King Of Shadows: The Shadowcrown Duet Read online

  King Of Shadows Copyright © 2019 Kay Elle Parker

  Published by Kay Elle Parker. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published by Kay Elle Parker on March 15th 2019

  Cover Design © Jodielocks Designs

  This book is intended for a mature audience only.

  Dedications

  To my own dark prince who gained his wings far too soon on a cold winter’s night...I hope you flew high and far away from your pain. I love you. I miss you.

  To my beta team who, as usual, are my most prized writing resource...I love you guys, I probably don’t tell you that often enough. You are invaluable to me.

  To my readers and friends...I couldn’t take this journey without you by my side. Thank you for all your support and encouragement. Here’s to the next ten books!

  King Of Shadows

  The Shadowcrown Duet Book One

  Prologue

  “We have scoured the lands, my Lord. Cavern to crevice and every inch between. There is no sign of your beloved. No tongue willing to talk despite whatever torture we threaten and execute.” The minion in front of him cowered in expectation of a blow, and Kian couldn’t really blame the soulless bastard. “She has either found a way to escape the realm, or her allies are more committed to her than to...”

  The minion trailed off, realizing its error, and Kian ran his tongue over his teeth. Any moment now...ah yes, there it was. The sweet, gratifying smell of fear and urine rolled into one unfortunate mess. A mess he had no patience to deal with.

  Kian studied the hapless minion, one of tens of millions under his rule, and sighed at the pitiful terror on the gray-skinned demon’s deformed features. Just once, he would appreciate a minion with a backbone, with some small iota of intelligence. Instead, the breeding caves gave him nothing but stupidity and ineptitude.

  “They are more committed to Allianna than they are to me,” Kian completed the sentence with a deadly-soft laugh. A laugh that usually signaled the unleashing of the beast inside the man. “How many allies have you discovered willing to shield her from me?”

  The minion swallowed hard. “Seven priests, my Lord. Three wenches from the barracks, and two Shadow warriors.”

  Fury throbbed in the chamber like a Bodhrán drum. Rising slowly, Kian gained his feet and towered over the minion, plucking it from its feet and dangling it in front of him. More urine ran down its legs from its miniscule cock, and it whimpered.

  “Take the priests and the wenches to Islador. He will see to it they spill whatever secrets they hide. As for the warriors...” Kian felt his ire rise like a dragon, ready to rip out throats and shed blood like water. “Who would dare step out against me?”

  The minion squeaked. “I-I-I-”

  He shook it until bones rattled and teeth clacked together. Barely restraining himself from flinging the unfortunate creature into the nearest wall, Kian bared his teeth. “Tell me which of my trusted soldiers saw fit to betray me, rat, before I strip the knowledge from your brain myself.”

  “Sire, I...Ferken!” It squealed frantically as Kian’s grip tightened. “Ferken and Daffed, my Lord!”

  Trusted soldiers indeed. Trusted soldiers Kian himself had put in charge of the safety of his treasured future queen. His hands became vises, imagining ripping the hearts of the traitors from their chests and devouring them, painting his chest with their blood, before feeding their carcasses to his favored hounds.

  The minion, body not resilient enough to withstand the outpouring of rage from the Lord of Shadows, exploded with a scream between unforgiving fists. Blood and gore coated man and stone in a ten-foot radius, steaming in the cool air.

  Disgusted, Kian dropped the squashed remnants and stood seething with livid fury as more minions scurried from the shadows like ants to clean up the bloody chaos, his mind whirling a thousand times per second as he plotted and planned.

  So, his precious blooming rose thought she could flee from him so close to their bonding time, did she? He hadn’t waited damn near a quarter of a century for her to mature to his specifications, only for her to use his own men against him and disappear.

  Her destiny was firmly entwined with his, and his was of the highest priority. Once Kian wedded and bedded her, his seed anointing every one of her holes, he would no longer be a Lord. Once her belly rounded with his child, he would be the King of Shadows, overseer of every facet of hell, and Allianna would be his Queen.

  If she lived that long after this pathetic stunt.

  All he needed was a prince. One solitary boy child to fulfil the prophecy, and the white-haired, blue-eyed daughter of his greatest enemy would no longer be his problem. He’d give her to his soldiers, he mused as he stormed from his chambers, and then to his hounds.

  His blooming rose would whine and howl like the bitch she was born to be.

  Chapter One

  Three Months Later

  Hiding in plain sight was a lot easier to do in the company of like-minded individuals, Allianna had discovered not long after her escape into the mortal realm. Everyone here seemed to keep their heads down, themselves to themselves, and their appearances changed on a deceptively rapid basis. Which suited her perfectly.

  Clutching a bag of groceries to her chest, she kept her face averted but her eyes and senses on full alert. When the portal from the Shadow realm dumped her out, she had no idea where she was, or what to do. Years of captivity in a magical prison did strange things to a person’s head, she’d found out quickly. Doors didn’t solidify into stone after someone walked through it, and she had the option of allowing people into her own space.

