Tempting the King (Witchling Academy Book 2)

  What’s the only thing worse than fighting the king of the Fae?

  Pushing him too far.

  I taught witchling magic to the High King of the Fae. I helped him defend his realm. And then in the fullness of his generosity, he set me free. Great story, right?

  Only, like most things when it comes to the Fae, ditching a contract with these guys isn’t so easy.

  Turns out the magic that binds me to the deeply sensual, fiercely proud, ridiculously hot High King is far more twisted than I realized. I’ve been marked for death…or something way worse.

  Now I’m on the run, my home destroyed, being chased through a realm of myth and monsters by more enemies than I ever thought possible. To break free of this screwed-up Fae contract for good, I’ll have to unravel a scheme three hundred years in the making and convince the king—who’s been tricked into falling in love with me—that he’s been played for a fool.

  This should go well.

  Tempting the King is a slow-burn rejected mate Fae kidnap fantasy romance, and book 2 in the Witchling Academy series.

  Tempting the King

  Witchling Academy, Book 2

  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

  Epilogue

  About D.D. Chance

  1

  Belle

  Fire was everywhere. Racing over the carefully polished tabletops, snaking down the gleaming bar, dancing hungrily toward the rows of bottles and shiny taps that held full kegs of beer. It wasn’t the first time a Hogan residence would burn, its timbers charring to blackened husks, glass exploding…but it might well be the last.

  I threw my arm over my mouth, struggling to breathe. This sucked.

  The magic of the White Crane Tavern ran so deep that every crack and crevice hissed under the spectral fire. The bar had endured several small kitchen fires over the years, and more than its share of drunken brawls. But this blaze took me all the way back to when I was very small, with the shocking sight of the smoldering husk of my great-grandmother’s cabin, little more than smoking ruins by the time the elder coven had finished with it. Those memories flashed vividly through me, and—

  Wait a minute. That couldn’t be right. We’d sold my great-grandmother’s cabin—right? We’d used the money from that sale to fund the tavern renovations…

  Right?

  I shook my head hard, trying to focus. My memories weren’t cooperating—probably due to all the smoke inhalation—but either way, I couldn’t stick around to figure out the truth now. After a lifetime of hiding, I’d been discovered by the coven of the White Mountains, and they’d come to claim their prize.

  “Stop!” Deanna Mackleway’s voice commanded.

  I paid no attention. With her bouncing red curls and dancing green eyes, that imperious bitch of a witch had planted herself in the middle of the White Crane and tossed her hair, whining to me about the obligations and rules my family was bound to follow. Now she wielded her ring-heavy hands like the weapons they were, magic crackling from her fingertips, trying to pin me down as I darted toward the bar.

  Fortunately, Hogan witches knew how to run.

  I leapt up onto one of the chairs of the table closest to the bar, raced across the table, and jumped again, this time to the fire-engulfed bar. With a frenzied glance, I took in the gleaming brass, the dozens of survivor photos and letters hanging behind the cabinets—all refugees the Hogans had helped, once upon a time, the only remaining evidence of our connection now curling and withering in the scorching heat. I winced as I heard the first bottle shatter.

  Shit. The booze was catching fire.

  Only the cheap stuff was on display out here, but the fire would eventually root out the other stashes. Would the outside world even notice the blaze before it was too late? Probably not. Hell, it might already be too late. Heat swelled around me, a suffocating wall, and I felt the pull of the coven witches at my clothes and hair, their magic reaching for me, seeking to yank me back, to keep me in my place. I twisted toward them, flinging off their hold and staring my enemies full in the face. There was only one I recognized, besides Deanna—Cassandra Montebatten, the head of the coven of the White Mountains. Well, good for me. At least I’d merited the VIP treatment.

  But I had powers too, dammit. I had magic. Whether I liked it or not, I had returned to the realm of the Fae to teach the High King, and now wore the emerald crown and steel shackles of my service. With those magical weapons pressing against my forehead and clamped around my wrists, I could conjure whatever power I needed—and right now, I freaking needed to escape.

  I channeled every bit of my terror into that thought as I whirled back and trained my gaze on the portal mirror above the bar. I’d never managed to open this portal before. Humans and monsters alike had leapt from the monster realm into my bar using this path, but the way back had never been open to me, even when I’d wanted to use it as another place to hide a rogue witch on the run. The portal had always remained stubbornly closed.

  It damned well had better open now.

  “Open!” I screeched for good measure as I launched myself at the mirror. I crashed into the glass, hearing it explode all around me.

  For one heart-wrenching second, I thought I’d smacked straight into the wall behind the bar. I braced myself to drop back into the roaring fire coated in booze and shattered glass, well on my way to roasting to death.

  Instead, I hurtled into open space.

