Heir of Broken Fate (HOBF Book 1)

Hazel and I walk beside each other, following Knox through the back gardens. We pass gorgeous flowerbeds and a fountain decorated with statues of angels before Knox stops in front of an underground cellar door.

He turns to us, sliding his hands into his pockets as a force snaps around us. “I’ve put a shield around all three of us. We can touch the books, but any power that’s lingering can’t penetrate the shield. If you feel dizzy, lightheaded, or nauseous we stop immediately.”

Knox uses both hands to pry open the wooden door, revealing a small set of stairs. We venture down a damp passageway, water dripping as mold clings to the walls. Stopping in front of a metal door, Knox places his palm on the cellar, purple light shining beneath his hand as a click sounds a moment before Knox pushes it open. The sack of books sit in the center of the otherwise empty room.

Wasting no time, we begin combing through the books. The faster we get through this, the better. The dark magic can’t touch us, yet its presence can still be felt, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I grab a flimsy black leather book from the sack, taking a seat on the floor, the cold seeping through my clothes. I’m horrified to read its contents. “This one talks about sacrificial rituals in exchange for power,” I whisper.

Hazel’s wary voice fills the room. “This covers devil worshipping rituals.”

I wrinkle my nose in disgust that anyone would practice this type of magic.

“There’s spells on how to conjure demons to your realm,” she whispers.

Knox leans over, slowly taking the book from Hazel. “Let’s swap books,” he mumbles.

Hazel gives Knox a small smile of appreciation as I continue reading mine, each page more disturbing than the one before.

“It says that if you sacrifice a soul, you’ll receive dark magic in exchange.” I whisper.

My statement makes the room drop in temperature. Both Knox and Hazel look at me with grimaces plastered on their faces.

“It what?” Knox asks warily. I pass him the book so he can read it himself.

“No wonder they banned black magic,” he states.

When he hands the book back, my fingers brush his skin, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up for an entirely different reason.

“Who banned dark magic?” I ask.

Knox clears his throat, his voice deeper than usual. “The archangels, centuries ago.”

The book in my hand drops. “You have archangels?”

Hazel shakes her head. “They’re extinct.”

I frown. “How?”

Knox leans back on his hands, his lean legs stretching out before him. “There were only seven to begin with, and sadly, they were destroyed in battle. They died heroes defending these very shores.”

“That’s heartbreaking.”

With nothing more to say, everyone resumes their tasks. The rest of the book only contains an absurd number of rituals and spells one can cast to receive dark magic.

I set the book aside, then pluck up another one.

This one is as horrific as the last, containing different forms of manipulation and mind control spells. I’m disgusted that anyone would practice this corrupted version of the beautiful magic I’ve grown to learn and love each day. The thought of someone taking something so pure and tainting it with something this evil makes me queasy.

“I think I’ve found something,” Knox murmurs.

Hazel and I put down our books. Feeling the heaviness lift from my chest, I’m thankful for the interruption.

Knox hands me his book, his fingers grazing mine once more as he says, “Witches used to practice black magic. They have ritual sites in their lands and territory.”

I give the book back instantly. “I trust your word; I don’t want to touch any more books.”

His brows pull low. “Do you feel the magic?”

“No but it feels heavy, as if a weight is pressing on my chest when I touch them.”

Knox stands, separating the unread books from the ones we’ve read. “We’re done for the day,” he states flatly.

“We need to go through them all,” I protest.

“Not in one day. It’s too much. Besides, we now know about the witches. Perhaps they kept some of their books.”

I have no reason to argue with that; the books are awful to be around.

Hazel walks out without us. “Don’t have to tell me twice!”

Once we exit, I stand to the side as Knox locks the vault, the heaviness in my chest lessening with each step I take away from the cellar. I take a deep breath as we step outside into the garden, my lungs feeling free as I inhale the crisp fresh air.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Knox places his palm on the wooden door, the purple light shining beneath his palm once more.

I cock my head to the side as I study the light. “What type of magic is that?”

