Teaching the King (Witchling Academy Book 1)

  How do you break a promise to the king of the Fae?

  Yeah. Good luck with that.

  For centuries, Hogan witches were bound in a trumped-up contract to teach magic to the High King of the Fae. Then, a hundred years ago, we escaped that prison sentence and never looked back.

  Now there's a new king in town. Brutally gorgeous, mouthwateringly fierce—and seriously pissed.

  He's coming for me, and he won't take no for an answer.

  But I don't care how much Mr. Tall, Dark, and Deadly makes my heart pound and head spin, a ridiculously unwanted side effect of that goddess-forsaken contract. I've dedicated my life to creating a safe haven for those in need—whether they’re rogue witches escaping their persecutors or monsters desperate for somewhere to hide. If I leave my tavern unprotected, every last soul I’ve helped will be hunted down, recaptured. Killed.

  Not gonna happen.

  So I'll just have to find the contract that’s bound me to the most deviously sexy ruler across all the realms…and break it for good.

  Before the High King of the Fae breaks me.

  Teaching the King

  Witchling Academy, Book 1

  D.D. Chance

  Contents

  1. Belle

  2. Aiden

  3. Belle

  4. Aiden

  5. Belle

  6. Aiden

  7. Belle

  8. Aiden

  9. Belle

  10. Aiden

  11. Belle

  12. Aiden

  13. Belle

  14. Aiden

  15. Belle

  16. Aiden

  17. Belle

  18. Aiden

  19. Belle

  20. Aiden

  21. Belle

  22. Aiden

  23. Belle

  24. Aiden

  25. Belle

  26. Aiden

  27. Belle

  28. Aiden

  29. Belle

  30. Aiden

  31. Belle

  32. Aiden

  33. Belle

  34. Aiden

  35. Belle

  36. Aiden

  37. Belle

  38. Aiden

  39. Belle

  40. Aiden

  Sneak Peak: TEMPTING THE KING

  About D.D. Chance

  1

  Belle

  Darkness weaved around drunkenly outside, shadows skipping through the near-empty streets, a quickening breeze searching out corners and running along rooftops. It was 2:10 a.m. in Boston, and every bar in the city was closed—except mine, of course. Despite the way it appeared to most folks, with its shuttered windows and dimmed lights, the White Crane Tavern never totally closed.

  It especially didn’t close during the witching hour, a moving target between midnight and 4:00 a.m., when far more monsters roamed the streets of this old town than anyone imagined.

  Tonight, the Crane was jammed with regulars, all of them hanging around for no good reason, as usual. Friends of my mother’s, and my grandmother’s before her. Monsters all, they’d stood with me to mourn the deaths of the Hogan women who’d kept this tavern’s lights on. They’d grouched around and muttered to themselves as they thought about my eventual death too. Especially since I hadn’t yet given birth to another witch to take my place when that end inevitably came.

  The Hogans were healers and barkeepers, and we kept the lights on for those who most needed a way out. That was all we’d ever been for the patrons of the White Crane, and it was quite enough.

  “Comin’, Marley,” I said, topping off a pint and setting it down in front of one of the oldest of the crew, a wizened, gray-bearded fox who held onto his human appearance only as long as he was inside the tavern. He grinned up at me, looking as mischievous as he had before he’d nearly gotten his whiskers singed off his face in an ill-advised absinthe experiment. I wagged a finger at him. “You be careful tonight. There’s strange magic out there.”

  “Stranger than usual,” Marley agreed, lifting his glass with his long, delicate fingers.

  I slanted a glance across the room, satisfying myself that at least all was well inside the Crane. If I could keep my head down and let this strange-assed energy pass us by, the rest would work itself out. It always had before.

  These past hundred years in Boston, we Hogans had run our tavern in the shadow of some of the richest, most elite magic academies in the world, hidden in plain sight from those who’d happily hunt us down if they knew where to look. We were rogue witches, broken from the fold, and outlaws on top of that. Our crime? Abandoning an assignment handed down from the high priestess of our order herself.

  If the coven of the White Mountains ever figured out how close we’d been to them all these years, it would really burn their brooms.

  They still wanted us. Needed us.

  Because three centuries ago, back when we’d been good, dutiful witches of the coven, a Hogan had agreed to one seriously screwed-up contract: whenever a new Fae king was crowned in his realm across the veil, a Hogan witch would travel to him and teach him witchling magic.

  There was no pay for this work, so far as any of us could ever tell. No advancement. No grand abilities passed on to the Hogan line that would make such a sacrifice worthwhile. Hell, there were days I could barely pull together a thimbleful of magic beyond the heavy place wards that our tavern boasted, so I knew damned well we hadn’t been granted superpowers for our service to the Fae.

  Worse, the Fae were ancient enemies of witches, except in a few pockets in the British Isles. The big bad lightbringers could have pulled their teaching witch from there, but they hadn’t. They’d tapped my family. As witches went, we didn’t suck, sure. But we definitely didn’t have any sort of high-and-mighty wealth, beauty, ability, or strength that might tempt the notoriously picky Fae. It made no sense for us to serve as their teachers, but that apparently hadn’t mattered three hundred years ago when this deal had been struck.

