Beast Lord: (Beauty and the Beast) (Tangled Tales Book 3) (17 page)
Read Beast Lord: (Beauty and the Beast) (Tangled Tales Book 3) Online
Authors: Elizabeth Rose
Here are some of my other series, followed by excerpts.
Daughters of the Dagger Series:
This is followed by my Scottish
Madman MacKeefe
series, with the first book being about the girls’ brother
,
Onyx – Book 1,
who they thought was dead.
Aidan – Book 2
,
is next, followed by
Ian – Book 3
.
(Watch Book Trailer)
Greek Myth Fantasy Series:
The Legacy of the Blade Series:
The Elemental Series:
The Dragon and the Dreamwalker
Book 1: Fire
The Duke and the Dryad
Book 2: Earth
The Sword and the Sylph
Book 3: Air
The Sheik and the Siren
Book 4: Water
Excerpt from
Just A Kiss
(The Frog Prince)
Book 2, Tangled Tales Series
The frogs in Freya’s swamp were singing, warning her trouble was on its way.
Quickly and carefully Freya collected the swamp water into a small glass jar and held it up in the air, letting the rays of the full moon light up the contents within. She took a deep breath and touched the crystal orb hanging around her neck from a cord made of braided horse tail combined with her own jet black hair. Closing her eyes, she silently recited her spell that would let her see the trouble on the horizon before it happened.
She usually recited her spells aloud to keep from being distracted by her own thoughts. Even then, Freya’s forte was transporting – not dabbling in this kind of magick. Marni had told her she needed to be more discreet and learn to do it silently, and that her progression with spells would come in time. Marni was the most powerful witch of the swamps, so Freya listened to her advice. Sometimes.
“Show me what comes my way,” she whispered, trying her best, but still not able to say it all in her head. Didn’t Marni as well as the rest of the swamp witches know that she didn’t like the silence? Freya was an only child and liked to talk to people and have others around her. Even at her young age of twenty summers she often felt lonely. She talked to herself or the trees or even the frogs just to pretend that someone was listening to what she had to say.
She was the youngest witch of the coven. Her mother, Lady Almeta of Slapton in Devon, was also a witch, but very ill and on her deathbed. Her late father, on the other hand, was naught more than a simple knight. Or so she’d been told. Her mother had beckoned to him when the moon was full one night. She’d mated with him in order to conceive, since her own husband was old and unable to father a child. Freya’s real father had died in battle before she was born, so Freya never even knew him.
Her mother’s husband, the old baron, Lord George Fane, could not father children since he was so old when he married Almeta. He’d been desperately marrying one lady after another trying to have an heir – but never did. He blamed it on the women of course, but silent gossip suspected the fault fell upon him alone, but no one would say it aloud.
Lord George didn’t know that Freya was not from his seed, but then again, he didn’t need to know. Freya’s mother had done the deed with purpose. To give hope to an old, barren man, as well as bring him respect from his people. If he had known what she’d done, Almeta would have been banished from Slapton, and Freya along with her. He could never find out that she and her mother were witches, or she was sure he’d tie them to stakes and burn them himself as he hated witches.
A loud croaking sound from the ground by her feet gained her attention. She looked down to see Boregard – her Familiar who was a frog. She could understand him for some reason and he was telling her that she needed to go back to the woods and join the rest of her coven.
“Hush, Gar,” she told him, using the shortened version of his name. “I need to learn to do this on my own without your help.” Instantly she felt a surge go through her and she almost dropped the jar as she bent over in pain from the feeling of pressure crushing her chest.
“Show me the trouble that comes to the swamp,” she commanded. Then in the beams of moonlight, the water in the jar turned blood red and she saw flames burning higher and higher.
“Warriors,” she said aloud, figuring this must mean a village was about to be pillaged and burned, or perhaps there’d be an attack on the castle. She made a quick sweep with her eyes at the trees around her, and she strained her ears to listen for movement. Then she heard it. The sound of thundering hoofbeats shook the earth beneath her feet as the enemy approached the swamp. She tasted the irony tang of blood on her tongue, and realized she’d actually managed to have a premonition of some sort. Whatever it was, it meant that someone was about to die.
Freya could barely concentrate on her spell because the frogs kept croaking louder and louder. She hunkered down by the shore trying to collect enough swamp water in a second jar to be able to add it to her potion back at the castle. That is, the potion that she’d been concocting and hoped would be able to break the barrier around the castle that kept any magic from working within the high stone walls.
This was the third time this week she’d been to the swamp, trying everything from spells to potions to figure out what it would take to break through the curse that made her magic useless within the stones of the fortress. Her mother was very ill, and the baron refused to let the woman leave the castle. There was no way Freya, nor the other witches of the coven could help her now. This was all the fault of an old witch that her mother had a confrontation with years ago. Hecuba had put a spell on the castle, making magic nonexistent within it.
Freya looked over her shoulder as she collected the rest of the ingredients she needed. The swamp weeds were just about in bloom and at the perfect time for harvest. She had to work fast since the sound of hoofbeats was getting louder. She was alone in the swamp tonight, as the rest of the coven was having a meeting in the woods inside the ring of standing stones in the clearing. No one would be able to help her should she run into trouble now.
She pushed the jars into her travel bag and closed it up quickly. The warning of Boregard and the other frogs was loud in her head, drowning out any other sounds around her. She stood, ready to make her way back to Castle Fane, but stopped in her tracks as she saw men on horseback riding right toward her – being followed by a large black wolf!
Excerpt from
Dragon and the Dreamwalker
,
(Book 1: Fire - Elemental Series)
Brynn spied the nighttime candle next to the bed and brought it to her. She held her hands over the fire to help regain her strength.