  A second choking breath later, I sprawled onto the floor of another tavern, this one filled with roaring, stomping dwarves, most of them engaged in an all-out brawl. No one seemed to notice me cannonballing into their midst until I rolled to a stop and hauled myself upright, spilling awkwardly into the nearest knot of fighters.

  “Clumsy shifter—that’s no way to fight,” the closest combatant, a burly bruiser with waggling jowls and about six missing teeth, accosted me drunkenly, ham-hock fists swinging. I ducked, leaning low to shove him forward and use his bulk as a human battering ram. Having run a tavern most of my life, I’d been in my share of bar fights. I wasn’t a big woman, so I rarely relied on fighting with my fists to save myself. The place wards at the White Crane had always been enough to bolster my own magic—and again, now I had the emerald crown and steel shackles of my service. I was full-on certified as the teaching witch of the Fae, magical bling most definitely included. I could fight, dammit. And I would win.

  Another trio of dwarves staggered into me from the side, paying me no mind as they punched and swore at each other, by all indications happy to be along for the ride. But with another glance around the place, I hesitated to use my magic right away. Did anyone
use overt magic in the monster realm? Could the witches of the White Mountains find me if I started popping off spells? I didn’t know, and couldn’t risk making the wrong move.

  I also didn’t want to die, which meant I needed to get out of here as fast as possible. The dwarves that came to my bar from the monster realm liked only one thing more than drinking, and that was fighting. They weren’t quitters either. This brawl could go on for a long time.

  “Over here!”

  I’d managed to crawl ten feet across the room when I lifted my head and saw a tawny-haired young woman with unnaturally large eyes and a wide smile. She gestured to me excitedly. A shifter? Maybe. Definitely not one of the noble Akari, the giant snow leopards of the monster realm, but possibly some distant cousin. There was something familiar about her, I decided, making me think I’d seen her kind before. Beneath her mane of curly hair, pulled up in a loose topknot, she wore a black apron, dark clothes, and what looked to be sensible shoes. Barmaid, had to be. She also continued gesturing frantically at me. I scrambled forward, lunging her way to let her pull me behind the bar.

  “They’ll wear out soon, but you weren’t here when we barred the doors,” she shouted. “Somebody’s gonna notice that. You need to leave. I’m Celia, by the way!” She grinned, pumping my hand in a move that seemed very, very human. “Welcome to the Riven District.”

  “Thanks,” I managed, peering at her more closely. Was she a shifter? Human? Or something totally different? Another roar from the brawlers made me jump. I didn’t have time to work out Celia’s species right now.

  “Door’s that way.” Celia pointed, but as I swung around, I flinched. Something was coming through the door—no, something was about to come through it, something foul, knocking Celia back on her ass. My ability to see the near-term future of the person right in front of me was apparently fully operational in the monster realm—definitely a plus. But as a result, I knew there was no way we could exit through the front door.

  I waved a hand toward the back of the bar. “Another way out?” I shouted above the din.

  Celia frowned at me. “Sure, but what’s wrong with…”

  A huge explosion rocked the bar. Billowing black sooty smoke boiled through the door Celia had wanted me to take. She staggered back, landing on her ass exactly as I’d seen in my vision, then she scrambled up in a rush. I glimpsed a hint of metal, a flash of gold at her neck, then she was on me, her eyes wide as she grabbed my arm.

  “You’ve got the sight,” she said, excitedly. “But you don’t have the stink of human on you. How is that possible? What are you?”

  It didn’t seem like a great time to declare my species, especially since she’d branded the lot of us as carrying a stench. “I’ll explain later,” I offered instead, in turn whispering a spell of protection that—miraculously—coalesced into an honest-to-goddess bubble, translucent to my eye, but invisible to anyone else. Apparently, my spell casting had leveled up already with my work with the king. I’d take it. “We should be okay to get out safely now. But where?”

  Celia grimaced. “Side door, but good luck getting all the way—hey!”

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her tight to me, the three feet of space afforded me with my bubble of protection more than enough to get us through the crowd. We pushed on, eventually reaching the side door, which Celia unlocked and shoved open, even as a giant white cockatoo-like creature flew up from a shadowy alcove by the door, screeching and bellowing in outrage, loud enough to make my heart stutter.

  “Emergency exit,” Celia announced, flipping the bird the bird. “Get over it, Seamus.” And we were through.

  The noise from the bar brawl spilled out into the street but didn’t seem to affect anyone outside the establishment. We were in some sort of a small town, a collection of shops and buildings as short and wide as the dwarves in Celia’s tavern.

