Page 1 of The Crimson Princess (The Ravengale Chronicles #1)

Chapter one

Sophia Ravengale

T he king demands attention when he walks into a room.

He is, after all, the King Killian, ruler of Ravengale and worlds beyond.

The problem for me as his wife is how much he enjoys the attention of a female persuasion despite professing his love for me at every turn.

At times I even convince myself I’ve accepted his ways, while at others, mornings such as this one when he’s been out all night, I struggle to find peace.

It’s in these tormented times that I seek sanctuary in the castle’s gardens.

I’ve done just that this day, absorbed in the task of tending the stunning emerald petals of a bush of allos, a flower similar to the roses in the human realm but far more lustrous, when I sense Killian’s approach.

I don’t immediately lift my stare, resisting the reunion that forces me to choose confrontation over my empty bed or feign neutrality.

I draw in a breath, the scent of sweet buds teasing my nostrils and steel myself for his certain reprimands over how I’ve chosen to spend my time.

He believes gardening to be beneath our queen.

He doesn’t understand the peace it brings me to dally about amongst the blossoming flowers, the way it makes me feel like the normal girl who grew up in a village of commoners, helping my adopted mother grow fruits and vegetables.

I’d been five when my family had found me by the magical Azure River, near their home, and they’d taken me in, offering me shelter and love.

Awareness rushes over me and I rotate to find him standing an arm’s length away.

I swear after centuries of loving this man, his masculine beauty still manages to steal my breath and weaken my knees.

I remember the day I met him. I’d attended a ball at the castle with my adopted brother, who at that time served in the royal guard.

Killian had always been a legend whispered about in my village, the king who killed the evil druid, Macklemore.

And he's not disappointed. He was, as he is now, devastatingly handsome, with thick dark hair, and the body of a warrior. The hint of emerald thread in his black overcoats he favors, the same green of his striking eyes. Eyes that declare him highborn while my own are the solid purple of a sage. The only reason I’m accepted as his queen is the anomaly of the powerful magic I wield, for someone of a lesser class.

The moment Killian had seen me, he’d approached me, claimed my hand in his bigger one, and declared me the most beautiful brown-haired goddess of all the lands.

But we aren’t the same as we once were anymore.

He’s not the same. He’s more distant, more king than husband, and I cling to the moments when tenderness dances in his eyes for me, as glorious as the first glimpse of sunlight on a new day.

“My queen,” he greets. “Why are you in the gardens, yet again?”

I set the tool in my hand on a small table.

“I’m training with Satima this afternoon on her combat skills.

She’s rather excited about the Challenge next month, as if we’d actually let our daughter attend at this age.

” The Challenge is a fierce competition, held once every ten years.

A necessary process after our eight-hundred-year-old war with the druids ripped open portals leading to Third World in places outside of Ravengale.

No one wants the criminals and monsters of Third World escaping no matter where that may originate. Ever.

“That’s what I wanted to talk about. I want her to attend.”

My lips part in shock and my rejection follows. “No. Some who compete will die. And not gently. She’s too young to witness such things.”

“She’s thirteen. The next Challenge won’t be until she’s twenty-three and she cannot wait that long to understand life and death or she will end up dead. And she’s merely attending. We have a fifteen-year-old competing in the Challenge this year.”

“Two years is a long time,” I argue. “It’s time to gain the maturity she does not have now. And why would the Book of Life name a fifteen-year-old?”

“I don’t write the names in the book. I don’t know why, but the book has a reason. You know that. There is always a reason, a purpose, even if we don’t know it yet. And if we don’t involve Satima now, it will be ten years before she has this exposure. That’s too long.”

“She’s learning to use her magic,” I argue. “We’re training her . She does not need to learn to kill anyone or anything at thirteen.”

“But fifteen is fine?”

“I never said that. In fact, I said the opposite. You’re such an arrogant jerk sometimes, Killian. Spare her every year possible. She’s our daughter. And you sent my family away. She’s all I have.”

His arm folds around me and he pulls me hard against him. “You have me. You will always have me.”

