Captured By The Royals Read online

  CAPTURED BY THE ROYALS

  HOLLIE HUTCHINS

  CONTENTS

  1. Elena

  2. Garek

  3. Elena

  4. Garek

  5. Elena

  6. Garek

  7. Elena

  8. Garek

  9. Elena

  10. Garek

  11. Elena

  12. Garek

  13. Elena

  More In This World

  The Last Unicirim’s Bride

  Copyright

  1

  Elena

  Colors blurred around Elena. The moon was ubiquitous tonight in all realms, some places suspended above the sky like a lemon slice, others full to bursting, with a faint white light yawning over the worlds. Her signet ring glimmered. Set inside the little ring was a waystone – a tiny thing that gave her the ability to slip between realms if she found a weak spot in the fabric of reality.

  Or, in this case, a special ring that allowed her to directly slip into the Realm Market. No matter where the weak spot was, with this special ring, embellished with the image of a horse-drawn cart, it whisked her straight to the vibrant, chaotic swirl of a multi-realm market. Everyone who was a resident of the Realm Market possessed one.

  Elena hummed with satisfaction, cradling her latest spoils under her elbow. Nothing significant, just a small, gear-sprung clock, but it was a prized collector’s item in several realms – and the gears alone were advanced compared to some of the realms that existed. She whistled merrily to herself, replaying her last mission, and her soft footfalls as she shimmied into that old clockmaker’s shop, blending in with the shadows, her magic cloaked around her, so not even the whisper of her breath penetrated the silence.

  It wasn’t her fault, exactly, that shadow magic just fit the thieving profession so well. You had to use what you were good at, right? And it wasn’t like her family’s market stall earned that much money. Just enough to keep running and to scrape up a little profit, but they did need some extra income every now and then.

  Now, with the realms, rules had to be established with something as ambitious and chaotic as the Realm Market, when people perused for magic and technology. If magic wasn’t known in a buyer’s realm, for example, they absolutely couldn’t abuse it, and if said abuse was discovered, death magic from the darkest of dark realms would tear them apart. All down in the contract terms and use, automatically enabled the moment you stepped into the market’s shining streets.

  Understandably, no one liked the idea of spontaneous combustion. So smaller, less important objects, non-magical in origin, tended to sell better as a result. The Realm Market had one main currency, called zots, but they had money exchangers all across for the different realms.

  Elena’s parents focused on mundane earth objects like mugs, energy drinks, condoms and pills for headaches and sleep.

  Even in the darkness, the Realm Market operated, with bright lights upon every street, and stall owners calling for customers. Elena weaved her way through the market, still whistling cheerfully to herself, eyes scanning the many stalls and creatures that walked the shimmering marble streets. Humans, werewolves, even some of the smaller dragon shifters enjoyed what was up for grabs.

  Stopping at her favorite night food stall, Mama Loue’s, Elena got her usual pumpkin pastry and little cup of Zorin coffee, as well as several spiced rabbit burgers for her parents.

  No nightmares for weeks, now. A vast improvement from before, when she’d been waking up in rivulets of sweat, needing to change her sheets on a regular basis. Maybe the nightmares were a sign of a guilty conscience, that she should stop her less than stellar activities. Or maybe they meant that at some point, confronting her mother about them might finally happen.

  For now, Elena shied away from the notion, delivering the supplies to her cheery parents, and the clock, which her father grabbed eagerly, already placing it down to examine through an eyeglass he had plucked out of his waistcoat pocket.

  “Oh, thank you, darling,” Sue gushed. Her father, Arthur, gave a curt nod, still engrossed in examining the clock. Sue spoke enough for the both of them, and Arthur only liked to speak business and objects. Worse parents existed in the world, though, so Elena didn’t mind.

  Still running a little on the adrenaline of her last successful heist, Elena was eager for more missions. “Got any new jobs? Got any big new jobs?” Elena sat just behind their stall, eyeing the potential customers in their gaudy clothes and garish jewelry. It made them prime targets for the child thieves that roamed around the busy, chaotic streets, but people loved their material wealth and status.

