The Huntsmen
Authors: Honor James
The Huntsmen
Naughty Fairy Tales [2]
Honor James
JK Publishing, Inc. (2014)
Warning: For Mature Adult Audiences. Contains language and actions some may deem offensive. Sexually explicit content. MFMM
In book two of the Naughty Fairy Tales: Growing up in a castle is every little girl’s dream. However, for Snow White, it turned into a nightmare when her stepmother threw her into the dungeon to rot her life away. An opportunity arises and she finds herself free. Free to run and, if she’s lucky, to one day return and see her stepmother removed from her seat on a throne that doesn't belong to her.
They’ve been hired to find the missing girl, but have yet to decide whether they will take the job. As huntsmen, they know the woods of the many kingdoms well, and there is nowhere a young woman on the run could hide from them. What Dierk, Baldric and Niklaus don’t expect is to become embroiled in a battle for a throne when they find the young woman and she pleads with them to help her free her people.
Choices, everyone has them, everyone must make them and accept the consequences that come from them. When these four embark on their journey to find those willing to help tear a throne from greedy fingers, they also find themselves on a journey of discovery—One of themselves and who they are to be as a group. What they find along the way is a love like nothing before. A love so strong it can make or break an entire kingdom, and each other.
The Huntsmen
Naughty Fairy Tales
Book Two
by Honor James
© Copyright January 2014 JK Publishing, Inc.
ISBN#9781310245527
All cover art and logo © Copyright January 2014 by JK Publishing, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Edited by S.M. Crouch
Artwork by Risque Design
Published by JK Publishing, Inc.
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Dedication
For everyone that saw me through this first year of pure terror and unbelievable excitement. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you,
thank you
.
And, for my readers, you guys rock and I could never do this without each and every one of you urging me on day in and out. You are amazing and no one could ask for better fans than I have in you.
Table of Contents
Excerpt from Goldie and Her Bears
Prologue
Sometimes waking was the worst part. Waking in the filth of the dungeons where she had spent her childhood. It was in those moments, the brief time between being asleep and being awake that she was able to forget everything. In those precious moments she was able to recall a time before. A time before the darkness. A time before her father was gone. A moment when she felt freedom, and then reality crashed in on her with brutal clarity. She both loved and hated those moments, loved them because they reminded her of why she continued to breathe, why she continued to fight for life and hated them because when they ended she was back in the darkness once more.
A deep and heavy sigh escaped her lips as she looked up at the rocky ceiling above her. The steady drip-drip-drip from the stalactites above her only enunciated the sorrow she felt deep inside.
Thirteen years. She had been locked in her own father’s dungeon for thirteen years. Locked away since the moment of her eleventh birthday, kept from all, thought to be removed from the mortal realm. Hidden until all hope was lost. Sighing, she rose from her niche and moved to the small hole that looked out onto the courtyard. It wasn’t large enough for her to even put a finger through, but it was large enough that she was able to breathe the scent of the oceans, if only for a moment before the entire yard was filled with people.
She had tried before to call out for help, to get a guard to help her, but it only resulted in the deaths of the ones who had tried. It also roused the other females locked in the same punishment she suffered and got them into trouble. She no longer called out for help. She no longer tried to escape. To do so with the aid of another would only cause their death, and that simply was not something she would accept. She would not be the cause of another man’s death, period.
She would be free. Somehow, someway, she knew that she’d be free again. She simply had to be patient. Once more she began to do her daily routine. She paced the small cavern and once more began to work at the small opening at the back of the cavern in hopes that she would somehow get free.
*****
“Bring her to me,” the Queen demanded from her throne.
“Her, Majesty?” the man asked with obvious concern.
“Did I stutter? Do I need to call another in?” she asked and turned a scornful look to him.
“No, Majesty. I…I will get her now,” he whispered, his head bowed so deeply that he was practically dragging the ground with it.
The Queen nodded and turned to look out the window once more. “Soon, very soon it shall be over and then we will have reason to go to war with our neighbor,” she all but purred at her own genius.
“Yes, sister, you have planned this out perfectly,” the man said from the shadows as he stepped out slightly so the sun caught only his perfect side. “To the people she is and has always been a symbol of hope, a piece of the old King who would one day rule, but now sending her to that old bastard and making sure she dies along the way. Simply brilliant, two birds, one stone.”
Smiling smugly, she nodded. “I am rather brilliant aren’t I?” she asked with a grin and then waved her brother back to the shadows. “We don’t want her seeing you before she has to, now do we? After all, the poor girl has been in the dungeons for so very long that she simply won’t know what to think about a man as strong, as virile, as amazing as you, brother dear.”
Gushing at his sisters’ praise, the man nodded and watched her. “It will all have to be handled with delicate care, sister dear, would you like for me to be one of her escorts?” He tried, and failed, to hide the lust that he had in his words.
Turning with an angry glare, red in her eyes, she growled, “You are not to sully yourself with one such as her. She’s a strumpet, a whore. She gives herself to all of the guardsmen and I allow it because it keeps their mouths silent.”
Watching him flinch, she felt a perverse satisfaction at the lies she told. “Now leave me. When I meet with my dearest stepdaughter, I want to be alone. A mother should be able to give the news of a wedding to her daughter, right?”
“Of course, Majesty,” he said and with a flourish and bow, he left the Queen to tell the woman of her fate, marriage to a man that was easily five times her age. Then he would wait in the wings to kill the brat once and for all. Well, after he had a taste of her body for himself, that was.
Chapter One
Once upon a time...
"This is the one you are to find," the old crone said, lifting the image she'd scratched onto the vellum for them to view.
"Aye," the first huntsman said, lifting their sketching of the girl. Looking to his fellow huntsmen, he got nods of agreement and turned it to the crone. "The Queen would not say who she was beyond a liar and a thief. Rumors swirl rampant at court the Queen perhaps lies. We wish to know if you can delve for the truth and help guide us true."
The crone cackled as she nodded, "For a price, young huntsmen, for a price."
Like they hadn't known that was coming. "What would your fee be, crone?" the second huntsman asked, stepping up to the left of the first man.
Tapping a finger to the table, she stared at them for a time and then smiled, "A favor in the future, Huntsmen, a favor to be named at any time and of anything at some date to come."
The third man of their trio stepped up to the right and crossed his arms over his chest, "Terms for such a favor should be weighed and measured and not left blind to all but you, crone."