  I’d never seen this part of the monster realm before, in all the time I had spent looking through the portal as I’d washed dishes behind the bar of the White Crane. Peering into the monster realm, I’d dreamed of a life far away from Boston. A place I could be free. A place I could work real magic. But the reality wasn’t anything like I’d imagined… Mainly because it stank like wet dogs and stale beer.

  Straight-up Boston all over again.

  Celia pulled me close against the wall. “You are human,” she decided. “And you’ve got magic too. Real magic. That makes you a witch. Who dumped you here?”

  “I did.” I grimaced as I pulled my tunic away from my body, taking in the charred fabric, the reek of smoke. If she’d figured out I was human, though, it seemed like time for some emergency name dropping, even if my official status with the Fae was a little murky. “Right now, I work for the High King of the Fae.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m not sure what that’ll get you. None of the Laram ever come here—and, again, the whole human thing. That’s not good.” Celia tapped her lips as I grimaced. There were two problems with her reaction. Thing one, the Laram were the lesser Fae, not the higher. She’d never heard of the high Fae? How was that possible? And thing two, Celia felt a whole hell of a lot like a human to me, not just a shifter in her humanish form. Who was she to judge?

  Before I could poke back at her, she continued, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You know, if you’re a witch, maybe you could sell your services. We just lost our last wizard in the realm, and we’ve never had a human witch who lasted long in the district. They taste too good.”

  I blinked at her. “Um, where am I again, exactly?”

  “Riven District,” Celia supplied, her white teeth flashing in a quick smile. “It’s sort of a prison quadrant of the monster realm, meant for outcasts, scuzzballs, and other bad actors. For you to have found your way here from the human realm means you’ve been cursed, most likely.”

  Oh, for freak’s sake… “Cursed by who?”

  Celia shrugged. “Hard to say. Maybe that High King of yours, yeah? But the district isn’t such a bad place, once you get used to it. There are only two rules, really. One, every one of us is free to live here as long as we want, so long as we pay the tithe, and two, we hate humans.”

  She grinned as I snorted a laugh. Maybe she wasn’t human after all. “I didn’t think there were enough humans in the monster realm to hate,” I offered drily.

  “I…” Celia tilted her head, her catlike eyes unfocusing as she thought. “You know, I’ve never thought about that, but you’ve got a good point. Either way, you’re gonna be hunting fodder for the Luacra. They’re who run the place, and I don’t even think you being a witch will impress them all that much…though it might.”

  She pursed her lips, regarding me with more interest. “Wait, does your High King boss guy own you, by chance? Did he throw you in here to teach you a lesson or something?”

  “No.” The sculpted, beautiful face of Aiden, High King of the Fae, flashed into my mind, and my invisible crown weighed a little more heavily on my brow. I’d left Aiden in the middle of a battlefield. He’d set me free of my contract to him, and I’d fled—but I’d helped him out a lot before that. We’d had a whole thing going…right up until I’d snuffed it out. Maybe not my brightest move, but I’d just wanted to get back home. It wasn’t my fault that I’d found my home on fire. “At least, I don’t think so. Would that be better?”

  “Well, you’d have value, then, more value than someone would get from the joy of killing you outright.” Celia’s eyes brightened. “Maybe the warden could sell you back to whoever you ran away from. That’d be good.”

  I couldn’t help myself, I gaped at her. Beyond the insanity of her words, something about this barmaid/shifter was seriously beginning to ping my fire-abraded nerves. I knew her, I thought. From…somewhere. I did. “I thought this was the monster realm,” I muttered. “This place sounds insane.”

  “Well, I mean it is, but this isn’t the open territories of the monster realm, it’s the Riven District. That makes it…sort of different. And not always in
a good way. If you’re a human here and you don’t want to get eaten or sold, you gotta have a skill you can barter with.”

  “Okay, so maybe I could teach?” I hazarded. “Like, teach magic, I mean.”

  Celia’s eyes flared, then her face went carefully blank. “No, you can’t. No one can teach magic,” she said with total certainty, making her sound exactly like my ma. “That’s not how magic works.”

  I shrugged, though I also hadn’t missed the quick, avaricious gleam in her eyes. “Then I guess I’m screwed.”

  “I mean…we could try it, I guess,” she said, now making a good show of rolling the idea around in her head. “I mean, it’s not like we have much choice. The only way out of the district is to go through the warden. But if you can throw some magic fireballs or something, maybe start working some of that crazy up. If the Luacra guards decide to put you on the menu, a bunch of drunken dwarves are gonna be the least of your problems.”

  2

  Aiden

  “Where is she?”

  I stood in the center of a dozen portals, each pointing to a different location. Four in the Fae realm, three in the monster realm, five at various points in Belle’s home city in the human realm, Boston. One image kept claiming my attention: a burned-out husk of a building, its warped sign hanging at an angle from a melted door. The White Crane.