Synopsis
Rhian is content in her life. As a pwca, a Welsh shapeshifter, she is bound to the Dark God Arawn as an assassin. So when he assigns her as ambassador to oversee Ontario for him, it’s a shock.
Her new job? To find out who murdered her predecessor and bring them to justice, as well as to oversee the otherkin and clean up their messes before the humans find them—all to preserve the illusion that magic and supernatural creatures do not exist.
The problem? One of the otherkin she’s supposed to oversee is her estranged husband, Kai, the only person Rhian never regretted having sex with, and the only one she can’t forgive.
Excerpt
Blood-Bound
Kaelan Rhywiol © 2018
All Rights Reserved
One: Remember Your Vows
RHIAN
“This is a story of vengeance, magic, lust, what it means to love, and what you’ll pay to have it. It’s not a pretty story, but it’s mine, and it’s real. Oh, and I swear a lot. Fair warning.”
Everything ached. I lay back in the hot water lapping around the curves of my breasts and inhaled the intoxicating aromas of jasmine, rose otto, and sandalwood. I needed to restock my essential oils next time I went Earth-side, or maybe just pay someone to go for me. I didn’t really like going to Earth anymore; it brought back too many bad memories. So many things I’d rather forget.
I lifted my foot and tried to let the cascade of drops from my toes distract me.
It didn’t work.
My heart burned like molten lead in my chest and my eyes stung with unshed tears. It’d been three hundred years since I’d fled our small, garret apartment. I’d carried nothing but my clothes and my beloved husband’s guitar.
My family had welcomed me with open arms, and I’d started training in their arts the next day. I rubbed my fingers together over the flat roughness of my bow-string calluses. I’m not sure I would’ve come if I’d known they were assassins. Not even with my father’s threat.
I dropped my head back against the curve of my pool and let the scalding heat of the water soak into my bones. I couldn’t age, but my years weighed heavy as the depths of the sea god Manawydan’s dark home tonight.
I opened my eyes to find dusk had stalked in on cat paws as I soaked. The coronas from my candles gleamed sparkling gold through the steam rising in drifting curlicues on the evening air.
My bath sat in the middle of my backyard, surrounded by riotous dark-green yew hedges. Eldritch hot tubs were so much better than the kinds on Earth. Or so I tried to convince myself. I leaned forward to refill my glass, then settled in to rest against the curved and polished bottom of the pool to sip my wine.
Hoping it would ease the ache of repressed tears as well as numb the pain in my arm.
I finished my drink, and the glass clicked against the polished stone lip of the pool. I needed my solitude, especially tonight. With a glance, I took in the wild pixies zipping over my garden and then listened with closed eyes to the buzz of their wings. All underscored by the mournful howls of the spirit-hounds as they cried their grief.
I’d caused that.
I nibbled a piece of cheese—also imported—a rich, double-cream Brie. Expensive as all get out, but what good was being a god’s assassin if I didn’t use my murder-gotten gains as I wished?
The hellish fire of strained muscles painted my shoulders from grappling my opponent, and I winced as I extended a leg. I think I’d pulled a glute too. Gave new meaning to the concept of pain in the ass.
Which this contract had been, and then some. My prey had taken me all over—this side of the veil—before I’d found and finished her. She’d made me slew through bogs, avoiding the water-leapers, so they didn’t try to eat me. The bat-winged, frog-like, carnivores called llamhigyn y dwr usually left we hunters alone, but avoidance equaled wisdom with something that could make me its dinner.
I lifted my left arm out of the water. Searing claws still raked up the nerves, but I sat watching the wound close that would’ve left a human in surgery for months. It had finally stopped bleeding and healed over.
I poked at it and winced. “Gormless nimrod.” My muttered exclamation hushed the pixies’ quiet murmurs for a moment, but then they went about their business.
The arm was still incredibly tender, and the skin stretched thin and silk smooth over the gouges and punctures. The rogue cwn annwvyn had been evil in the worst definition of the word, and canny with it. The spirit-hunting, red-eared, white hound had marked me well before I’d taken her down.
She’d betrayed our Lord and Master Arawn. She’d taken numerous children in a disgusting pact made with one of the Dark God’s banned scions. But she’d been my friend, and my heart ached with the memory of her blood spraying in searing arterial jets—the same brilliant red as her ears—across my face. My gut twisted at the recollection of how her eyes had glazed over as her life fled. I’d known Halley all my life—or most of it—for all the years since I’d run away from Earth, anyway.
I hadn’t wanted to kill her. The cries of her kin on the wind tortured my already broken heart.
I smiled through my heartache, a battle rictus more like, reaching for some joy to alleviate the grief. At least, I’d been able to restore a child to its family and recalling the sight of the mother’s face filled me with gladness. I only wished I could return all of the stolen bairns. I’d never wanted kids of my own, but seeing the mother’s weak-kneed joy had warmed my heart from the death-born chill of murder. For a while.
A buzzing whir akin to the sound of a hummingbird’s wings came from the darkened maw of the open doors of my home. The jet-black six-inch form of one of my servants—also known as nagging busybodies—zipped through the opening, her eyes blazing gold.
“Tsk. I wish you’d be more careful, mistress.” One of my few servants, Carys, was a burly pixie female dressed in nothing but her saffron yellow hair. She lifted the clay pitcher of wine to fill my glass. “You heal well, but I don’t like seeing you injured. You may be a big, bad hunter for our god, but you’re still my charge.”
