The Princess Protects Her Huntsman: A Nocturne Falls Universe Story Read online

  The Princess

  Protects Her Huntsman

  A Nocturne Falls Universe Story

  Kira Nyte

  Dear Reader,

  Nocturne Falls has become a magical place for so many people, myself included. Over and over I’ve heard from you that it’s a town you’d love to visit and even live in! I can tell you that writing the books is just as much fun for me.

  With your enthusiasm for the series in mind – and your many requests for more books – the Nocturne Falls Universe was born. It’s a project near and dear to my heart, and one I am very excited about.

  I hope these new, guest-authored books will entertain and delight you. And best of all, I hope they allow you to discover some great new authors! (And if you like this book, be sure to check out the rest of the Nocturne Falls Universe offerings.)

  For more information about the Nocturne Falls Universe, visit http://kristenpainter.com/sugar-skull-books/

  In the meantime, happy reading!

  Kristen Painter

  The Princess Protects Her Huntsman

  A Nocturne Falls Universe Story

  Copyright © 2018 by Kira Nyte

  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—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction and was made possible by a special agreement with Sugar Skull Books, but hasn’t been reviewed or edited by Kristen Painter. All characters, events, scenes, plots and associated elements appearing in the original Nocturne Falls series remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Kristen Painter, Sugar Skull Books and their affiliates or licensors.

  Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author or Sugar Skull Books.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Table of Contents

  THE PRINCESS PROTECTS HER HUNTSMAN

  Welcome from Kristen Painter

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  The Princess Protects Her Huntsman

  Princess Rhyannon Andal fled her fairy home with nothing more than a powerful secret and a warning to never return. She doesn’t know the fate of her family, her people, or even the nature of the evil that hunts her. Only that the magical town of Nocturne Falls is her haven and her hiding place.

  Arrick Luvell was nothing more than a simple, if preternaturally skilled, huntsman until a sorceress ripped his life apart and cursed him to become her beast. He has lived under her leash for decades, forced to do her bidding, until the hunt leads him to a pure and beautiful woman he’d rather die than harm.

  But he doesn’t control his beast; the wolf is the sorceress’s to command.

  The hunt brought them together. Will the magic of love free them both?

  Website and Newsletter for Kira Nyte: www.kiranyte.com

  Find Kira Nyte on Facebook: www.facebook.com/kiranyte

  And Twitter: www.twitter.com/kiranyteauthor

  Contact Kira Nyte at [email protected]

  To everyone who dreams big and never gives up hope in reaching those goals. Anything is possible!

  Chapter One

  “Whatever you do, child, never look back.” The old crone—known to the Andallayne people as the Whisperer—smacked a heavy velvet pouch into Rhyannon’s hand and shoved her through the jagged opening of her home in a tree. Thick mist rolled over the forest grounds, pulling the crone’s attention. Her dark, weary eyes widened. “You have my instructions. Now, go.”

  “What of my parents?”

  “You must save yourself. You alone hold the Heart of Andallayne. We can flourish again, so long as you survive.” The crone gave her another surprisingly strong shove. “The veil awaits. She comes. Go!”

  Heart heavy, Rhy pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and dashed away from the magical hut. The hems of her dress and cloak stirred the thickening fog, coaxing milky tendrils to reach toward her waist. She dared not look back in fear of the evil that pursued her.

  A chill slithered through her body. The haunting hoot of an owl echoed in the cold, darkening night. Cold not in temperature, but in foreboding. Her legs could not carry her fast enough to the enchanted veil—the unseen magical barrier between the fairy realm and the human realm. Her lungs ached, the pulsing burn intensifying with each minute, spreading heat through her chest to feed her racing heart.

  Scraggly branches burned by evil and black magic snagged the hem of her dress, tearing the silken material. Her slippers skidded over leaves slickened by the encroaching fog. She gasped as her shoulder bounced off a low-lying branch, the whip-like ends snapping against her cheek. She bit back a shriek of pain and pressed her palm to the bleeding wound. Tears blurred her vision and slowed her pace until she could push the searing sting aside.

  A sharp crack from behind shot a spear of icy fear up her spine. Rhy whimpered under her breath, pushing her tired body to the limit. The air cooled as the slight breeze kicked up to become a reckoning wind. Her dress tangled around her legs. Her hood molded against the side of her face, half blocking her vision. Trees swayed, low-lying brush struck out at her legs as if to slow her flight, and stray leaves swirled over the ground.

  An eerie howl filled the night with ominous threat that resonated down to the apex of her heart.

  Don’t give up. Don’t look back. Almost there.

  Grit scraped across her face as the wind tried to hold her back, the once gentle tool of nature twisted into an unseen entity of magic and foul intent.