“It’s a binding spell. You and Hazel have access to it. All you’d need to do is send your power through the door.”

A customized binding spell. That certainly works better than a lock.

“When do you want to go to the witches’ territory?” I ask.

“We should go today before the sun sets.” He slides his hands in his pockets. “Fae are forbidden from entering the witches’ territory after nightfall.”

Joining Hazel in the garden, we fall into step beside each other. “Why?”

“Witches and Fae have a long-lasting feud. Without the treaty that was made centuries ago, it would be a blood bath every day,” he says casually.

“Witches are horrible. Their hatred has been passed from generation to generation, so they’re born hating Fae,” Hazel adds.

“There are rules to the treaty. A witch cannot harm a Fae and vice versa. However, if one party does, the treaty is broken, and it becomes free rein. The witches desperately want Fae to make the first move in ending the treaty, so they purposefully goad Fae and push your buttons.” His voice is flat, the tick in his jaw the only indication that he doesn’t like the witches.

“So they’re cruel, wickedly manipulative creatures?” I state flatly, earning a wince from Hazel and a chin dip from Knox.

I shrug. I’ve lived with a manipulative beast my entire life, I can handle the witches. My father used every chance he could to torment and push me; I’ve practically made ignoring manipulation an art form.

I walk through the back doors, turning to find Knox studying me, his eyes hard as steel as his jaw clenches over and over.

“What?” I ask, frowning.

“We’ll leave in an hour,” he states, stalking off.

“Did I say something insulting?” I ask Hazel.

Hazel shakes her head, her gaze on Knox’s retreating form. “I don’t think it was that,” she mumbles, walking off in the direction of the study.

I throw my hands in the air. Why is everyone in this land so dramatic and cryptic?

I stalk up the stairs, needing another bath.

Knox is waiting for me in the foyer an hour later, a hesitant Hazel beside him.

“You don’t want to come with us?” I ask softly.

“I don’t want to go anywhere near the witches,” she says, shaking her head. “I can do more here, going through the books.”

I think Hazel has a hard time with anything involving the beasts that killed her daughter. Every time Knox and I leave to investigate the creatures, she’s a nervous wreck over the idea of coming face-to-face with them, witches included.

I can’t say that I blame her.

“If they’re as horrible as you say, I understand,” I say with a smile.

Hazel moves through the foyer, pausing in the doorway of the study hall. She takes a deep breath, scanning the room to make sure no prying eyes or ears are around before she says, “The entrapment spell was created with black magic. Divine magic doesn’t create anything so horrid, not on a scale this large. I think it’s a good idea to at least understand how dark magic works in order to break it.”

“Whatever you can find will be worthwhile. The more information we can gather, the better,” Knox says smoothly.

Hazel’s lips spread into a smile. “I’ll keep researching.”

“Remember, don’t take their words personally,” Knox says after he teleports us to the border of the witches’ territory. We walk the rest of the way on foot. Apparently another one of the witches’ rules, Fae cannot teleport or fly in their lands.

I roll my eyes. “I remember, Knox.” I trudge further in front of him. “I also remember when you told me at your home and again on the flight here.”

Knox falls into step beside me, striding through the mud with ease. “Forgive me if I don’t trust your short temper.”

I stumble on a gasp. “I don’t have a temper!”

Knox ignores my protests, knowing it will only irritate me further. Distracting myself from the tense silence, I look around.

The witches’ territory is vastly different from Azalea and the Earth Court, made entirely of wetlands. The grass is submerged underwater, the tips of it floating and bobbing with the water’s current. And if not wading through water, you’re sloshing through mud, making me feel like a waddling duck.

“How’s that temper going?” Knox smirks.

I purse my lips. “Just fine, thank you,” I say sweetly.

Knox somehow knows how to push all of my buttons. When I’m around him, I can’t help but get riled up. He’d be more likely to set me off than the witches.

Perhaps it’s how my new Fae body processes emotions—

I highly doubt it, Angel.

I whip my head to Knox, narrowing my eyes as I snap my mental shield up.

