The Consort: A Fae Hunters Novella (The Fae Hunters Book 1) Read online

  The Consort

  A Fae Hunters Novella

  Suzanne Johnson

  Contents

  Also by Suzanne Johnson

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Suzanne Johnson

  The Sentinels of New Orleans series

  Royal Street

  River Road

  Elysian Fields

  Pirate’s Alley

  Belle Chasse

  Pirateship Down

  WRITTEN AS SUSANNAH SANDLIN

  The Penton Legacy series

  Redemption

  Absolution

  Omega

  Storm Force (3.5)

  Allegiance

  The Collectors series

  Lovely, Dark, and Deep

  Deadly, Calm, and Cold

  The Wilds of the Bayou series

  Wild Man’s Curse

  Black Diamond

  Copyright © 2016 by Suzanne Johnson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by SelfPubBookCovers.com/Shardel

  Created with Vellum

  1

  LIANDRA, DAUGHTER OF Caerne the Metalworker, had spent three days preparing for her first meeting with the Queen of Faerie.

  Since the summons to the Royal Palace had arrived at her parents’ small, neat house at the edge of the capital city a week ago, she’d practiced her curtsy, her manner of sipping tea, and of crossing and uncrossing her ankles, should she be allowed to sit. She’d refined her diction by talking to herself in the mirror, trying to sound more educated and of higher station than she was.

  She’d been in the throne room less than a minute before she realized how utterly wrong she’d been. She wasn’t prepared at all.

  After all, how does one prepare oneself for the news that one has been traded, body and soul, for a horse?

  2

  THE MORNING SHONE BRIGHT and green beneath a springtime sun as Liandra made her way on foot from her father’s home into the center of Faerie’s capital. The city resembled an overgrown alpine village one might find in a human child’s picture book—a fairy tale, of course. It had been reconstructed in the early days of Queen Sabine’s reign, or so Lia had been told. That had been hundreds of years ago, and few were alive now who remembered the days of Sabine’s predecessor.

  Lia wore her best dress, a green, flowing garment on which she’d painstakingly embroidered an intricate tangle of white vines and leaves. The gown’s narrow waist had been designed to show off her figure, which, as her parents were quick to point out, helped to offset the plain features she’d heard about her entire life. Never mind that drawing a deep breath sent crushing pain through her ribcage.

  Still, one had to accentuate one’s assets, especially when assets were so limited. Being poor, plain, and freakishly tall was a triple curse in a land filled with wealth and delicate beauty.

  “Liandra has your Aunt Esmerelda’s unfortunate nose and her straw-colored hair,” her father would complain to her mother.

  “Not to mention her insistence on spending time in the sun has brought out a few freckles on that huge nose!” Her mother’s voice quivered with unshed tears. “As if we needed proof that there are so many humans on your side of the faery tree. She’ll never find a decent husband! She’s as tall as a plow horse.”

  Lia shook her head in disgust. It was a miracle that she had managed to grow up with any self-esteem whatsoever. The fae could glamour away stuff like freckles or slightly crooked noses—even a faery such as Lia, with her poor, human-tainted skills. She simply didn’t wish to. She was who and what she’d been born.

  Not that she didn’t wish for more. Not that she didn’t hold her own secret ambitions. And today could be an important step toward realizing them.

  On her arm, Lia carried a simple woven basket holding several of her latest creations; her jeweled circlets and bracelets and rings had to be the reason for the queen’s summons. Her father had enough human ancestors to be able to work with metal; no one realized that the daughter who hung around his workshop during the day could do the same. No one knew how she watched, listened, and learned.

  No one noticed when she slipped out at night and experimented with her father’s castoff materials, learning to craft the beautiful jewelry with just enough metal to give them a sheen but not enough to burn the skin of the women who might wear them. Fae women, as everyone knew, kept the household accounts. They also loved jewelry but couldn’t tolerate metal. It burned their skin and eventually poisoned the blood.

  Only once had Lia’s jewelry failed, but that had been intentional. She’d given her bitchy, full-blooded cousin, the daughter of her mother’s sister, a birthday necklace that left her with burn marks for a month. Cousin Girensia deserved it for telling Falconer, the eldest son of the Prince of Autumn, that Lia secretly loved him.

  Outside that brief moment, Prince Falconer didn’t know she existed.

  That had been ten years ago, however, when she’d been a mere twelve. Now, as an aging spinster of twenty-two, she had built a growing clientele of wealthy women who wouldn’t be seen with her in public but who were anxious to spend their money and gemstones on her creations.

  And now the queen wanted to see her work!

  Once she reached the center of the Faerie capital, Lia stopped and stared at the fabled Royal Tower. It rose ten stories in the city center, a slender cylinder constructed of red reflective glass imported from the human world. Standing in a square amidst the faux alpine fairy-tale village of the capital, it spoke more to the queen’s rumored mental instability than any sense of taste—or lack thereof. Lia had never been inside.