  She brushed the back of her hand over her eyes and caught the faint glimmer of the veil ahead. Invisible to anyone not of magical blood, the enchanted smokescreen rippled of its own mystical accord. Beyond the veil, she could see the shadow of miles and miles of forest.

  Over the whistling winds and creaking sounds of distorted nature, she caught the methodical thump and creak of something approaching from behind.

  The chill gripping her nerves hardened to shards of ice.

  Don’t. Look. Back.

  Fingers squeezing the pouch and its precious contents until her joints ached, Rhy pushed her legs faster. The veil came up fast while everything around her tried desperately to hold her back.

  Leap. Jump. Escape.

  Rhy prepared to leap the last few feet through the veil.

  A quiet whisper in the darkest recesses of her mind pulled her up short. She jerked around, clutching the pouch to her chest, panic rushing through her veins.

  Through the threatening fog and whorls of leaves, a dark figure emerged.

  Rhy swallowed a lump that bobbed up in her throat. She shuffled back a step. The pull of the veil sucked along the hem of her cloak, urging her through.

  The fog separated around the shadowy figure as it padded closer before coming to stop. No more than ten feet separated Rhy and the massive wolf. Its eyes glowed red. Evi
l, menacing, hungry.

  And she was the prime course. The sacrifice.

  The wolf crouched.

  Blindly, Rhy spun and leapt.

  And landed hard on her side on rain-dampened pavement at the foot of a wooden sign.

  Welcome to Nocturne Falls.

  Chapter Two

  “Go ahead and close up the shop. It’s getting late, the weather is turning bad, and I don’t want you driving in the makings of an ice storm. Your parents will have my wings.”

  Rhy laughed into the phone, tucking the clothing she’d pulled from the fitting rooms onto the appropriate racks. It had been a few months since she escaped the wolf and followed the Whisperer’s instructions to Dalila’s doorstep in the human world. The pixie had been a designer of exquisite expertise for her family, and a close friend to her mother until she decided to venture off on a business journey. At the time, Rhy didn’t understand why anyone would leave Andallayne.

  Now that she was here in this quaint town of Nocturne Falls, working in Dalila’s extremely successful clothing store, Into The Woods, she grasped a better understanding. The town was the perfect place for her to hide in plain sight. She may not shift into a werewolf or chomp on human necks like the vampires, but she had pointed ears that, she had come to find out, humans found both incredulous and fascinating.

  At least here, she didn’t have to try so hard to hide her natural—or, in the human realm, unnatural—appearance.

  Dalila seldom hid her translucent wings. The pixie loved to decorate the pointed tips with shimmering cuffs and fanciful pieces of fabric.

  “There’s still a customer upstairs, so I can’t do anything now,” Rhy said, her lips curled in a good-natured smile. The pixie had a way of making even the moodiest person laugh. It certainly didn’t take her long to get Rhy smiling after she showed up all those months go, shaking in fear and grief cinching her chest.

  The pixie’s unwavering reassurances that her parents and her people would be fine helped.

  “Well, little Princess, turn the sign to Closed and make sure you take off after the customer leaves.”

  Dalila giggled. A muffled masculine voice filtered through the phone. Rhy rolled her eyes and sighed. Rhy had offered to close up shop after Dalila confided she had a secret admirer who wanted to take her out for dinner. Work was Dahlia’s love and devotion. All else came second. As far as Rhy was concerned, it was time Dalila learned life was so much more.

  Rhy moistened her lips. Love. It was the one thing she pined for and the one thing she had yet to find. She had plenty of suitors back home, many of whom wanted to marry into royalty. At thirty, Rhyannon was considered a young woman entering into a very long adulthood. Andallayne fae aged slower, making her the equivalent of twenty in human years. She ached for a love like her parents’—they were spirit mates—and refused to settle for anything less.

  “I promise. I’ll leave as soon as I can.”

  “Perfect, darling. And be mindful on the road. Go straight home.”

  Rhy straightened out a few pairs of folded jeans on a display shelf, the phone tucked between her ear and shoulder. “I will go straight home. After I pick up dinner.”

  “You haven’t stocked up the fridge?”

  As a woodland fairy, Rhy preferred natural foods, favoring nuts, berries, and greens. She couldn’t even pronounce some of the ingredients in the products on the shelves of a local grocery store. Trying to find all-natural items proved to be a chore, one she tended to avoid as long as she could.

  How could something in a can that looked like worms covered in red dressing and accompanied by brown, dirt-looking balls be appetizing?

  “The market didn’t have much when I stopped by a few days ago.”

  Dalila sighed. “It’s winter, darling. Not much crop to harvest when the ground is frozen. I’ll take you into the next town. There’s a farmer’s market on the weekends. Produce comes up from Florida, so it might tempt your rarified palate.”

  “Rarified, you say?” Rhy let out an airy laugh. “Why, thank you.”