  Food didn’t just randomly appear on the stone slab beside her bed—it had to be made and dished out, and of all the wonders of this realm, she could choose what she wanted to eat. Her lips twitched as she recalled the hot cheese and herbs of a delight the mortals called pizza. Yes, she liked the pizza, and liked the hot dog. Although for the life of her, she couldn’t understand why it would be called such a thing when it resembled neither the shape nor taste of a dog.

  Hurrying, she followed the surge of people going in the direction of her humble abode. Only a small place, not dissimilar to the one she’d been kept and nurtured in for twenty-four years, but it was hers. One room that served as bedroom and living room, the smallest of kitchens and an even smaller bathroom. Her haven, her safety.

  Why do you run from me, my precious rose?

  Alli shuddered as Kian’s voice trickled into her mind, a new trick he’d learned, and wove seduction through her resolve not to return to the Shadow realm. The man she thought of as a father, a brother, her only family, had raised her to be nothing more than his path to ruling the hell that was the Shadow realms.

  A beautiful monster with love in his eyes whenever he looked at her, adoration in his voice when he talked. But his mind...the vo
ice in his mind was another entity altogether and one he didn’t fight but embraced like a brother. That voice was his true identity, the power-hungry demon who wanted her stripped and bare and swollen with a child she didn’t want born into a sinful world.

  A sense of foreboding skimmed down her spine, bringing her gaze up to scan her surroundings. It took her a few moments to notice two anomalies in her world—the first being the street vendor to her left. Usually it was a young man, early-twenties, with a little goatee and shoulder-length hair he dyed the same color. Purple, yellow, green, blue. There was never a reason or a rhyme to when he changed it but change it did on a regular basis.

  Today his spot was taken by an older man, fifties, paunch, and eyes watching the faces passing by him more than the customers trying to catch his attention. Eyes shadowed by the brim of a Yankees cap drawn low over his brow.

  Alli swallowed and kept her head down, grateful she’d had the foresight to dye her own hair weeks ago. Her natural white blonde was nothing but a target on her back, and she’d eradicated it by turning it ebony with streaks of muted purple. She knew if she got close enough to the man, close enough to see his eyes up close, they wouldn’t just be shadowed by the cap.

  Kian’s soldiers often had their sight stolen for periods of time by their Lord while he surveyed a situation. Connected to him through more than physical bonds, they were nothing more than an expendable tool to him.

  Much like she was.

  She might have spent her life in captivity, raised like a princess by the hand of the devil, but that did not mean she was incapable of thinking for herself or defending herself. That was a valuable lesson she’d learned only an hour or so after she found herself alone, cold and vulnerable in a city of thieves, rapists and murderers.

  Turned out she was strong, she was mean, and she was lethal when cornered. The body parts she’d left strewn along the alleyway and the wide swaths of blood dripping down walls were testament to just how strongly she objected to being manhandled and threatened.

  Sweetness and light may be her given look, but damned if she wasn’t darkness and acid in truth.

  Someone bumped into her shoulder, hard enough to make the bag in her arms bounce with the impact. She muttered an instinctive apology, feeling the weight of Kian bearing down on her. She knew he could manifest in front of her wherever, whenever he liked, just as she had no doubts he knew where she was at all times, but this felt different.

  There was a hunger in the air, primordial, nipping at her heels as her sneakers slapped on the sidewalk. As much as she tried not to let it push her, there was something malicious driving her faster, making her knock into people.

  She rammed headlong into a hard chest, eyes flying up in surprise to meet green ones narrowed in annoyance. Strong hands gripped her upper arms, holding her in place as she struggled to break free.

  “Easy there,” he murmured, the lines of his face softening as he registered the fear on hers, much to her embarrassment. He offered her a tentative smile. “Be careful who you run into, gorgeous; the next man might not let you go.”

  She blinked, trying to decipher whether or not his words hid a veiled threat, but he released her carefully and stepped back. The crowd she’d been following seemed to part around him like water around a stone. “Thank you. I will.”

  He chuckled, and his smile turned dark. “Next time, I won’t let you go, Allianna. I am most displeased with you, surely you know that. Spare yourself the pain, the punishment, of making me chase you through this...cattle market of human flesh, and I’ll go easy on you.”

  Shit. Standing tall, she pinned the man she once thought she’d known so well with a firm gaze and shook her head. “Tell me, Lord of Shadows,” she said, addressing him by his formal title, “why do you want me? I’m happy here. It’s not much, but it makes me happy. Isn’t that what you always told me you wanted for me?”

  “Swinging half-naked around a pole for money while mortal men ogle you?” Kian sneered, his eyes running down her body, back up to meet hers. Not so long ago, the disappointment on his face would have crushed her. Now, she didn’t care. “Do they make you feel pretty, my little blooming rose? When their hands touch the forbidden and their imaginations run wild, do they make you feel beautiful and desired and cherished, the way I do?”