  Her excitement growing, she showed her printed royal summons to one of the guards standing outside the door and stood patiently while he riffled through the bracelets in her basket, not to mention the ruby-encrusted necklace she hoped to present to the queen as a gift to ensure her opportunity to earn a future commission.

  “All the way to the top. Take the stairway to heaven,” the guard said, and Lia squinted to see if there was any humor behind his words. Faeries had a severe weakness for human popular culture, her own theory being that it was because her people had rich magic but poor imaginations. They mimicked human clothes, listened to human music, the stronger among them even glamouring themselves to look like famous humans they’d seen in the moving pictures and books one could buy on the black market.

  Humans, from all she’d read, were just the opposite: creative, but lacking in magic altogether.

  “Stairway to heaven?” she asked, raising a brow. “Led Zeppelin?”

  The guard grinned, which revealed a rough handsomeness hidden in his heavy features—definitely a lot of human in this one’s background. He even had wisps of facial hair—something fae men had to glamour onto themselves. “Yeah. Robert Plant is a god.”

  “So I hear.” There was even a garden dedicated to the singer at one end of the Spring Palace grounds. If his last name was “Plant,” he must be a member of the Spring Court, or so the claim w
as made.

  Inside the tower, she gawked at the stairway to which he referred—a circular spiral in constant motion, its intricate wooden rungs and seats creaking as they stretched up and out of sight. Its movement paused when she stepped up to it, so she was able to hop onto one of the carved wooden seats. Within seconds, it was moving again.

  Circling rather swiftly up ten stories was unsettling so soon after breakfast, and dizziness battled queasiness by the time Lia stepped off at the top, directly into a shadow-filled room. Her eyes, accustomed to the sunlight, struggled to adjust.

  As soon as she spotted the throne and the queen’s infamous flame of red hair at the far end of the room, she dropped to her knees, as her parents had instructed. “The queen don’t grant favors to people like us,” her father had said. “I’ve heard from right good sources that Her Highness likes a bit of bowing and scraping.”

  So this was Lia, bowing and scraping. Her heart pounded. What if she’d been wrong about the queen’s intent?

  If one believed half the stories Lia had heard, Queen Sabine was a tyrant who deserved to be trodden beneath the hooves of her own Royal Horses. Such an attitude would not help Lia become her Royal Jeweler, however.

  There. She’d given conscious thought to her deepest hopes for this summons: not just a single commission but a permanent job at the palace. Although the fae of the royal house, possessing both types of elemental faery magic, could handle metals without harm, their courtiers couldn’t. Why else would the queen wish to see her in person?

  Lia kept her gaze fixed on the floor while trying her best to roll her eyes left and right in order to assess the situation in the throne room. Already, her knees protested, but she’d heard tales of people being kept in this position for hours until it suited Her Majesty to address them.

  Since she was trying so hard not to move, of course, her nose began to itch because of…what was that odor?

  Lifting her head slightly, Lia took a quick glance around the room, praying no one would notice. As if anyone could see her through the drifting clouds of thick smoke—the source of the itchy nose. The royal throne room appeared to have been transformed into a smoke-filled opium den, such as those enjoyed by humans in 19th-century America, or so Lia had read. The room had been draped floor-to-ceiling in elaborate silks, and various people lounged on oversized pillows, inhaling from ornate pipes. Members of the royal court, no doubt, inhaling sweet, smoky vapors.

  She’d overheard tales of these elaborate court parties. Sabine was said to be fond of opium, although it had little effect on the fae, and was fascinated by humans’ attempts to experience magic through drugs.

  Fighting a sneeze, Lia resumed her study of a piece of fringe on the floor in front of her, probably shed by one of the cushions.

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d knelt in that position before she was momentarily blinded by a harsh, bright light that caused her eyes to water. After a few seconds, her pupils adjusted enough to identify a pair of knee-high black leather riding boots that had stopped in front of her kneeling figure.

  “Stand up, Liandra, daughter of Caerne,” an arrogant male voice boomed from above. “Stop looking at the floor like the peasant you are. We have business.”

  The boots turned away, and she looked up to squint at their owner, a slender man of medium height who cut through the grumbling opium smokers with the grace of a ship plying smooth waters. He had brought the light with him, or, more accurately, he was the light. The man glowed like the janglebugs that flitted around her parents’ tiny courtyard at dusk each evening.

  The courtiers scrambled to their feet and parted to make way for him. Once he had passed their nodding faces, each one covered in a tight grin that looked like a higher-class version of her own bowing and scraping, they lined up to take a seat riding down what was now, she supposed, the stairway to hell. His arrival seemed to signal the end of their opium party.

  In moments, the room fell silent and gentle bursts of wind puffed from vents in the wall, blowing out the smoke. Only a sweet, cloying odor remained.

  “Rise, Liandra, daughter of Caerne.” The queen’s voice reminded Lia of the black beetles that made scuttling noises in the dark of her father’s cellar. It sent chills across her shoulders. “Let me see what my nephew the prince desires in you.”