Pixies, like most of us otherkin, took their vows seriously.
“Don’t fuss, Carys. Please. I’m absolutely knackered.”
“Yes. Well. I’ll worry if I want to.” She stuck her nose in the air and sniffed at me. With a sad look on her face, she said, “A messenger has just come and brought this for you, mistress.”
Carys’s great-granddaughter, Aderyn—one of the other pixies belonging to the small clan that made its home with me—flew into the back garden. She dodged curls of steam, carrying a gold-flecked green-black scroll case. I dried my hands on a plush teal towel before I reached for the elaborately carved item.
Only one being would send me something like that. The value of it on Earth-side would be enough to feed a small country given the price of kin-stone. The gemstone created from the crystallized blood of my people was rare, tightly regulated, and difficult to work with.
My guardian pixies waited like attendant cats while I uncapped the case, pulled out and unrolled the high-linen-fiber paper from its kin-stone spool. I read the words written in old Welsh three times before I believed them, and then rage boiled like bile in my gut, threatening to overwhelm me.
“No.” My voice echoed a broken note against the enshrouding hedges and standing stones of my garden as my present life crashed into the wreckage of my past.
“What is it, mistress?”
For a long moment, I couldn’t speak. Then I didn’t as I closed my eyes, concentrating, reaching within myself for the blood-bond with My Lord and Master. A bond born of loyalty and arcane blood ritual. ‘Why?’
He answered immediately. ‘As you have had a trying day, I will explain. This time. You are the only available hunter I have with the appropriate skill sets. You are deserving of the boon. You have served me well as a hunter for two centuries. It is more than time I honored you with a promotion and lands of your own. You are beautiful, which will be of aid to you as my ambassador. You have contacts in many layers of society, and you are currently off mission. It behooves me to send you there. Your abilities and attributes are ideal for the assignment and… you have avoided it long enough, my hunter.’
‘No, I don’t want it. No.’
‘Yes.’ His tone made it clear He’d accept no argument. That to Him, an immutable decision had already been made. ‘You have crossed the veil several times over the centuries, and you have never seen him. Never dealt with it. Aside from that, your predecessor has been murdered, and you are the only one with enough skill on the otherside in the twenty-first century to be able to solve the mystery. You are the only one of my hunters who I can send. It is immaterial that it is to London.’
‘He’s there.’
‘Yes. I expect you to find amelioration with him and remember your vows.’
‘I won’t—’
‘Do you love and trust me, my hunter? Do you have faith in me to know what is best for you, and to look out for your well-being?’
I did love Him, and I trusted Him, but this asked too much. I reluctantly answered, ‘Yes, My Lord.’
‘Congratulations on your promotion, my pwca.’
‘Yes, My Lord.’
He cut off the contact, and I sat in my bath, my arms wrapped around my waist. Tears leaked down my face in a scalding rain as my pixies looked on in worry.
“Which bloody vows?” My voice echoed forlornly in my garden, sounding as lost as my soul felt.
I liked the life I’d forged here in Annwvyn. I loved my home. I glanced up at its graceful, silvery branches swaying above my head. I adored my place among the other hunters, free of burdens other than the contracts given us by our Lord. I held no title and wanted none. I had the honor of being part of Arawn’s court with none of the responsibilities and the freedom to avoid most of my nasty family.
As His warrior, His messenger, His enforcer and assassin, He paid me well, and I got to exercise my bloodlust within acceptable boundaries. This? This boon of His? It tore me from everything I loved about my life, taking with it every ounce of peace I’d managed to find to fill the void in my heart.
“Fuck.” I reached for my wineglass and guzzled it.
Carys silently refilled it. “My lady?”
“He’s promoted me. The rat-bastard is sending me to the otherside to hold Ontario for Him.”
“But…isn’t that where—”
“Yes, of course. He knows that too.”
“Oh, my lady, I’m so very sorry.”
I laughed, harsh and bitter. “Me too, Carys. Me too.” I swallowed through a tight throat full of sandpaper. It hurt to force words out. “Pack my bags. I’ll need to cross over soon. His Lordship hasn’t ever been known for patience.”
“Yes, mi’lady.” The two pixies, jet-black bodies and brilliant hair flashing, disappeared into a tree the size of a skyscraper, my home, to pack my things.
I stayed in the tub, drinking wine like water and silently raging at my Master.
The hounds of Annwvyn continued to mourn.
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Meet the Author
Kaelan was born and raised in upstate NY, in the Adirondack mountains.
Xie started writing when xie turned 11 and hasn’t ever stopped as evidenced by the massive amount of notebooks and digital files of xyr writing xie has hanging around.
Kaelan holds a B.Sc in bioanthropology/forensic chemistry and an MST in education/world history. Xie loved university, so holds minors in English, Creative Writing, Linguistics, Graphic Design, and Modern Dance.
Xyr hobbies include reading, spinning wool with a spinning wheel, cooking, knitting, sewing, and making jewelry.
Xie currently lives in Southern Ontario, Canada with xyr husband of 19 years, their two kids, a foot fetishist of a cat, two crazy kittens, and a grumpy chinchilla.
The best place to connect with Kaelan is on twitter, where xie spends way too much time.
Author Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Google+ | Instagram | Pinterest
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