Magick by Moonrise Read online

  Magick by Moonrise

  By Laura Navarre

  Tudor England, 1556

  A religious war is brewing. The Catholic Church relies on the ruthless reputation of Lord Beltran Nemesto, who tirelessly hunts down those who don’t believe or who practice dark arts.

  Half mortal, half Fae princess, Rhiannon le Fay is a healer trying to broker peace between the Faerie and mortal worlds. The Convergence is approaching, an occurrence every thousand years where the Veil that separates the two realms temporarily dissolves. Without her help, war between the two is inevitable.

  After meeting Rhiannon, Beltran knows he must bring her to justice, but he’s instantly attracted to the ethereal beauty. She forces him to confront his beliefs and introduces him to the Faerie world, and in the process he discovers a haunting truth about himself.

  As the Convergence nears, Rhiannon and Beltran must decide where their loyalties lie as they fight to prevent a war that could destroy both of their worlds forever.

  Book one of The Magick Trilogy.

  88,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  It’s a known truth among the people who have to nag me to meet the deadline on these letters that I get writer’s block when I sit down to write them. I’m always excited to tell you about what’s in store for the month, but I often get stuck figuring out how to start it off. So these letters are always late (sorry, people in production!). I had particularly bad writer’s block this month, so I was especially impressed when I realized that this March, all of the authors with books releasing at Carina Press have written multiple books, and many of them have long careers in writing. How do these authors do it, writing multiple books a year, for years, creating new worlds, new characters and unique stories? It’s amazing to me, even after ten years in this industry, that there are people with this gift. And I’ll admit it, I’m a little jealous they have that gift. But I’m thrilled to introduce you to the books releasing this month from these incredible authors.

  I know it’s a little past Valentine’s Day, but it’s always time for chocolate and romance, and Christi Barth brings us both in A Fine Romance, the second contemporary romance in her Aisle Bound series. And if you missed the first book, Planning for Love, make sure to grab that as well!

  We have six! other authors joining Christi with sequels. Lynda Aicher heats up the pages with an emotionally gripping, smokin’ hot BDSM romance, Bonds of Need. Dee Carney also offers up lust and love in one package in her erotic paranormal romance sequel, Hunger Awakened.

  Veteran author Vivi Anna brings us The League of Illusion: Prophecy, a steampunk romance with an illusionist, a hunt for a missing brother, an incomplete map and a psychic! Relative newcomer Nicole Luiken follows up her debut fantasy romance, Gate to Kandrith, with the second in this duology and the conclusion to the story, Soul of Kandrith.

  R.L. Naquin offers the sequel to Monster in My Closet, her debut novel. In Pooka in My Pantry, empath Zoey Donovan is marked for pickup by Death. But when she refuses to die on schedule, she has a to-die-for reaper to deal with. And watch the battle of wills between a female gunship pilot and a combat controller hero in romantic suspense Tactical Strike by Kaylea Cross. Kaylea’s first book in this series, Deadly Descent, remains one of Carina Press readers’ favorite romantic suspenses!

  Alyssa Everett follows up her debut offering, Ruined by Rumor, with a new historical romance, though it’s not a sequel. In Lord of Secrets, he’s her new husband…and he’s strangely reluctant to consummate the marriage. What secrets are keeping them apart, and keeping him from her bed? If you like your historical romance with a paranormal twist, returning author Laura Navarre brings us Magick by Moonrise, which combines Tudor England with the Faerie kingdom of Camelot. When the two worlds collide, can a fallen angel’s passion for an innocent Faerie princess save both realms from destruction?

  Carina Press authors W. Soliman and Cindy Spencer Pape both return with installments in their ongoing series. In Lethal Business, W. Soliman brings us back to The Hunter Files with another Charlie Hunter mystery, where Charlie must answer the question: “Why kill the survivors of a sinking ship?” And Cindy Spencer Pape continues her popular steampunk romance series, The Gaslight Chronicles, with Cards & Caravans. Knight of the Round Table Connor MacKay has met his match in fortune-teller Belinda Danvers.

  Last, this month we welcome to Carina Press contemporary romance author Kate Davies with the first in her Girls Most Likely to… trilogy, Most Likely to Succeed. Though Kate is new to Carina, she and I have worked together as author/editor for years, and I’m happy to have her writing for Carina Press. I hope you enjoy Kate’s charming contemporary voice as much as I do.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication

  Every writer is blessed with her own guardian

  angels—those generous souls who provide critical

  encouragement and belief even when all hope seems lost. For this book, my guardian angels were talented author and mentor Leigh Michaels and my agent

  JD DeWitt at The View Literary Agency.