  “You want a big one?” Her mother smiled at her, but the smile didn’t extend to her eyes. “I have one, but I wasn’t planning to take it. Seems rather risky.”

  “Okay then, spill. What’s the big one you’ve got all lined up?” Elena crowded her mother, a maniacal glint in her eye. “Bet you I can do it. Whatever it is. It pays a lot? It has to pay a lot.”

  “Calm your tushie,” Sue said, holding up her hands, smiling half in exasperation and half amusement. “We’ve got a contact from Albalon who reckons there’s a golden dragon’s egg up for grabs.”

  Golden? Both Elena’s eyebrows raised. “What, you mean like the egg’s made of gold?” Shit, that did sound good. Elena rocked on the heels of her feet, eager to hear more. She wanted a new mission. Something challenging, something valuable and worthwhile.

  “Yes. And the creature inside it is of immense value to collectors in other realms,” Sue continued. “A queen dragon. You have exotic collectors prepared to pay thousands, maybe even millions for a golden egg. The problem is…” Sue took the dramatic silence, and Elena willed her to go on. “The problem is that the egg is heavily guarded in one of the most fortified places in Albalon – the city of Bastion.”

  Elena barely heard the rest. Her brain fixated on millions, and all the dreams she’d had of finding some remote place on some remote planet somewhere, getting her house on the mountains. No longer working in the Realm Market, though she could drop in any time she wanted. Millions. To solidify her determination, she also felt the kick of compulsion in her stomach; the strange part of her magic that sometimes urged her to do something – and she’d learned never to question it. It was that simple. Feel a compulsion, follow it through. Trust the gut instinct, no matter the cost. “I’ll do it.”

  Her mother cut off with whatever else she was saying, puckering her lips in an almost disapproving way. “I won’t be coming with you. I’m getting too old for the big ones like this – my magic’s not what it used to be.”

  “That’s fine,” Elena said, already thinking about taking the Realm Market’s waygate to Albalon. There was a weak spot around twenty miles outside Bastion, one in the mountains next to River’s End, and one near Zorin’s capital city, so she’d have to make sure she didn’t accidentally take the wrong gate. “I imagine other people in the market will be considering taking the egg as well.”

  “Naturally,” her mother replied. “But none of them are shadow witches. So we have a distinct advantage.” She smiled now, brushing imaginary dust off Elena’s shoulders. “If you do get this egg, we’ll be sorted. We can pack up the stall here and then. Though I expect your father would want to keep running it, he does enjoy his little hobbies…” Sue shot a fond glance over at her husband, who was selling a packet of condoms to a shifty looking customer, with a tiny, scraggly beard on his chin.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” Elena said, brimming with confidence. As a shadow witch, she had a huge advantage. She’d be ahead of the curve. And she fully intended to retire early.

  * * *

  Elena embarked on her most daring thievery to
date, two days later, after renting an inn within Bastion nearest the castle – where the egg was supposedly kept. Sneaking past a veritable army of minions to steal a golden dragon egg might not have been one of Elena’s safest missions to date. But a gold egg – a queen egg, no less, sold for millions in certain realms. Private collectors salivated at the opportunity to be able to have such an exotic specimen.

  Or maybe they just wanted a really expensive omelet. Rich people did crazy things.

  Her shadow magic wrapped around like a blanket, shielding her from prying eyes, plunging her into a world of silence, where she passed unsuspecting people without them sensing anything, except for the perceptive individual, who might feel the tiny stirring of baby hairs at the back of their neck. Even though Elena had agreed with about half a second’s hesitation on grabbing this egg, a part of her wondered if it was a good idea. She knew the realm it came from, Albalon, was in the middle of a war campaign. Goodness, the Albanese who visited the Realm Market talked about it all the time – how the unicirim royals had slowly conquered the country, and were gathering to take back River’s End, the capital city overrun by dragons.

