Realm of Shadows (The Iron King's Assassin Book 2), page 1
Realm of Shadows
Thea Atkinson
Copyright © 2023 by Thea Atkinson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact Thea Atkinson at thea @ theaatkinson dot com
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
Special Thanks
More Series By Thea
About Author
Chapter 1
It all started with the witch. As a monster hunter turned reluctant, would-be assassin; turned captive prisoner of the fae mafia, I could blame my imprisonment in this hellhole of a jail cell to just about anything. But if I really thought about it, I could trace my path from my first steps across Lilah's property to this moldering dungeon, and know that decision to kill her was where it all began.
Or maybe it had started with Gideon. Or Shea. Because if she hadn't come traipsing up my steps to tell me she was worried he might do something rash and unlike him, I'd never have tracked him down at his favorite bar. I wouldn't have stolen his stupid goblin-spelled shirt. And I wouldn't have used it to hunt and kill Lilah the dark witch in the first place.
So sure. I could get on board with laying the blame on Shea, because I hated her. It was just that it probably really all began the day I was born. Who knew which flap of the butterfly's wing had landed me here in Fae, aching from a whipping from a few Shadow Court grunts, and waiting for the boss to show up?
I stared hard at the vines on the door, trying to catch another mortal woman's eye as she sat in the corner of her own cell across the cellar from me. Knees propped up, arms wound so tight around her legs it was hard to see the face above them. She was naked, torn from the fae tavern when I'd been abducted and dropped here to torment me, I supposed. It sounded like she was crying.
Never one for giving comfort, I didn't know what to say to her. She was here because of me, and I'd not just failed on my promise to get her out, I was probably the reason she was crying. I tried to imagine what it must have been like to hear the guards assaulting me when I'd tried to escape through the window, and decided it was probably hellish.
Not as hellish as receiving the blows, but there was a horror in listening to violence when you were powerless to stop it, and as a human woman stuck in a Fae dungeon, she was most assuredly powerless.
The one bright spot in it all was that Stone had caught the guards in the act, and had been so pissed he'd killed one of them. There was no pity in me for the soul who fell beneath Stone's rage, only relief and vindication. I didn't even care by then that Stone had been the one to drag me into Fae in the first place. I was just happy he'd done what I desperately wanted to but couldn't.
Stone. I'd been thinking about him for the last few hours. I had a lot to mull over and still hadn't decided which side of forgiveness I was going to fall upon. His explanation for abandoning me at the tavern and stealing the cursed objects from me that I'd taken from Lilah was that he had no choice. A blood oath, he said. Something more binding in the world of the Shadow Court than I could imagine. Centuries of punishment for the oath-breaker and everyone he held dear.
A blood oath to family was something else I could get onboard with, even if that family wasn't one of blood but of crime. Hadn't I ended up here because I wanted to keep my sister out of the line of fire?
So, I'd told him I understood because that was the thing that would get me out of the God-forsaken prison the quickest. Even if I hadn't fully put the deception behind me, I could at least close a small damper over the seething flame of betrayal he'd ignited when he'd abandoned me in a tavern just this side of Fae. Plus, I had no one to blame for it but myself, really. Like a rookie, I'd let my guard down and allowed myself to feel some connection with him. And like a fool, I let myself believe he felt the same.
I couldn't say that it helped my situation to realize my intuition when it came to human men or fae males was still complete shit.
So I was withholding my judgment of Stone for the time being. If I couldn't trust myself, then I'd just wait. Sort out just how much he could be trusted when he delivered on his promise to bring the boss to me within an hour and straighten out the whole mess for both Jasmine and me. With any luck, we'd be out tout de suite.
Except it had been at least two by my reckoning. And those hours gave me plenty of time to mull over exactly how and why I was here. I'd gone from thinking it was the witch's fault, to Shea's, and straight along a razor's edge to the fae male who had shown up at the tavern after Stone left me there. Flint, Jasmine had said his name was. The male who'd ambushed me at Lilah's and the same male who took a few potshots at me when I'd opened the door to the room Stone had acquired for us at the tavern.
Well, he certainly seemed flinty. Blackly-clad head to toe with an equally black demeanor. Flint was the perfect moniker.
I told myself at first that this Flint had me delivered me to the dungeons because he didn't know what else to do with me. But that would have to mean, I reminded myself, that Flint couldn't possibly know Terran and the Shadow Court's nefarious intentions or even where to best deposit me to keep me quiet and subdued …
Unless he did.
So Flint wasn't just some random male who had ambushed me in the witch's lair because he'd hired the witch to make those relics and was pissed at me for taking them. And it wasn't just happenstance that we were there together, he with a motley crew of magical beings, both of us looking for those cursed objects. Oh. Hell no.
He'd been sent because he was part of the Shadow Court. And that meant Stone had to know him.
