Page 18

What was this place?

Over the slope of the hill, half a dozen black horses thundered toward me. Riders, hooded in dark cloaks, sat atop their back, and in the back was a silver coach. Even beneath the dreary sky, the doors and top seemed to shimmer like a rough-cut diamond.

The royal guards, that was what one thief had named them.

There were royals here? Obviously. If I’d been tossed back in time, there would be a monarchy. Then again, did the Middle Ages have highwaymen who disappeared and interesting old ladies who spoke to mushrooms without getting hung or tortured?

The lead rider tugged back on reins, woven in silver like the coach, and tossed back his heavy woolen hood. “Milady, are you unwell?”

His voice was sultry and low. Not a brogue as low and growly as the thief—hell, if he hadn’t robbed me, I could’ve listened to that ass all day—but still delightful.

“Um . . .” My voice died beneath a vicious clap of thunder. Tomy mortification, as though I were an infant, I shrieked, covering my mouth with my hands.

“Goddess of all,” the rider said with a subtle gasp. “If I might ask, milady, which land do you claim as yours?”

I couldn’t exactly say I fell from a casino into the forest, and I had enough practice with daydreaming during the fairs back home, I made my origins sound perfectly medieval. “I hail from a small, uh, sea village, Isle of Vegas.”

The rider arched a brow. “I do not know that term. Is it in Terrea, or perhaps . . .” He paused, as though selecting his words with care. “The world of mortals?”

I hesitated, but with the soothing brown of his gaze, so warm and kind, I took a risk. “It . . . might be.”

He cracked a grin. “I hardly know what to say. It’s truly happened.”

When I kicked my gaze to the rider, his gaze was pinned on my fingers, on my tattoos. I hid them behind my back in the next breath. “Look, guys, I really don’t know where I am. It’s honestly getting cold, but if you could point me in the direction of, I don’t know what you’d call it here—a quaint inn—I would be grateful.”

Without a response, the rider quit his horse.

Buckles on his knee-high boots clinked, and his hand—shit—rested on the pommel of a spectacularly authentic looking sword. Runes were etched in gold down the center of the blade, and the hilt was wrapped in crystals and what looked a great deal like bone.

Bone.

The rider held out one hand, as though mutely asking for mine. Wildly, my logic beat against me, but instinct left me curiously at ease around his gentle eyes.

He traced a subtle ring that encircled the center rune tattoo on the top of my hand. “You bear the seal of the Ravenwood House.”

“That’s my last name, but what’s Ravenwood House?” The rider took a step closer. I took a step back.

“The first house of the mage,” he said, a furrow to his brow. “His Highness assured us the House of Ravenwood would live again this season. I hardly know what to think.”

I knew the feeling.

Maybe it would’ve been better to go with the thieves. They at least spoke in absolutes. I knew exactly what they wanted, and they didn’t mince words.

I jolted back a bit when the rider, all at once, lowered to one knee, his head bowed. “Milady, it would be my honor to escort you to the palace. Our prince will be most anxious to meet you.”

This was madness, a complete delusion, but it was mine for the foreseeable future. If I’d learned one thing from Lloyd, it was never let an opportunity pass you by. Out here, it was frosty, a brutal storm seemed content to swallow us up, and I had no shoes.

This guy was offering me a carriage, a palace, and a prince with whom I might be able to ask no less than a thousand questions. If said prince turned out to be an absolute douche, well, I’d dealt with plenty and prided myself on knowing how to slip out of locked rooms like a damn phantom.

An opportunity. Was I confused? Hell, yes. Did I only have two options—one being much more comfortable than the other? Absolutely.

“Sure,” I said after a long pause. “I’d, um, love to meet your prince.”

The guard beamed and stood. His face was one of those honorable faces—kind features, but stern. The sort of guy I’d imagine would save pretty damsels from towers, or never let a woman think of opening her own door.

Older than me by a decade or so, he didn’t seem like a scumbag. I’d met plenty and had a pretty solid gauge on dirtbag behavior, a reason I was rather perplexed why the thief had stirred something, a heat, a desire, so deep inside it was a foreign sensation. As though a part of me awakened and craved his stupidly broad figure to come a little closer.

I prayed I’d never have to meet him again. The way he’d muddled my brain with his scent of rain and something rough like leather and soil, and his stupid, growly voice, were things I’d like to avoid.