  They’d even managed to ally with some smaller type of dragon species, because apparently there could be nice dragons and not so nice dragons.

  The compulsion inside Elena purred. Telling her, in no uncertain terms, that today was the day to steal the egg. Everything led to this moment. If she didn’t steal today, her moment would pass.

  She didn’t know why she knew that, but deep in her bones, that conviction permeated. It had to be today.

  Being a powerful and silent shadow witch didn’t stop Elena from stubbing her toe on an offending piece of rock, hopping on one foot, and saying, “Shit,” as soldiers blurred past. But she kept going anyway.

  Yes, that was right. Shadow witch extraordinaire and occasional sneak-thief, still stubbing her feet a decade or so later after discovering said power. A power she shared with her mother, though her mom claimed she was getting too old for shenanigans. Anyway, the egg was located in Bastion’s castle, on the fourth floor, according to their informant. The castle’s concentration of soldiers was insane. She rubbed at her black gloved palm, fingers rubbing against the zig-zag pattern on her wrist, attempting to dispel the sudden itch erupting along the scarred flesh. It did that sometimes; itched like there were ants crawling under her skin. Her mother insisted that it was normal for phantom pains and sensations to occur over burn marks and other scars, and her mother always liked to show her scarred knee and state it could tell when rain was coming.

  Personally, Elena thought it was rather obvious to tell when rain was coming; just look out the window or glance upward and see if there were any angry clouds.

  She skated into the castle, passing dozens of guards, stopping briefly when she saw two people huddled together, one of them wearing the stereotypical Zorin witch facial markings, with long dark hair and a broody expression. The other’s bright red hair stood out like a fanfare, so Elena paused, still cloaked in her magic, to eavesdrop.

  She was nothing if not nosy.

  “No,” the witch with black smudges on her face was saying. “Absolutely not.”

  “I just think I could help...”

  “Keep your pointy little nose out of it, or you’ll wake up one day and find it missing. Hmm...” the dark haired witch seemed to look right at Elena, and Elena suppressed a gasp, even though she knew the witch shouldn’t be able to see or hear her. The other woman, probably a witch too, even though she didn’t have any obvious markings, seemed to sniff the air. Taste it.

  “Something’s wrong,” the red-head said. “I can feel it.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Mercifully, the dark haired witch turned away, back to her companion. “That hair on the back of your neck thing. I can’t explain it any other way.”

  “I might. It’s familiar...” the red-head paused. “You know that shadow witch, Thorn? It feels like her. It has that inky, tar like texture on my tongue...”

  Shit, shit, shit. Time to go. Elena rapidly hurried away. That wasn’t supposed to happen. People couldn’t sense her. No one sensed a shadow witch. That was just how it worked. She wore the magic, it cloaked her, and even if she breathed down their necks, they still remained oblivious.

  “Someone’s panicking,” the red-head said, nose twitching like a sniffer-dog. “Feels like they don’t have control of all their magic. It’s practically leaking out of them.” Another jolt of panic went through Elena as she dashed up the stairs, scooting past guards, still trying to wrap her head around the impossibility.

  Whatever magic those two had, she didn’t want to stick around and find out. Also, she was an idiot, dawdling and snooping when she could have already been staggering out with the egg.

  Thoughts of calling off the mission drowned themselves in that peculiar compulsion, which strengthened the closer she got to her destination. She also tossed a few good reasons to continue with her egg theft. Dragon egg. Millions in payment. No more sneaking around and thieving for her. She could go, find a nice realm to settle on, live in her little hermit hut in the middle of nowhere, and scare wayward children who came wandering into the forest, until they made up fairy tales about the witch in the woods. All that was just one spectacular steal away. Nice life, quiet life, until she got random urges to sneak into places and take things for the hell of it. Damnit, she was twenty-seven now, she didn’t have to keep helping with her parent’s business. Even if she did get a thrill out of successful heists.

  Even if it was comfortable and easy to be told what to do. Easy for her to sit around and smell the roses until her mother presented a new job from her numerous contacts, and off Elena went.