  As for the literal angel in this book, burning with

  determination and integrity, my inspiration is always Steven—my own real-life hero.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Tudor England, April 1556

  Torrential rains lashed the countryside with cataclysmic force, a mighty river pouring from angry clouds to punish the drowning lands. The deluge pounded the frost-nipped forest, stripped away pearl-gray daylight and churned the English soil into a sucking sea of mud. Through this treacherous mire, their valiant steeds galloped full out.

  Rhiannon twisted to slant a desperate glance behind her, where the last of her defenders hammered at her heels. Faithful unto death, just as they’d sworn before the Goddess, no matter their hidden misgivings about this dangerous mission.

  From the rear, a horse’s whinny pierced her like an arrow—the familiar timbre of Nin
eve, the white mare she’d raised from a foal.

  An angry growl of thunder muffled the rider’s shout of despair as he tumbled from Nineve’s saddle. Rhiannon felt the lightning crack of pain through her own tender flesh as his shoulder struck the ground with crushing force. Her heart nearly stopping, she cried out as though stricken herself.

  “Halt!” Healer’s instincts taking over, she struggled to slow her panicked mare.

  “Nay, princess!” her foster-father shouted, pounding alongside. “Those brigands are but a breath behind. The devils ride as if hell-spawned.”

  “But Nineve and Cynyr—I will not abandon our friends.” Violently she shook her head, damp tendrils of silver hair flying around her shoulders. “Halt, I command it!”

  “Nay, child.” Lord Ansgar Emrys gripped her bridle in his gauntlet and urged the mare on. “Your safety must be our paramount concern. Cynyr himself would be the first to say so.”

  As their flight opened distance between her and the fallen, the searing bolt of pain eased, until her own healer’s bones no longer throbbed with Cynyr’s agony. But she would hear Nineve trumpeting for help until the day she died.

  Cynyr could save them both if he kept the presence of mind to summon the Veil, thicken the mist swirling among the ancient oaks and wish himself back to Faerie. But nothing could mend bones snapped like kindling, save time and her own healing touch.

  Tears of sorrow stung her rain-washed eyes, because Rhiannon knew her foster-father was right. If they were overtaken by that howling band of brigands—the horde who’d come ravening down on them from nowhere the moment they cleared the Veil, and hunted them for three days as though bewitched—if they were captured, all her friends’ precious lives would be lost in vain.

  Only four of us left. A pang of grief and terror stabbed through her. Goddess, will they all fall—all those faithful souls who believed in me enough to follow me from Faerie? Every one of the stalwart seven she’d lost tore her heart anew.

  But she would honor their sacrifice. Later she would grieve for them, those shining souls who should have lived forever, their immortal lives cut cruelly short by the sword. If she survived, she would never cease grieving them.

  But they’d made their choices just as she made hers, sworn to preserve the fragile peace between the mortal realm and the Summer Lands behind the Veil where the Fae dwelled. She’d sworn to reach Catholic Queen Mary at the Tudor court, to deliver the precious treaty the Faerie Queene had crafted, to trigger the spell that would bind mortals and Fae to an enchanted peace. The desperate scheme had been Rhiannon’s, the Faerie magick her royal mother’s—and nearly every high noble at her court violently opposed the plan.

  If Rhiannon failed to reach the Tudor Queen and persuade her to sign, the enchanted peace could not be triggered, and both realms would bleed. And as the Faerie realm faded, so too did the Faerie Queene. The bloody tide of war would rage between the realms and sweep Rhiannon’s mother from the throne. Then the Convergence would be upon them: the apocalyptic clash between mortals and Fae that erupted every thousand years when their twin realms, like ships on the sea of time, drifted too close in the mist between the worlds and collided in the night.

  Beneath her, mist-gray Astolat stumbled and nearly went down. Rhiannon clung like a burr to her saddle, grimly ignoring the dull ache in her back and thighs.

  It was the gray mare’s keen senses—that sudden veer of alarm, the startled prick of ears—that alerted her to the trap: a ragged line of horsemen, carnival-bright in a muddy patchwork of stolen finery, spread across the track before them. With a shout, Lord Ansgar wheeled their brave little band in a tight jostling arc, away from this new peril.

  His stolid strength supported her, as he’d always done. Beneath a thatch of gray-streaked black curls, cropped short in the Roman style, her foster-father’s eyes flashed steel. Swiftly he scanned the gnarled oaks looming over them, too tangled for passage, storm-tossed branches lashing in the tempest.

  “Too late,” Rhiannon whispered. “They’ve found us.”

  Now the twisting road behind them filled with a black tide of men. Seeing their prey brought to bay, the pack slowed, horses jostling between the high sloping banks of the Queen’s Highway.