And if Stone and Flint were both in the fae mafia, then they were both made-fae. I'd already put together what that might mean after Gideon had used the term. A made-fae was very much like what the human mafia called a made man or wise guy, sworn by blood oaths and initiated into a life where they follow orders like a soldier—without the ability to be discharged. Except through death, of course.
I stretched my legs out on the cold flagstone, facing outward so I'd be ready if someone came for me or at me. I sat there, thinking and rethinking the issue until my shoulder sagged against the wet stone of the side wall. And I waited. And waited.
I was drifting off from exhaustion when they finally came.
Three of them trooped into the cell: Stone; One of the guards from before, with sheepish hands tucked neatly at his hips as he avoided my gaze; and another man. Large. Powerfully built. He looked like a mastiff, and he was the one who commanded the most air space.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked in a higher pitched voice than I expected for such a large man.
I lifted my chin, but didn't get up. I wasn't sure I could if I wanted to. "You're the boss." My voice so deadpan, I half-expected him to take it as an insult.
Instead, the boss inclined his head at the guard, who moved so quickly to heft me to my feet that my hand snapped out in reflex. The punch caught the fae male in the groin, and I cupped and squeezed until he doubled over with a whoosh of sour air. At least his reaction told me fae males shared that weakness with human men.
Even before the guard staggered back, Stone was beside me in a blur of unseen movement that was nothing but a trail of light and color, a disconcerting effect that left me staggering until his hand beneath my armpit buoyed me. He leaned down, his height curling downward so he could help me to stand on my own. Gentle, tender prodding. I almost hated him for it.
A tight, very brusque voice that held a note of interested humor, halted his attentions. "Seems my son has taken a fancy to you, Ms. Ashe."
My head snapped up as I stood on shaking legs in Stone's hold. My gaze shot upward to his pinched face then to the mastiff-faced boss. His son. Stone was the boss's son. A snort of disbelief fled my lungs because, really, I just couldn't believe my luck.
Here, I'd thought his blood oath was to mere organization when it was truly an oath
to family. Not just a cartel. A bloodline. It made the leash of hurt I felt go just the smallest bit slack in my grip. It dragged along and tangled in my feet, but with time, maybe I could kick it free. It was almost a relief to imagine the ties that held Stone to this male dressed in his very mortal-looking suit. Armani, I thought. Or Brioni. All the while, doing my level best not to look like I was about to collapse from pain. I was aware that despite the silence, the boss was giving me the same assessment.
Let him look. Let him see what they'd done to me. If I was too hurt to hunt and assassinate their king, maybe he'd let me go.
Except I knew he wouldn't. He might absolve me of the task, but he would not let me go. My knowledge of their intentions was a liability. A thread left uncut. If the Fae Mafia operated at all like the mortal one, I could imagine where that would end up. Images of concrete shoes and fishes swimming around my face flitted through my mind like a kaleidoscope.
And so, with nothing else to say that wouldn't get me in trouble, I swiveled my head to Stone, catching his eye as the boss watched the two of us, his powerful shoulders shrugging inside his immaculate suit.
"So, you're the boss's son," I said to Stone with a harsh, forced laugh. "And here I thought you were just some anonymous soldier, when all along you were so deep in the bowels of the organization, you sprang from its very cock."
It made my throat hurt to say the words with so much acid, but it was for the best. Stone had the grace to shuffle his feet. He'd have no idea what kind of favor I was doing him with my cavalier attitude, calling him out like I didn't care, like we hadn't exchanged a single tender moment. It was the least I could do for him after he'd killed that nasty prick of a guard.
To his credit, he held the intensity of my gaze better than most men could. I had to respect that.
"Some oaths are bound by more than the letting of blood, Ava," he said.
I sucked the back of my teeth, avoiding his eye, dismissing him, because if he was going to be an ally in all this, I couldn't risk losing him to an angry boss because we seemed too chummy, even if the boss was his father. Best to absolve him without making too big a show of it.
"Oh, I understand," I said, inflecting all the truth I felt into the words so the boss would sense it and maybe decide that whatever had been between Stone and I was over. If anything, I needed to preserve anything that might be left, and the last thing I needed was for the boss to think we were chummy. Best to deflect that little chance while I still could.
"Those guards weren't stepping outside their jurisdiction at all, were they?" I asked with heat in my voice that I didn't need to fake. I'd had a lot of time to think and I was pretty sure no lowly soldier would take it upon himself to hurt me, not knowing I was an asset. Not even if he was mafia. Especially if he was mafia. "Someone sanctioned my beating."
A growl from the darkness caught everyone's attention, a sound so low and threatening, without so much as a clear, human-like vocalization, that it raised the hair on the back of my neck. On her side of the cellar, Jasmine let go a low, hopeful moan. The boss's gaze slanted toward the hall for one second at the sound, long enough that I knew he was uneasy. Whatever, whoever, was out there, he didn't like it.