She took a moment to focus her vision in the semi-darkened room. Though she feared the man in the shadows, she still had the odd sensation of being comfortable with her surroundings.
She looked up to the velvet draperies that hung from iron rods around the bed. Her heart beat faster and she sat upright, barely breathing at all as she recognized the carved spindles at each corner. Her father had carved these spindles - engraving his love for his wife in the vines and faeries that wrapped around and around, climbing to the top and ending in a moon or star. She knew now why she felt at home. She
was
home. Resting in her parents’ bed.
“No!” she exclaimed, not wanting to believe it was true. She placed the candle on the bedside table. Her eyes shot to the wall looking frantically for her father’s banner - his crest of sword and shield, a mighty arm holding one, a feminine arm the other. But it was no surprise when she found it missing. Instead, a banner with a fierce fire-breathing red and black dragon consumed the spot.
“You act as if you’ve seen a ghost. As if my castle’s dwellings could speak to you.” He still stayed hidden in the shadows.
“Every stone in the walls, every rush on the floor - they cry with anguish for the lives that have been lost here recently. And if you are so bold as to call this your castle, then it can only be you who is responsible for the blood that’s been shed on these grounds.”
“I claim many a triumph of the men I’ve conquered or the fiefs I hold, but I cannot put my mark on the lives lost here. I claim the castle only.”
“’Twas you who killed my parents! ’Twas you who stole my family’s wealth.”
“You’re parents?” he asked, sounding bewildered. As if he didn’t know who she was when he saved her from the dragon only to claim her as his prize.
She grabbed the coverlet from the bed and wrapped it tightly around her, easing herself to the floor, and hoping her father’s ivory-handled dagger still lay hidden under the loose floorboard. She would never be the spoils of war. She’d kill him before she lived at the side of the man who murdered her parents.
“I’ve heard it said that the former lord and lady of Thorndale Castle had a daughter. A daughter who befriends fire and has magical powers at her command,” he said from the darkness.
“And I’ve heard it said that the man who leads the Klarens into battle, killing and ransacking everything in sight, is a black-hearted man who gains his power at the hands of others’ misfortunes. His reputation is known throughout the hills of Lornoon. He’s the one mothers warn their daughters about. He’s the one they mention to threaten their children when they’re bad. Yet his name is never spoken aloud, for fear the darkness that possesses this man’s soul may follow his name, striking down dead the one who spoke it.”
It was then he stepped slowly out of the shadows and into the soft light of the fire that flickered from the bedside candle. The glow encompassed him as his dark eyes bore into her. One fist gripped a tankard of ale in front of him. He was tall, handsome, foreboding, and carried his body frame straight and proud as he strolled toward her. His chest was bare - wide and sturdy. Every muscled ripple showed in his physique. His arms were huge in a strong sort of way, empowering the rest of his warrior body. And like a warrior, he still carried a weapon though he was half-clothed.
His gaze penetrating, she felt a slight hesitation in his action as he stopped in front of her with his free hand hovering above the sword strapped at his side. Almost as if she’d called him a traitor or insulted him by saying the legends of his name aloud. He was the most dangerous man alive. And she was alone with him in the dark, with only a coverlet between them.
“’Tis true. It is you,” she said barely above a whisper. “I’ve heard of your crest described by the bards. You are Drake of Dunsbard, are you not?”
“You so daringly let my name slip past your noble lips. Aren’t you afraid you’ll drop dead at my feet for such carelessness?”
“I’d welcome death to the alternative of what you’ll do to me.”
“So sure are you that I’m that dangerous?”
“You are a Pendragon!” she cried. “You’re the one they call the
Dragon’s Son
. You are the devil and you’ve come to claim my soul.”
He put the tankard on the bedside table and stared down at her. All the way to her soul. She knew she should look away, but stubbornness made her match his glare. It was said that the son of the dragon could turn one to mere ashes just by fixing his gaze on a person. But it mattered not to her. She had an ally in fire, and his dangerous stare could not harm her. She’d be protected from the fires of hell.
He chuckled softly, his lips turning up into a lopsided grin that only made the indention in the cleft of his chin more pronounced. His ebony eyes sported a glimmer as he seemed to find amusement in her words. Then the glimmer was gone and the danger was back. He took a step closer, so close that she could feel his breath on her face when he spoke, though he did not touch her.
“You’re only partially correct with your legends.”
She didn’t trust him so close to her and knew she needed protection. She needed her father’s dagger, but it was hidden under the floor on the far side of the bed. She scooted away from him, never turning her back to him, and shifted around the foot of the bed.
“I am a Pendragon,” he admitted, “’tis true. And I am the one they call the
Dragon’s Son
. But I am not the devil and I want nothing to do with your soul.”
He made his way toward her, and she darted around the back side of the bed, holding her coverlet tightly in the process.
“I don’t believe you.” From the corner of her eye she looked to the floor, trying to remember which board the dagger was under. Then her toe caught on a loose end and she knew she’d found it.
He took another step toward her, this time with more definition. It was all she needed to see. The look in his eyes said he knew she was about to deceive him. She had to move fast. She dove to the floor, dropping the coverlet that concealed her nudity and tore at the floorboard, groping inside for the weapon.
His boot heels clicked on the floor and stopped in front of her face. She grabbed for the dagger in one final attempt to protect herself from him, but to her horror, she found the hiding place empty. She stiffened when she felt his hand on her arm. Her breathing labored as he pulled her to her feet, her body trembling from his mere presence. He pulled her closer, her hips grazing the flat end of the sword at his waist.
“Looking for this?” Still holding her arm, he raised his other hand and displayed her father’s ivory-handled dagger in the air.