  Chilled through from their desperate flight through this bewildering, half-drowned land, her hands turned to ice. Trepidation fluttered in her chest and knotted her stomach as she searched the harsh faces that ringed them.

  “Trapped!” Ansgar cursed. His wicked saber flashed into view. He held the blade slantwise before them, cold fire burning in his lined features. In that instant, her foster-father was the knight of legend once more—the divine spear, the Queen’s champion. Except that the Queen he’d loved in his mortal life was a thousand years dead, and now his sword was Rhiannon’s.

  Still, he was mortal. Blessed by the Faerie Queene with long life, he could yet die by violence—just as they all could. Lord and Lady, this will be a massacre. Our quest shall fail, and my people drown in blood and darkness.

  The steel of resolve stiffened her spine. Tilting her chin, she spurred Astolat forward from the thin protection of their huddled quartet. Rashly she tossed aside her hood to bare her head. Sleet stung her face, drenching the pale ringlets that slipped from her coronet.

  “Why do you hunt us through this realm like animals?” Her brave question echoed through the trees, words strong, voice shaking as she summoned the foreign mortal phrases. “We have done naught to thee. Indeed, we are strangers to this land, traveling the Queen’s Highway on a diplomatic mission to the Queen’s own Grace. For the sake of both our realms, I command thee, let us pass!”

  Through sinking heart, she glimpsed no flicker of compassion in the ring of filthy faces, no trace of comprehension though she spoke clear English, even if her dialect was ages old. Truly, these mortals must be little better than beasts, just as her full-blooded Fae sister Morrigan always taunted her.

  For Rhiannon bore their blood, her half-mortal strain mixed with the blood royal of Faerie. Surely, she could make them understand her—

  Among a tall stand of firs on the high bank, a flash of movement drew her eye, where a ragged brigand knelt. She barely recognized the weapon stretched between his arms before the resonant thrum of a bowstring propelled the arrow toward her. Wildly she flung herself flat against Astolat’s neck. The clothyard shaft buried itself in her saddle, a handspan from her thigh.

  Despite her fierce determination to betray no fear, Rhiannon flinched from the terrible weapon.

  “Unchivalrous cur, to attack a lady!” Lord Ansgar spurred before her, a blur of motion wrapped in swirling wool, mailed hauberk glittering as his arm snapped forward. Silver streaked through the air. With a gurgling cry, her attacker toppled from the bank into the road, the knight’s dagger sprouting from his chest.

  As though the stroke had unleashed them, the pack of human wolves howled and leaped toward them. High on the bank, more ragged figures slunk into view. Nearby, her companion Lady Linnet Norwood uttered a cry of dismay.

  Merciful Goddess, this blind pursuit is unnatural. Even beasts would seek shelter in this unrelenting gale. Do mortals so thirst for blood, or is this Morrigan’s doing?

  Suddenly her skin tingled, hair rising along
her forearms with an electric charge. The air glowed blue around her. Then a blinding flash turned the forest white as a sizzling bolt of lightning slammed into a stately poplar. Horses screamed as the percussive crack of wood tore the air.

  Astolat shied and reared, forelegs churning the air. Desperately Rhiannon flung her arms around the mare’s neck and let her scramble where she would, away from the smoking leviathan that swayed dangerously above.

  The deep groan of wood sent men scattering in all directions, away from the massive shadow blotting out the heavens. The lightning-blasted tree slammed through a thicket of branches, smashing them to splinters and crashing across the road. Somewhere, lost in rain and darkness, a man’s shrill scream cut short.

  Rhiannon huddled in her saddle and shuddered, sodden mantle doing nothing to warm her frozen flesh. For one dreadful moment, her head swirled.

  Lord Ansgar gripped her arm, hauling her upright. “There, into the trees, child!”

  Peering through the rain-lashed twilight, she spied the dark gap the fallen tree had made, beating down the high bank between road and forest. Astolat needed no second urging, but pounded into the darkness as though devil-driven.

  * * *

  So this was how it ended. She’d led them all to their deaths.

  Rhiannon battled the rising tide of despair and stared at the turbulent river, tumbling in angry white eddies over jagged rocks too treacherous to cross. To her left rose a jumble of mossy rocks. To her right, a thorny thicket barred any passage. Behind, their pursuers were closing in.

  Ansgar, at least, would go down fighting. Bravely his silver blade rang against steel, over the rush of rapids and the patter of rain. She, too, must arm herself.

  Heart beating in her throat, Rhiannon reached for a sturdy oaken limb. The branch rooted deep in its mother tree, but she closed her eyes and whispered to the wood her desperate need. At last the branch yielded, coming away in her hand—the sort of minor magick she could sometimes summon, but rarely control. Beneath her touch, the barren bough flowered into unseasonable green.