg, and he crumbled to his knees.

I scrambled to my feet, ready to strike again, but he fisted my skirt and pulled me back. A sharp cry came from my throat as I slammed backward onto the floorboards.

Roars of an attack boiled in my brain. Our people—Valen, Ari, Tor, Halvar—we did not come with the numbers to hold back a unit of Ravens. If one guard from Ravenspire was here, how many more had been patrolling the northern roads?

In my distraction, the Raven made a sloppy strike with his blade. A sharp, blinding burn scorched my flesh when the edge of his sword cut into my thigh.

The Raven tried to tighten his grip on me; he aimed for the newly opened gash above my knee. I swung my dagger, catching his cheek. He roared his pain, dropped his sword, and retreated.

I staggered to my feet and kicked his sword aside.

This wasn’t over.

As if the wound unlocked fury that didn’t exist in my blood, I turned away from the fight outside. Blood oozed down my leg, but I ignored the pain. All that mattered was this moment, this Raven, this life.

The man’s pale eyes lifted to mine as a shudder shook the house. Perhaps he saw something in my eyes that frightened him, for he scurried away on his backside, eyes darting side to side, searching for anything to serve as a weapon.

He wouldn’t get the chance.

“You will visit the false king,” I rasped. “As a message from his doting sister-in-law. Unfortunately, you won’t be living when you arrive.”

He narrowed his eyes, a shadow pulling away the blue. He would not go down without a fight. Then again, we were Timorans. Bred from warriors.

But, no mistake, we were about to see who was the greater of the two.