  “Well, my dear. I should be going. As should you. I’ll open the shop in the morning, so long as the weather permits. I’ll let you know whether you will have the day off to lounge about with me, eating soup and watching movies.”

  “Thank you, Dalila. And I expect you to have a wonderful evening.”

  The pixie moaned wistfully. “It’s been perfect so far.”

  Rhy glanced up at the half-spiral staircase that descended from the second floor of the shop as her final customer clambered down, cell phone to ear, clothes tossed haphazardly over her arm. The woman ducked into a fitting room, yanking the curtain closed.

  “I’ll speak with you in the morning, Dalila.”

  “Be careful on the road.”

  “I will.”

  Rhy disconnected the call and placed the phone on the base behind the cashier counter. She glanced at the pulled curtain, acutely aware of the woman’s one-sided conversation and the clanking of hangers. She went through the doors into the dimly lit lobby with the eclectic knotted tree roots that created the walls and ceiling. The shop’s main doors had no windows, which helped create the illusion of heading into a dark forest.

  For a split second, the flash memory of escaping the dark forest of her home stilled the air in her lungs. Rhy stifled a shudder. She swallowed back the surge of panic and reached for the wooden plaque wedged perfectly into a square cut in the door. Her fingers trembled, the wolf’s red eyes glinting in her mind as she pulled the plaque from its place, turned the sign to Closed, and replaced it. She fastened the latches on all four sides of the plaque and returned to the main room.

  As she straightened the already organized display tables of Dalila’s expensive merchandise and accessories among the decorative trees dazzling beneath chandeliers, she tried to shake the foreboding that threatened to take root in her head. She usually tried hard not to think of home, or the devastation that most likely occurred. Whenever she did, her heart ached with the weight of guilt and grief.

  “Excuse me? Yeah, I’m ready.”

  Rhy shook free of the dismal thoughts, plastered a smile on her mouth, and went to the counter to ring up the customer’s purchases. The woman’s cell phone remained stuck to her ear and her conversation continued at a speed that made Rhy dizzy.

  “Your total comes to three-hundred and ten dollars.”

  Rhy folded the clothes as the customer dug through her wallet, pausing every few moments to make strange motions with her hands as she snapped staccato words into the phone. Choosing to ignore the rising tension, Rhy bagged the clothes. She jumped when the woman slapped a credit card on the counter and cussed into the phone.

  Sucking in a deep breath through her forced smile, she ran the card and handed it back, along with the receipt for the customer to sign. A few minutes later, Rhy was alone, grateful for the silence. She cleaned up the horrendous fitting room, made one last round of the shop, gathered her coat, purse, and keys, and locked up for the night.

  The Georgia winter lent a biting chill to the air, one that seeped through her thick pea coat, wool gloves, and knit scarf. She shivered, hugging herself as she rounded the corner of the block toward her favorite go-to pub, The Poisoned Apple. She had her staple meals from certain places that provided close to natural foods, and The Poisoned Apple was her top choice for carryout. Besides, the walk to the restaurant was the perfect excuse to stop at the florist and pick up a fresh bouquet of wintry flowers for her room at Dalila’s house.

  “Good afternoon, Rhy. Will it be your usual? To go?” The petite brunette behind the hostess stand was as bubbly and happy as Dalila, and practically bounced on her toes. She held out a specials menu. “The chef has some great featured items today.”

  Rhy smiled and shook her head. “I’ll stick with the usual, Chloe, thank you.”

  The young woman’s fingers ran over the touch-screen behind the podium, entering the order. “Would you like something to drink while yo
u wait?”

  “Actually, I’m going to slip next door for a few minutes.” Rhy pulled out cash to cover her bill and tip and handed it to Chloe. “I’ll be right back.”

  Fitting her scarf over her mouth as she stepped back into the frigid afternoon and headed toward Main Street, Rhy ducked her head against the brutal gusts of icy wind. She lifted her gaze only to keep from bumping into fellow pedestrians willing to brave this unfriendly weather to scope out the town’s premium stores along Main Street. The sight of tourists fancily dressed in an array of Halloween costumes—despite the impending threat of a storm—put a smile on her face.

  Andallayne didn’t celebrate holidays like humans did. Coming to Nocturne Falls unleashed curiosity unlike any she’d had since she was a little girl. Dalila had introduced her to store owners, performers, and those who held a tight reign on the town’s business and security. So many different paranormal creatures resided here, from werewolves and vampires to dragons and gargoyles. She hit it off particularly well with Willa Iscove because of their shared fae roots.

  Even in her world, vampires were considered lore. Dragons? In Andallayne, small dragons flew around and sometimes accepted fairy families as their own, but they were nothing like the dragon shifters Dalila introduced her to. The dragons from home did not turn into handsome men.