“Do I?”

He strokes my hair from my face, his touch gentle, that tenderness I crave in him sending a shiver down my spine. “Always. You are everything to me. And I only sent your family away to protect them. You know that. There are people who would use them against you and me.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss them. I want to visit them.”

“After the Challenge. I’ll make it happen but we have to be careful how we do it.”

Joy fills me with this promise. “Yes. However, we have to do it. Killian—”

“She’s going to the Challenge.” He sets me away from him, but his hands press warmly to my shoulders.

“It’s what’s best for her. That means it’s what’s best for us.

Knowledge is power and protection.” His tone is final and his hands fall away.

“I’m headed to a meeting with the council.

I may be late.” With that, he turns and walks away and I sink down on a nearby chair in defeat.

I will happily battle any enemy who challenges me, but I cannot battle my own husband, our king.

In the darkness there is no light. Only loneliness.

It only takes a few nights for Killian to return to his old ways.

It’s nearly dawn as I lay in the magnificent bed of the king who’d once seduced me and enchanted me, thinking about how we ended up a royal mess.

Perhaps I should have seen this coming. I’d been a young woman, with stars in my eyes, and love had blossomed in my heart.

To earn Killian’s attention had felt as magical as the gift of life, and I knew that from the moment I said yes to marrying him each day would be magically blessed from sunrise to sunset.

I’d felt deserving of my title—queen of Ravengale.

Now I am but a placeholder who sits on the throne beside him and tolerates his dalliances as well as one would a blade in one’s belly.

He denies there are other women, more so with his actions than his words, but he smells of them, and worse, he tastes of them.

He looks upon me with love in his eyes and hunger in his limbs, but I am never enough, and how I ever believed a girl who grew up a commoner such as myself would sate such an appetite as his, I do not know.

The door opens, signaling his arrival, and my heart leaps and then tap dances on the cavern of my chest.

I roll to my side, feigning slumber, and when the heavy weight of his warrior body finally settles on the edge of the mattress, my nostrils burn with the feminine scent of jasmine lacing the air.

Resentment is the spawn of my anger I battle to contain and somehow win.

Can he not at least bathe her off of him before he comes to bed with me?

There’s a shift of the bed, and I can feel his body heat beneath the blanket.

And when he wraps himself around me and nuzzles my neck, his breath a warm tickle on my delicate flesh, I barely resist him.

He is ever so good at his seduction, with the way his mouth caresses my skin and my lips, and soon the sickening scent of jasmine begins to smell like me.

I am lost in him—in his male beauty, his power, his magic, and mayhem. I moan for him, tremble for him.

I forget the other woman.

Almost.

When morning arrives, I blink awake to an empty bed and the hum of a body, my body , owned by my king.

While this idea once aroused me, it humiliates me now.

But there is no time or allowance that forgives me for wallowing in self-pity, especially by myself.

I was an orphaned commoner when I met Killian, and my life has been blessed in ways I will not take for granted.

I am the queen, no matter how disgraced I may be in the eyes of myself and others, and I will hold my head high and flex the magic my commoner upbringing declares impossible for me to possess.

I am an anomaly in every way, and my connection to the lesser class lifts them up and tears down walls.

I might not have earned Killian’s undying devotion, but I know I have his respect.

I throw away the silk blankets and push to my feet, naked where I stand, as Killian would have it no other way.

I scoop up my robe from the corner chair and slip it into place.

That’s when I hear the door to my room open, and a few moments later Satima rather sullenly appears in my view.

Killian would complain that knocking is a proper and polite skill to acquire, but considering I’m now decent, I don’t mind .

“Morning, mama,” she greets, her long dark brown hair pulled back at her nape.

“Morning, honey.” I tilt my chin down and study her. “What’s wrong?”

“Today’s the day,” she says, her eyes filled with apprehension. The glorious rich emerald of her eyes declaring her ancient, royal ancestry. Her father’s eyes. She perches on the edge of the mattress, “My first Challenge ever. The day shadows and guardians are chosen.”