“You don’t want to give the witches any more ammunition, do you?” he drawls.

“Can they read minds?”

Knox’s deep chuckle sends goosebumps down my arms. “No.”

I mutter expletives at him, holding up a vulgar gesture as I stomp forward through the mud. I retract my earlier thought. It’s not my emotions, it’s just Knox.

Knox’s humor fades in an instant. His spine straightens as his face becomes a cool mask of indifference. Coming to a stop, Knox slides his hands in his pockets. The portrait image of a calm, unbothered king.

“Hello, beautiful. Care to show yourself?” he purrs into the empty wetlands.

Knox isn’t silly or stupid. I follow his lead, reinforcing my mental and protective shields as I relax my posture.

“Who’s your little friend, Knoxy?” a nasally female voice coos.

I don’t dare try to find where the voice came from. These witches like playing games, and I refuse to be someone’s mouse.

“Why don’t you come and find out for yourself?” Knox drones.

Darkness swirls ten feet from us, transforming from a swirling black mass into a shadowy female figure. Once her face appears, I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop the wince from showing on my face.

Porcelain white skin and eyes as black as coal face me. The stunning features would look beautiful on anyone else who didn’t possess such cruelty in their eyes. It’s as if she’s been grimacing all her life, her face stuck in a permanent scowl.

The witch sniffs in my direction. “She smells of human filth. You’ve stepped down from the usual whores you keep company,” she spits.

“Jealous, are we, Stella?” Knox tilts his head to the side in such a predatory gesture I have to hold in my shock.

“Never, pretty boy,” she coos.

Knox begins to slowly pace, as if the conversation bores him to death. He stops slightly in front of me. I move around him. I don’t need to be coddled.

Stella’s eyes spark at my movement, her voice grating down my ears. “This one has a brain of her own. How delightful.”

I make my face wholly blank, giving nothing away.

“What a shame she comes with so much baggage. She’s a pest to those around her.” Sniffing the air once more, her eyes spark. “And a murderer. I’m pleasantly surprised.”

My heart lurches, yet when I check my mental shields, I find them intact. I don’t understand. If she can’t read my mind how does she know that I blame myself for Easton and my people?

“At least she has a soul,” Knox drawls, clicking his tongue. “Can we get on with this? I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

Stella sneers. “Name your price, king.”

A purple bag of coins land at her feet, splashing mud on her black robes.

“Gold for entrance to the burial.”

Delight shines in her otherwise dead eyes as she bends to snatch the gold coins. “Remember, you touch one of us, dead or alive, and the treaty is off.”

Knox places a warm palm on my lower back, guiding me as he walks away. “I understand, Stella.”

Stella’s eyes snap to mine, her horrid lips lifting into a wicked smile. “Another loved one added to the list. How horrible that you’ll lose her too,” she sing-songs, turning into shadows once more before disappearing entirely.

Knox’s hand tenses on my back. Without a second thought, I reach behind me and take his hand in mine, giving it a slight squeeze before dropping it.

They truly do love to play with your mind and emotions.

“How do you know Stella well enough to barter with her?”

Knox slides his gaze to mine. “A king should always be aware of his enemies.”

I stare into his eyes, the strength in his posture and the confidence he oozes as he walks. It’s breathtaking being near someone so sure of themselves.

We trek through the muddy grass, past endless wetlands, until we reach the only spot in the land that has feasible grass. Dead, leafless trees create a barrier around the graveyard that’s haphazardly lined with hundreds of boulders, signaling the fallen witches.

Life around us seems to pause, as if asking us why we’re disturbing such a thing.

Ignoring the ancient energy simmering around the land, Knox and I circle the perimeter, looking for any sign of the old ritual site. Passing row upon row of boulders marking dead witches, I read the names. On the farthest side of the burial ground, I find debris scattered everywhere—crumbled stone, broken pillars, and cracked concrete. The broken debris looks over the entirety of the burial site, and two large dead oak trees stand on opposite ends of the rubble, almost as if they’re protecting and shielding the area.