  Her lip curled. Did he think she was ashamed of the work she did to earn her way in this world? No man had touched her, not one had tried. She actually liked the pole, the fluidity of it, the serenity of becoming one with it beneath glaring lights and thumping music while her mind floated beyond the present and into peaceful oblivion.

  “It’s not them I’m thinking about, Kian, when I’m dancing.” Testing them both, she reached out and set her hand on the imposter’s chest. He’d done an impressive job of altering his appearance to get close to her—the eyes were the only thing he hadn’t been able to change a lot, lightening the color from his usual dark jungle green. “Mostly I think of you, how I always imagined us to be. The foolish young girl in love with her rescuer, her crush deepening every day she sees him. Imagining their first kiss,” she murmured, brushing her fingertips over his full lips. “Wondering how his hands might feel against her skin, stroking her breasts, between her legs where she so longs for him to touch.”

  He drew in a ragged breath, heat pumping off him in waves.

  “Thinking of all the ways an experienced, attentive man like my Kian would be able to arouse me, satisfy me, fill me,” she purred softly as his hands fisted, changing the point of view in a breath. “Trying to envision what he would feel like in my hands, my mouth. Inside me, deep inside, where no one but my Kian would ever be allowed.”

  He swallowed loud enough to make his throat click. “Fuck, Allianna. Let me take you home.”

  A smile played over her lips as she tapped her fingers on his chest and stepped back from him, her groceries still tucked under her left arm. Her right one slid up his chest, the cords in his neck, cupped his cheek. “That’s how I imagined us to be, Kian. Before.”

  Confusion clouded his expression. “Before what? Did someone hurt you, Allianna? One of my...did one of my men hurt you?” He looked as though he wanted to commit murder then and there. “I’ll kill the fucker who drove you away from me, Allianna.”

  Her laugh was gentle and sweet, a contrast to the fire simmering inside her like lava. Building slowly, ever so slowly, but boiling to a head. “I don’t go by that name here, Kian. It belongs to a disillusioned young female who stopped believing in love and princes and marriage. Who fell out of love with her king because he was never in love with her.”

  “I’ve always loved you.”

  Alli sighed. Maybe he believed that. She sure as hell didn’t. She dropped her hand and gestured to the store window beside them. People eased around them, but Kian towered above them all, tall enough for him to be spotlighted in the reflective glass. “There’s your culprit, my Lord. The one who drove me away from you. I know what you have in your head, Kian. I’ve seen the obsidian altar in the room beyond your personal chambers, I know what the runes inscribed on it and on the walls mean. I’m not stupid. Tell me the shackles fixed to the sides are for decoration, you asshole,” she hissed as the pressure built inside her, eradicating her calm and unleashing her fury. “And that the knives on the table across the room are for one of your minions to sharpen for the chef.”

  For the first time in their acquaintance, she saw the Lord of Shadows look uncertain, almost nervous. That was a victory in itself. “Allianna, you can’t believe I’d ever see you in that room. For one, it’s a private space of reflection and meditation.”

  She snorted. “For one, Kian, your mind is supposed to be a private space of reflection and meditation. I walked right in there and rifled through every memory and dirty, dirty thought you’ve ever had. So yeah, I believe you’d love to have me in that room, tied down, at the mercy of my almighty Lord of Shadows.” She snarled at him, barely keeping the lid on the pressure cooker of he
r emotions. “But please, let’s hear what you come up with for, for two.”

  Kian’s eyes widened and his hands shot up as though he intended to strike, but even as she turned a flinch into a subtle wince, he just held her face and studied her eyes intently, ignoring the commuter chaos around them. “You saw?” he asked gently, running his thumbs over her cheekbones. “Or, you saw?”

  Oh, she knew his game. Unfortunately for Kian, she had spent quite some time in his head while he was unaware, and she was now privy to some things he probably never wanted anyone to know, least of all her. “My father was an archangel; my mother was a mortal who got sucked into the Shadow realm by accident and made a deal with...you. My rescuer, who blackmailed a scared, pregnant innocent woman into giving you her child in exchange for her life back on the mortal coil. Did you know I was a girl, Kian, or did you just want a child with the blood of an archangel in its veins?”

  His jaw clenched, but his eyes never left hers. His true self was starting to show, shadows swirling darkly beneath the green. “Your mother was a selfish bitch, Allianna. More than willing to sacrifice you to a life among demons and monsters just as long as she didn’t suffer the same fate. Would you rather I’d left you with the likes of Feadore and Sattore? An eternity of pain and torment at their hands, little rose? Believe me, you wouldn’t have been a virgin past the age of ten with those two. They have no regard for age, for tolerance. You’d have been stripped of your maidenhead in one thrust while another took your ass in the next.”

  His fingers bit into the soft flesh of her cheeks as he spun them and backed her through the oblivious pedestrians until her back slapped into the window. Either he’d used his powers to shield them from mortal view or city folk really were blind to crime around them. “I saved you from that, kept you safe from the hordes, fed you, clothed you, gave you anything and everything you could wish for, and then you betrayed me. Betrayed two men I considered good, loyal friends and cost them their heads.”