Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) by Jessica Aspen Read Free Book Online Page B

Cairngloss. He’d done it. She would help him. Willingly. Or at least with the bright, shiny carrot of leaving dangled in front of her grasp. Soon, he’d be released from the torment of being held in this mishmash of shapes, then the queen herself would weep.
    His savior’s full skirt brushed against the stones of the walls behind him. The subtle swishing sound reminding him of dances long ago. Of women’s laughter…and flirting…and sex.
    “Why did the queen trap you here? It seems…odd.”
    Her voice cut into his reverie and he jolted back to the present. “Why put me in an abandoned palace, you mean?”
    “It is a palace, isn’t it? Not a prison.”
    He snuck a glance backward.
    She darted a wistful look into a dusty, open chamber. “I mean, it’s confusing and empty and dark, but hardly a dungeon,” she said.
    “The queen has a twisted mind,” he responded, and turned back around. He didn’t want to tell her this was more of a prison than a dungeon with fellow inmates would have been. By secreting him here in the abandoned shell of a palace, he had daily reminders of his isolation, and no fellow prisoners to rally to his cause. The queen knew him well.
    “We’re here.” He pushed the elaborately carved double doors wide, held his candelabra to the side, and bowed.
    She entered, the trail of her scent sneaking under his cloak, teasing him with its rosy, feminine lure. His eyes closed, and his muscles tensed as she passed dangerously close. He resisted the urge to touch the curve in her waist. Snag a golden lock of hair. Or use a claw to tear open the skirt of her dress and reveal the treasure beneath.
    There was a scraping behind him. He whipped around and growled at the trailing hobgoblins that followed him everywhere like faithful dogs. They scattered, shrieking and hooting into the dark.
    He carefully shut and locked the doors behind them. She was his, and he wouldn’t share.
    “It’s huge.” Her green eyes widened, her pale pink lips formed a wide O and he damned his current shape. If he wasn’t cursed, he would abandon the library and have her back in his chambers, her soft flesh twined around him in a quest for another kind of release.
    If he wasn’t cursed.
    “Where are all the books?” She moved into the center of the cavernous space.
    Grateful for the cloak covering both his bestial shape and his hard-on, he followed the tempting sway of her hips and held his candelabra high. The light flickered over the empty floor-to-ceiling shelves and wide, bare tables. “Once this held the knowledge of the Gnome King and his advisors, but they took it all with them when they fled the White Queen, and abandoned the palace.”
    “So, what are we using for reference?” Her voice wavered. “I don’t think I can do this without a spell.”
    The insecurity in her voice and the self-doubt in her eyes intrigued him. He’d always been a sucker for the lost ones, the victims. And here she was, sexy and vulnerable. If he didn’t know he’d done this to himself, he would think it was a clever move on the part of his mother to increase his torment.
    “What I’ve collected is over here.” His voice came out harsher than he’d intended, and she flinched. He breathed deeply in order to collect himself, but it didn’t do much more than take the edge off. He was so close to being cured, he didn’t think he could control his impatience for too much longer. He led her to the corner where he’d stashed his books and placed the candles on the table.
    “The queen let you have these?”
    He snorted as he looked at his pitiful collection of twenty or so tomes, gleaned painfully over the years. “The queen doesn’t think much of spells in books. The fae typically have no need of them.”
    “I don’t understand. If you can get the books in, why haven’t you left in search of a cure, or someone to help you?”
    “I can’t leave.” He forced the anger and rage out of his voice and explained his prison.