Bending, I sift through the scattered pieces, until an ice-cold shiver wracks my body. “Kn—”

He’s kneeling beside me before I can get the rest of his name out. Knox starts to inspect the other pieces scattered around. Turning over shards of concrete, I find runes in all different forms, shapes, and sizes. Pentagrams, spirals, moons, pentacles, stars, and triangles. This is where the witches practiced dark magic. In their burial site, as an offering to the dark gods.

When dark magic was banned, the Fae must have destroyed the altar, making it unusable. But why keep the debris of the ruined altar here after all these years?

Perhaps in memory? Or…do they still practice?

When both of us come up empty-handed, not finding any dark magic books, Knox strides to my side and whispers in my ear, “We should go.’

Happy to be leaving such a dark space, I stand. We don’t run into any more witches as we exit the wastelands, a small victory in itself as the sun starts to set, turning the sky a lovely pale pink hue.

On the outskirts of the witches’ territory, I turn to Knox. “Are they still practicing?” I whisper.

“I highly doubt it, why?”

I chew my lip; it’s ingrained in my mind to not go against a king’s opinion or word. It’s going to take time for me to understand I can speak my mind freely with Knox. I haven’t witnessed any cruelty on Knox’s part to his workers or his people—quite the opposite.

Yet I know how deceitful people can be.

When my father was younger, he was believed to be a fair king, beloved by many. Nobody would have ever believed that he beat his own daughter and wife. Yet over the years as he enforced more laws and crueler consequences, the mask he wore dropped. He no longer needs to wear it, not when there’s nobody to overrule him.

I take a steadying breath to calm my nerves. “Why would they leave the altar there after all these years? It still has residual energy.”

“From what I’ve read, dark magic leaks into the very ground where spells are cast. That would explain the residual energy.”

“Do you think they left the altar ruins as a tribute to the old magic they practiced?”

He turns his head to the side. “You don’t?” he asks softly.

I shrug. “Looks can be deceiving.”

I’m looking at Knox’s gorgeous face, waiting for him to speak, when suddenly I’m falling. The wind is knocked from me as my back slams into the ground. Moments earlier I was peering at turquoise eyes and now I’m looking up at the darkening sky and canopy of trees as pain sears through my stomach and shoulder.

Unending, blinding pain.

I try to suck in a breath to no avail.

In a daze, I turn my head to the side. Knox’s face has turned feral, his canines flaring as a roar pierces the air around us, his power erupts with the guttural sound, snapping me out of my haze.

I look down to find an arrow embedded in the right side of my stomach and another in my shoulder, crimson blood pouring from both wounds. I drag myself into a seated position against the tree trunk, wincing with each movement. The arrowheads grate against my very bones.

In front of me, Knox holds two long swords dripping with black blood as he guts and slices beasts. Three already lie dead, disembodied on the forest floor. The creatures are as black as shadows, their eyes a hollow pit of hell. Not a single piece of hair is to be found on their leathery skin. Two small slits mar their face where a nose should be, and their mouths are lined with row after row of sharp teeth. The creatures—shaped as a human with two legs and two arms and a hunched back—are terrifying to come face-to-face with.

Four surround Knox, hissing and slithering their pointed snake tongues. I unsheathe my blade and try to stand, yet each movement wracks my body with blinding pain, making nausea swirl in my gut.

The ringing in my ears starts to fade, replaced by the sounds of the beasts. Their sniveling voices make the hairs on the back of my neck stand.

“You’ll pay for this, King,” the demon spits. “What a delightful taste she will be.”

“I’ve been dreaming of her blood the second we got her scent,” another sneers.

“The girl was the price, yet I don’t think she will mind if we bring your head,” one demon snarls before all four pounce.

A scream of warning leaves my lips, only to die the second Knox moves.

Knox is a whirlwind of steel and power as he unleashes himself upon the demonic beasts. Where one hand strikes with his sword, the other throws daggers, each one hitting their mark with deadly precision as his magic blasts them. Holding off the beasts with blasts of fire, shadows capture their gangly limbs while others seem to suffocate, clawing at their necks until his blade strikes them so brutally their heads fly off, their bodies slumping to the ground.