Because now that I was standing, weaving, but standing, I had a better sense of my surroundings, and I definitely could sense someone out there in the hall. That someone wasn't happy with the way the conversation was going. But why? Was I wrong in assuming the mastiff-faced fae was the boss?
I narrowed my eyes, lids going half-mast as I reconsidered the man who stood beside Stone. Because whoever was outside the cell was already feeding power into the room hard enough that it was grazing my skin with little shocks that felt almost like a bee whizzing by. And I imagined no one but the true boss would have that sort of power.
"Who are you?" I asked him, shrugging my shoulders back, stiff, insufferably arrogant because that was the way I rolled whether I liked it or not.
His posture never shifted. Not a smile, cold, hard, or otherwise moved across his face. He simply regarded me with that expressionless face.
"Here in Fae, what they call me would sound like Don Sidhe to your mortal ears," he said, finally. "But you may call me Terran. After what you've endured at my soldier's hands, I'd think we can be more casual, Ava. I may call you Ava, may I not?"
"I don't care what you call me," I said. It was all I could do not to drop onto my backside on the flagstones. I was having a devil of a time remaining upright, even with Stone standing close enough that I could lean ever so slightly into him and hold myself up. My knees wanted to buckle. My spine all but collapsed on itself, curving out despite my best attempts to keep it ramrod straight. The boss watched me, the loose skin around his eyes moving as he blinked. He was amused, it seemed. A sort of angry humor that would indulge me until it wouldn't. I knew that sort of look, too.
He adjusted his cuffs as he regarded me, such a human gesture that I almost forgot what he was until he said, "You are not what I expected in an assassin."
I leaned against the wall, a way to hold myself up as my knees buckled without letting on I was about to collapse. "Neither are you."
His bottom lip pressed up into his top one and his jaw ticked. "My son told me you were better than the hunter we originally arranged to do this job."
"Is that why you had me beaten?" I asked him. "To see what sort of torture I could take?"
Another growl from the dark, primal enough that Jasmine started whispering in hushed, secretive tones that I noted made Stone's ears perk up. She had to know they could hear her, but whatever she said was lost to my mortal senses. Maybe she was begging someone for her life. I hoped so. It was obvious by now I was in no position to help her.
Terran folded his hands over his hips and cocked his head at me. "That wasn't torture," he said with a feral grin. "Just an unfortunate misunderstanding."
My ass. Stone might not have realized his father had ordered it, but I did. That I was left alive had to mean Kit was safe for now, because otherwise, that beating would have been fatal.
The relief was so acute, I slid down the wall to my haunches, laying my back against the cold stone, propping myself up. Safe. For now. It was the best I could hope for, and I'd take it. I'd take it and rejoice.
I licked my lips, realizing I was thirsty. Life-threatening kind of thirst.
"I prefer my misunderstandings to be of a liquid sort; a miscommunication about whether I ordered tequila or mezcal, a glass of water instead of wine." I swung my gaze to Terran's. "You don't have any of those sorts of misunderstandings handy, do you?"
Terran stood over me and the way he looked at me, I knew he hadn't enjoyed the joke. Not at all.
"Are you looking for a drink to celebrate your survival or your bravado?" he said. "Because at the moment, that survival is hanging by a thread."
I blinked up at him. "Ask Stone," I said. "He's the one who dragged me here."
"Because of your skills," he said dryly. Not a question. A bald, unimpressed statement.
I nodded anyway. "Seems so."
He studied his nails and seemed to find enough dirt in one of them to dig at it with his fingers. "A skill I've yet to see in action," he said. "My son had to take out one of your guards for you."
I shrugged. "Hard to kill in a jail cell when you're outnumbered, but do tell your men to come at me two by two like civilized brutes, and I'll give you a demonstration."
It was bravado, all of it, because it was also just as hard to kill a man when sitting on one's ass on cold stone because you were dancing up to the state of shock. I had no more ability to resist than I did to brush my teeth, and he knew it. He merely pressed his lips together and sighed through his nose.
"This is no jail cell, Ms. Ashe," he said finally. "We don't hold people here for extended lengths of time the way they do in the royal dungeons." His teeth showed, a large bank of white with the tiniest sharpest points. "We don't find it a profitable endeavor to keep our prisoners very long."
My jaw ticked to the side. "If I'm here at your behest," I said, "then why put me here at all? I thought you ordered me to complete a hit."
For a moment, I thought Stone would interrupt, but Terran put his hand up, quieting him. He took a step closer, and he was already standing pretty close. That one movement ate up the inches between us, close enough that I could smell moss and forest on his boots. He made me think of a dog running through the woods after a rabbit. I didn't need a lesson to understand which of us he thought was the hound.
