Prince of Darkness
Theirs was the tragic story of the prince who dared to steal the magick of the Fates and the princess who gave up all for love. Everyone thought it ended with the prince’s death, and all forgot about the immortal princess. But Kym’rin is not dead. Now, after thousands of years, Anoria will fight again to keep her Prince of Darkness.
Stripped of her sight, Anoria Leikin vows never to use the magick gifted her by the Fates, blaming it for the loss of her beloved Kym'rin. Once, she gave up all for love. Now she craves more than anything to forget her past and be left alone. But a stranger has intruded in the safe haven of her forest and threatens the hard-earned peace she's finally found. He stirs buried memories and elicits emotions she's hidden from herself. Even blind, she believes the stranger to be Kym'rin. But this new Kym'rin is distant and secretive. Dangerous.
Cursed for a crime he hadn't committed, Prince Kym’rin Rainyll has no desire to rectify the belief that he is dead. When the prince of an ancient dragon race is released into their land and sets his eyes on the magick that thrives inside Anoria, Kym’rin is forced to reveal his identity to protect the woman he’s always loved. But he guards a deadly secret. As an altercation of his curse, an ancient evil grows inside him. Should he give in to the Darkness, it could destroy everyone, including Anoria. When he discovers the only way to defeat the dragon is to accept his Darkness, will he trade his soul or risk losing the one woman worth dying for?
Read below for an excerpt from Prince of Darkness.
Too late, he realized her intent. With a curse, he shifted. The deadly dagger grazed the top of his right arm, drawing blood. Kym’rin staggered backward, taking her with him. He twisted so that she lay atop him as he took the brunt of the fall.
She scrambled to her knees and straddled him, his cloak flying to fall beside them. Leaning forward, she pressed the sharp edge of the blade against his throat. “Don’t move.”
Stunned, Kym’rin stared up at her.
She resembled a pagan moonlight warrior princess, fierce and beautiful. Strands of wet moonbeams whipped around her, lifted by the breeze. There was nothing of the sweet, gentle woman he remembered, little of the ethereal, refined Lythen princess her status demanded. This close, her breasts were but mere inches from his face, the damp chemise a sham of protection against his roaming eyes. Against his better judgment, he raised to hands, wanting to touch her.
The blade cut into his throat.
“I said, don’t move.”
He stilled. He’d forgotten about the damned weapon.
“Who are you?”
Kym’rin wasn’t certain how to answer. Never had he envisioned conversing with her.
She pressed the blade deeper, her features hardening, and leaned forward until her face was inches was from his. “Answer me. Who are you? How did you get into my forest?”
“You expect me to speak while you have that blade cutting into my throat?”
Her brows pulled together as she studied him. A veil of foggy-white now covered the clear, sky blue of her eyes. He thought once more about what she’d revealed and wondered if darkness was truly all she saw. When had she lost her sight? How?
Anoria tightened her grip around the handle of the dagger to ward off the sudden hesitations overcoming her. There was something vaguely familiar about his voice. He sounded almost like ...
As soon as the thought came, she firmly pushed it away. Nay. She wouldn’t fool herself. She refused to put herself through any more pain.
She decreased the pressure of the weapon on his throat, aware of the length of his hard body beneath hers. It’d been too long since she had physical contact with another, too long since she’d experienced a man’s body pressed so intimately against hers. Her breasts swelled at the remembrance of long forgotten feelings and something deep and elemental stirred in her groin.
She tensed, angry at herself, her thighs tightening around his hips. Once, she might have been shocked at the impropriety their position suggested.
She felt him grow beneath her, his quickly hardening length too close to her woman’s core, and alarm raced through her, turning her veins frigid. Fear was something she refused to submit to. She lifted off him and leaned forward, taking a fistful of his long locks in her hand. Bringing the dagger between them, she traveled the blade lower until it rested against his male appendage. The heat of his body enveloped her hand and she fought down a shiver. “Don’t be entertaining any ideas,” she warned, her voice hard, her face close to his. Her hair fell over them and she wished for a free hand to push it behind her ears.
“I’m not the one pressing my body against yours.” His breath fell upon her face, something about his voice strangely familiar, something about his scent hauntingly vague.
She pulled tighter on his hair, angered that he spoke the truth, damned that her control was slipping. The dagger returned to his throat. “How were you able to get past the spell of the forest?”
“It admitted me.”
Impossible. The spell only allowed those pure of heart who’d never do her harm to enter. Her father had made certain of it. Thus far, only two people had been successful at deciphering the spell and gaining admittance.
“How?”
“I sung a song.”
Stunned by his answer, her fingers loosened around his hair, releasing the coarse strands. It was true then. The spell had accepted him. The forest contained a spirit, whom, as legend told, conversed with those it approved of in the form of a song. Only if the forest sung back to a person would it allow that person passage.
“Your wound . . .” he prompted, drawing her attention back to the hard body beneath her.
“A ploy. I knew I was being watched, yet I couldn’t feel you.”
She still couldn’t feel him, she acknowledged, disturbed by the fact. Sure, she knew he was with her because their bodies touched, but he had no presence, no color. Hell, he had no aura. Had his large body not warmed her thighs where she’d straddled him, his chest not rumbled beneath her breasts as he spoke, she would have thought him unreal. He blended into the backdrop of her sight as if he didn’t exist.
She swallowed her fear.
“The blood, it’s fake then?”
She thought she heard relief in his voice. “Nay. ’Tis real.”
In the spans of a heartbeat, he had her off him and was beside her, his hands on her leg. Alarmed, Anoria brought the dagger up, prepared to defend herself.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” he warned, his voice deceptively calm. “You’ll not use that weapon on me a second time.”