Each kill is as deadly as the last.

My head begins to swirl, dizziness wracking my body as the forest spins around me. Knox’s powerful form blurs into two versions as he sheathes his swords behind his back.

I didn’t see him with swords before. Where did they come from?

“I got you, you’re okay,” Knox soothes, bending as he wraps his arms around me, cradling me to his chest. The movement makes me grunt in pain.

His beautiful black wings blossom, beating wildly as he takes off into the night sky, flying faster than ever before.

Stars flash in my vision, the edges blurring.

“Don’t tell Hazel,” I croak before darkness consumes me.

Heat encompasses my body, so warm it stings.

I can hear a faint voice in the distance, yet I can’t focus on anything right now. It feels as if I’m floating, my body tingling while fuzz fills my head.

Am I flying?

A faraway voice seems to grow closer. It sounds beautiful, deep and sensual. I know that voice.

I use all my strength to roll my head to the side, sliding on what feels like porcelain. My eyes connect with Knox’s. His mouth is moving but I don’t understand what he’s saying.

Angel.

My body jolts at the voice intruding my mind, making water splash around me.

“What do you feel, Delilah?”

I blink. I heard the words, but nothing is making sense. It feels as if my mind is full of air and everything that enters flies out.

Angel, what do you feel?

The dark grumbling voice appears once more.

It stays this time, as if my mind welcomes the voice. Holds onto it, cherishes it.

“Water,” I croak.

Understanding dawns through me.

I sit up as I float back to my body, my sensations returning to me as pain spears throughout my body. Hissing, I look down to find I’m seated in the bath, fully clothed save for the holes in my shirt where the arrows were only moments before.

Knox’s voice captures my attention. He’s kneeling beside the tub, his eyes wary and guarded. Standing, he grabs two fresh towels, holding them out in front of him. “I removed the arrows and healed you, but your muscles will be sore for a day or two. I had to wash the rest of the poison off you.”

I stand on wobbly limbs, feeling weak as my clothes try to drag me down. I step out of the tub, splashing water everywhere as I take the towel from Knox and wrap it around myself.

“I don’t understand. I had my shield up… How did the arrow get through?” I rasp.

Knox steps back, leaning against the vanity counter. The veins in his arms bulge as he fists the counter. “They were tracking you. Whoever sent them also gave them poison to lace the arrows. It went right through your shield.”

I furrow my brows. “Why would someone send those horrible creatures after me?”

Knox rubs a hand down his face. “I have no idea.”

The creatures’ horrifying features flash through my mind. “What were they?”

“Demon hounds. They walk like humans, but they’re known for their tracking abilities.”

“Are they dead?” I whisper.

“For now. We can’t put it past whoever sent them to not send more,” Knox grumbles.

“You can’t tell Hazel they’re hunting me.”

Silence fills the bathroom.

Drying my clothes with the towel, I peer at Knox, finding his sapphire eyes burning a hole into me.

“I don’t appreciate lying,” he states coldly.

“I brought her into this mess. I’m not having her worried sick every time I step out that door.” I throw the towel into the wash hamper. “If she asks, we’ll tell her…Just don’t actively tell her.” I lock my eyes with his hard gaze. “Please.”

Knox is silent for so long I wonder if he heard me at all. When he speaks, he ignores my pleas. “We’ll start training together. Combine your current training with magic so you can use both if you’re ever under attack again.”

I nod, walking past Knox and pull out Easton’s shirt to sleep in. My voice is hoarse as I say over my shoulder, “Thank you.”

“I promised Hazel,” Knox grumbles as he leaves the room.

Of course. Hazel’s promise. That’s why he went feral. He needs me alive to help his people. That’s the only reason why I’m here in his house.

I change into Easton’s shirt, thankful for the lingering scent clinging to the material as it soothes the ache in my heart. I drag myself into bed, collapsing into a pitiful sleep, the faces of demon hounds chasing me in my dreams.