  This contract, though… it just felt right.

  Top floor. She probed at her magic, satisfied to feel it more than capable of concealing her for hours. She was stronger than her mother, though her mother preferred to joke it was all down to the high protein diet and exercise.

  A room with furnaces. Heat for the egg. Elena found it past no less than four guards, with an open door, and what seemed to be a fire witch gently coaxing flames in a room with practically enough heat to melt a pot. The heat slammed into Elena, and shit, even her protective gloves might not be enough if the egg resembled this heat in any shape or form. Furnaces lined the room, all on and smoldering, with vents that allowed the heat and dangerous gases to filter out. The egg itself sat in a pot, above a kind of pit fire, a slight rosy glow to its otherwise golden, smooth surface.

  Just as she reached for her baton, tucked into her belt, preparing to knock out the fire witch so she could grab and run with the egg, something blurred behind the unfortunate woman. A flicker of darkness coalescing into a humanoid form. A tall, muscular man dressed in skin tight black clothes. With a club in his hand.

  Crack. The fire witch dropped like a stone, the blow to her temple knocking her out cold. The man, grinning, tucked his club into his belt, and reached with gloved hands to the egg. Grasping it from the pot and holding it tight.

  Elena, still perfectly concealed, stared at him, utterly confounded, breath trapped in her lungs. Something in her stirred, some foreign sensation at the closeness of him.

  Another shadow user? Stealing the egg at the exact same moment she was? What in actual fuck.

  Also, how dare he.

  That was her egg! Before he flared up his magic, ripping him out of the realm of sensory detection, she lunged, flaring into visibility to grapple the egg from his hands, in front of his surprised and dumb face.

  “What,” he said, just before she smiled and cloaked her clearly superior magic over herself and the egg.

  “No,” he added, scrabbling at the place where she’d vanished. His magic flared up, and Elena was too slow to stop him grasping her arm. She hadn’t moved in time, so his magic pulled her out of her own private bubble.

  “That’s my egg,” he snarled, squeezing her arm painfully, and both of them flickered into visibility, b
efore returning back into the shadows. They continued to grapple, attempting to overpower each other whilst simultaneously avoiding damage to the egg.

  “Careful, you fool,” she snapped, “you want to break the damn thing?” He pushed at her, desperate to grab the large and warm dragon egg, which seemed to vibrate in her arms. Her back hit the wall, and she almost dropped it. “Fuck off.”

  “Fool? What the fuck are you doing here? Why are you here?” He clung by the scruff of her shirt with one arm, reaching for his club with the other. His thigh wedged between her thighs, and a hiss escaped her lips from the sudden lick of warmth across her skin. He paused in his actions, eyes wide and detectable even with the shadow magic caressing them both. His stubbled jaw hung open in surprise.

  She took the opportunity to bash him in that stubbled jaw with her elbow, and he stumbled backwards, spitting and cursing – but kept a hold of her shirt.

  “Lady, I’d really rather not kill you and break the egg, but you’re leaving me no choice here.”

  “Wait!” she blurted it, and he froze once more upon reaching for his club. “Can we talk this out? Like… we’re both shadow witches. We’re both after the egg. Maybe we can… escape with it together?”

  “Sure,” he said with a mirthless laugh. “Just as long as until one of us backstabs the other, right?”

  “Oh, you’re planning to backstab, are you?”

  He let out a growl, his fingers tightly wound in her shirt, and his face hovered inches from her own. Both of them stopped talking for that split second, just staring into the shadows of their eyes. Wrapped in the magic, the color was indiscernible. She felt his breath upon her lips. “Who’s your employer?”

  “Why, you going to tell me yours?”

  Another pause. “Ugh,” he finally said. “Okay. Let’s just… let’s leave. Truce until we’re out of Bastion. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she said, instantly scheming how to keep the egg. Because she refused to surrender it to him, and refused to stay in a vulnerable position where she might be backstabbed.