  And as the saying went, when it came to Fae contracts, Once struck, you’re stuck.

  They had that part right, anyway. Whenever a new High King was crowned, the call went out, and a Hogan witch would simply…vanish. She could be gone a year; she could be gone ten. When she returned, not looking a day older than when she’d left, it would be with no memory of what she’d endured in the realm of the Fae, nothing beyond a strange, shimmering sadness that drifted around her like a worn-out cloak. And fear. Always fear. Eventually, she’d marry, or at least find a willing man to sire a child—and that child would always be a girl. Even if the witch had more children after that, there was always a firstborn girl.

  Year after year, the cycle would continue. Sometimes we could go generations without another call, sometimes maybe only twenty years, but the gleaming golden sword of the Fae always remained dangling over our heads.

  For a long time, we put up with it. We’d accepted our lot, for the good of the coven, the good of witches everywhere, or so we were told. Through generations, centuries, we’d seen our young, vibrant witches answer the call…and come back forever changed.

  Then, one day, my great-grandmother Reagan had decided…fuck this.

  And that’s when all the trouble started.

  “Need me to clean up?”

  I blinked at the slender, blonde college student in front of me, still fresh and cheerful despite a long shift. Jenna was only twenty-one years old, but she’d come from a long line of restaurant owners. She knew the work and was good with customers. She also never batted an eye at cleaning up late, though I rarely made her do it. I shook my head.

  “You got somebody to walk you home?” I asked, an oft-r
epeated line that made her smile. We both knew she did.

  “If I can keep Joe and Sam awake long enough to get me there, they may even scare somebody off.”

  Two bruisers at the end of the bar looked up at the sound of their names, rumpled faces beaming. They were short, thick-built former bouncers, and they’d occupied that corner of the bar for as long as I could remember. Dwarves, my ma had called them, but they gave no indication of that. They’d certainly never shown up with bags of gold, and they never paid for drinks. We’d never charged them. The unspoken understanding was that they protected the place, and when they were here, money flowed. Coincidence or not, I was happy to have them around.

  “Well, go on, then. Make sure you get your sleep,” I told Jenna, though I saw in a flash she would. Though it didn’t work on me, which absolutely sucked, my simple magic of being able to read the near-term futures of most everyone I met was my best skill, as comfy as an old blanket. These days, I employed it almost without thinking. Jenna would be snug in her bed within the next half hour, and that was the way it should be. “Summer is coming on. It’s gonna be a busy one.”

  “Those are the best kind,” she agreed. She turned away as Joe and Sam hustled to her side, clearly delighted for a job to do. Sam spared me a squint.

  “Stay tucked in tight, Mistress Belle,” he ordered. “The sun will be up soon.”

  “Not hardly. The witching hour’s only just begun,” Jenna laughed. She glanced around the room, taking in the dozen or so patrons. “Seems busier than usual, though. One day, a cop’s gonna show up at your front door and wonder why everyone’s still inside.”

  “Then he’ll get some coffee like the rest of us,” the patron closest to her reasoned, lifting his beer. He was a wraith, but we didn’t hold that against him. A lot of us took jobs we didn’t much care for, and some of us were born into them. Here at the Crane, we all just tried to get along.

  Jenna and the guys left, and I returned to washing glasses. An endless chore, but something that gave my hands something to do while my mind churned through everything I had to do to keep my patrons fed and cared for, my shelves stocked, and the lights on for all those who might have need of a Hogan’s help.

  As I worked, my gaze drifted up from the bar full of chattering, laughing drinkers to the backs of the high cabinets over my bar. No one could see what hung there unless they were actually working behind the bar—and very, very few of my patrons had ever volunteered for dish duty.

  But I could see. Dozens, maybe as many as a hundred letters and notes, some with photos, but most not. Letters of carefully worded thanks, cryptic notes of gratitude. Some, I always smiled to see, in broken English, because not every monster picked up written language as easily as they did spoken. Wraiths. Dwarves. Revenants. Shifters of all description—and once, my grandmother had proudly insisted, a dragon. Rogue human witches desperate for a new beginning. Ghosts. Goblins. Dybbuks and even a demon or two.

  This was the legacy of the White Crane—my legacy too. Healing the wounded. Finding homes for the lost. I scanned the few pictures, picking out the Hogan jewelry my grandmother had so quickly gone through before we realized our own magic was dwindling fast. Tiny pendants of citrine and amethyst nestled against the necks of maybe a dozen witches, delicate bracelets of garnet and gold. My gaze lingered on a wide-eyed woman with a mane of tawny hair clutching her baby to her, her smile so bright and full it made my heart hurt. She was the last witch my grandmother had helped before my gran had died—the last necklace we’d parceled out. How long ago had that been? Twenty years? Easily.