  Mr. Sunny Boots was the queen’s nephew? He sprawled on the three-step riser leading to the throne’s dais and raked his eyes across Lia’s body as she approached. A chill stole over her shoulders, his assessment seeming to cut through her clothing and render her as naked as if she wore only her simple chemise.

  At the top of the dais, sitting on a clear glass armchair—a most unusual throne—sat an ancient hag who’d grown so old even her royal glamour could reduce her age to only about ninety. Her hair was the same color as the carpet, a dark blood red, worn in a dizzying tower of loops and swirls that clashed with her orange brocade gown. Even her considerable cleavage was creased with wrinkles.

  Lia took a quick glance over at Sunny Boots, trying not to frown as she struggled, and failed, to figure out what to do. Surely the queen’s nephew would have no use for jewelry. The childless queen had two nephews, princes of the high seasons and rivals to succeed her on the throne. Like her, the nephews were said to be able to handle metal. A quick scan at the prince’s hands bore out that truth; he wore a ruby-studded gold ring on his right hand.

  Judging by his shiny appearance and despite his sour disposition, this one had to be Florian, the Prince of Summer. Arrogance oozed from every pore, ruining what should have been his classic faery male beauty. Lia judged his height to be just under six feet, with high cheekbones, brilliant green eyes, and a tousle of thick golden hair stylishly cut, no doubt at a human establishment since the men of Faerie tended to wear longer hair. Normal members of the fae were not allowed to enter the human world without royal permission, which was rarely granted. Since he was royalty, however, Prince Florian could come and go at will, Lia supposed.

  Figuring she could either play it cool or faint, and never inclined to feminine drama, Lia gave a deep curtsy. “Your majesties, how might I be of service?”

  Would it be too crass to drag out the necklace so soon? She thought so. It might reek of confusion or fear, both of which she felt in abundance.

  “I like your attitude. A woman who simply wishes to please a man is such a novelty these days.” Florian stood up and sauntered to stand in front of Lia. “You are quite tall for a woman of Faerie, but I suppose one must make allowances for your dismal pedigree. Could you do something about that nose?”

  Gritting her teeth and reminding herself how much gold the prince had at his disposal to buy trinkets for the women of his acquaintance, she willed her nose to change into a pert, pretty little number she’d admired in one of the human magazines occasionally smuggled into the realm and left lying about in the capital’s public library. The librarians seemed to think the magazine called Glamour had something to do with Faerie, so they made no attempt to limit its availability.

  “Much better.” Florian turned to his aunt. “What do you think of her?”

  Lia swallowed hard under the cold, assessing gaze of the queen, who’d changed her appearance to look much like Lia’s own—or as Lia might appear when she reached the age of a well-pickled nonagenarian. Even the queen’s orange dress had changed to match that of Lia, who swore to burn hers as soon as she had a chance.

  “Well, although her face is plain, her body is quite lush for Faerie. You only want her for a short time anyway. She won’t sag if you don’t use her too hard.” The queen waved a wrinkled old claw in Lia’s general direction. “I assume she is still a virgin despite her advanced age?”

  Florian looked her up and down. “So I was told by her father.”

  What in the name of the heavens had her father done? And how the hells would he know she was a virgin anyway? She could hear his voice in her head: Because no faery with any self-respect would want a female giraffe with a crooked
nose and freckles, that’s how. Sometimes, Lia hated faeries.

  “Very well.” The queen leaned forward and speared her with a withering gaze from a pair of dark-blue eyes that looked disturbingly like Lia’s own. Earlier, they had been green. “Disrobe.”

  “Excuse me, your majesty?” Surely Lia had heard wrong.

  “Clothing. Off. You don’t expect Prince Florian to not see the merchandise after he has paid...” Sabine looked at her nephew. “What did you pay?”

  “I traded a Royal Foal from this year’s birthing. His gait looked to be flawed.”

  “A high price nonetheless.” The queen frowned at Lia. “So disrobe. How do we know your ass isn’t flawed and your father isn’t attempting to cheat my nephew out of a very valuable horse?”

  Lia didn’t think her father had seen her ass since it was in diapers, or she hoped not.

  Silence filled the throne room, broken only by the hiss of filters still working to remove the last of the opium smoke. Too bad it didn’t work on faeries, or Lia would have rushed over for a few lungsful.

  Regardless, this old hag and her pretty-boy nephew would not be seeing her ass if she could help it.

  “First, if you’ll pardon the delay, I have designed some lovely jeweled metalwork that I brought you.” Lia opened her basket and laid it on the steps in front of the queen. She’d brought the other pieces to sell or to drum up more business, but the old goat could have it all now. Perhaps it would distract her.

  Lia might have arrived wanting a business arrangement with the royals, but not the kind of business they appeared to desire.

  Sabine leaned over, reached out a claw, and used a small wooden cane to lift the ruby necklace peeking from beneath a trio of emerald and sapphire bracelets. “Interesting. You made these things yourself?”