  After that, we’d gotten more resourceful with our magic, but the result had been the same. Witches and monsters alike continued to be kept safe from those who would persecute them. It was what we did at the White Crane, right along with Wine Down Wednesdays.

  I glanced up as the front door chimed, surprised that Jenna and the guys had doubled back so soon. Shouldn’t I have foreseen that?

  But no. It wasn’t Jenna. It was only a witch—one of the fancier ones too. She’d coiled her dark red hair into a neat braid at her neck, and her deep-green trench coat matched her dancing eyes. She wasn’t from the White Mountains, of course. No member of that coven could enter this establishment without an express invitation, and you’d better believe that no such invitation would be happening on my watch.

  She also wasn’t an outright enemy to my family, or she’d never have been able to find the White Crane in the first place. It was one thing I always appreciated…rogue witches weren’t snitches. The Hogan’s secret had remained safe in the hands of every witch who’d turned to us in need for the past hundred years. They stopped in from time to time when they were back in the city, and I always gave them an honored welcome. I was my mother’s daughter, after all.

  This witch I hadn’t seen before, but she recognized me readily enough, or at least she recognized my mother.

  “Belle?” she began, striding across the floor. I raised a hand as she approached, half in warning, but mostly to slow her the fuck down. My flash reading of her future showed her arguing with me, and I wanted to head that off at the pass if I could.

  “Not the Belle you’re thinking of. I’m her daughter.” Not something I would admit to everyone, but you couldn’t fool a witch for very long, and they didn’t appreciate it when you tried.

  “Oh,” she said, visibly deflated. “Well, I’m Deanna. Deanna Mackleway? When they said the Crane’s bar mistress was an older woman, I confess I wanted it to be true. Even though I knew better. Belle wouldn’t have let so many years go by without reaching out.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe. Or maybe not,” I countered, allowing my voice to cool slightly. My mother had passed on nearly ten years ago. For this witch not to know that was telling. “We keep pretty busy with our work here.”

  Deanna waved that off. “Perhaps now you do, but that wasn’t always the case.”

  She slid primly onto a stool at the counter. She was older, I realized now, her witch’s glamour slipping by careful design, allowing me to see her true face as she studied me. “I didn’t know Belle had a daughter, but of course she would have. You’re quite good. Even keeping her name to add to the confusion. Well done.”

  “Ah—thanks.” I lightened my own glamour slightly, but not completely. It was enough that she knew I wasn’t my mother. She didn’t need to know my exact age. My lips twisted even as I thought that. We witches did love our secrets. Something else I had learned at my grandmother’s knee.

  “How long have you been—here? Doing this?” Deanna asked, her tone deliberately vague. “Your mother has been gone some time, I suspect. That explains it.”

  “Explains…?” I asked, newly tense. Something was wrong here, and my nerves ratcheted tight.

  “It explains why you don’t know my name, anyway.” She shook her head in almost regal disapproval, and the first thread of concern coiled through me. “I’ve been traveling a long time, and only recently returned to the area. I heard a rumor about the coven of the White Mountains looking for a witch, and remembered your mother. I thought I’d see if my suspicions were right.”

  I shrugged, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know who this witch was, but she wasn’t a threat to me, at least not yet. She wouldn’t have been able to cross my threshold if—

  “You’re still bound to your contract with the High King of the Fae,” Deanna Mackleway announced abruptly. “There’s a new one, you know. He needs your help.”

  I froze. Who was this witch? No friend of my ma’s, clearly. If she had already contracted with the coven of the White Mountains, how had she found me? Were mercenaries able to slip into the Crane through a loophole in the magic? Or…maybe she hadn’t committed yet to signing on with the coven. That made more sense. “I didn’t enter into any such contract,” I said carefully, praying this Deanna hadn’t somehow destroyed the tavern’s wards without me noticing it.

  “Your family did, and that’s enough. Reagan Hogan was dutifully ca
lled to fulfill her obligation. She didn’t. She betrayed her coven.”

  Annoyance rolled through me, but I kept my tone light. “Yeah, well. I’m afraid your outrage is several decades too late. I’m a rogue witch. I have no coven anymore.”

  “Oh, please.” Deanna smirked, and her tone was harder now. Pointed. “You know your duty. I’m not here to bust your balls directly. But I was sent to look for you—and if I can find you, anyone can. If there’s enough money in it, I may even decide to help your old coven along with that.”

  So much for sisterly honor. “Then you may want to plan on un-finding me, Deanna. The Hogans have been out of the king-teaching business for a long time. We’re not equipped for the job anymore.”

  Deanna blinked. “That’s not true. You have skills,” she countered. “You have abilities. I can smell them on you.”

  “As unappetizing as that sounds, I have skills and abilities, yes,” I said drily. “But I don’t know the ancient ways. I wasn’t taught deep magic. That was on purpose, from a mother and grandmother who didn’t want me to be pressed into service against my will.”

  “Then you can learn,” she insisted. “You can do what’s expected of you.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why are you here, exactly? What do you want?”