Prince of Shadows
Authors: Nancy Gideon
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Praise for Nancy Gideon’s “darkly compelling”* novels
Seeker Of Shadows
“This dark and seductive story is rife with the delicious possibility of a happily-ever-after for an unlikely pair. A bloody shapeshifter conflict keeps things exciting and plunging forward, as the plot twists and turns. Don’t blink, the book will be over before you know it.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Gideon delivers a rich and complex romantic urban fantasy romance to follow
Hunter of Shadows
.”
—Publishers Weekly
Hunter Of Shadows
“The author has created a story full of intrigue and action with many plot twists, which will keep readers on their toes. Compelling characters, a kick-a## heroine, and a hero torn by his loyalties make for an intense read.”
—Bookaholics
“An exciting addition to the inventive series.”
—Night Owl Reviews
Bound By Moonlight
“
Bound by Moonlight
has everything I want in a romance! Sizzling passion, a sexy hero, and paranormal love to last the ages.”
—
Gena Showalter,
New York Times
bestselling author
“Will keep you on the edge of your seat waiting to see what will happen.”
—Paranormal Haven
“An intriguing series filled with complex but fascinating characters.”
—Night Owl Reviews
Captured By Moonlight
“These lovers have much to overcome, including their own self-sabotaging character traits. Gideon adds new clues and layers to her world while placing her protagonists in terrible danger, both physically and emotionally. Terrific series!”
—RT Book Reviews*
“As good as if not better than its predecessors . . . Gideon has written the perfect paranormal romance.”
—Romance Junkies
“A deliciously complex novel full of love and devotion, personal angst and paranormal intrigue. I highly recommend it.”
—Night Owl Reviews
Chased By Moonlight
“Gideon does a terrific job with her world-building as her characters and readers discover dark and hidden secrets.”
—RT Book Reviews
“An outstanding romance overflowing with emotional issues and innovative supernatural elements.”
—Single Titles
“The boiling-hot duo of Max Savoie and Charlotte Caissie returns, and the thrill ride just keeps getting better. . . . This series is a must-read!”
—Bitten by Books
Masked By Moonlight
“A paranormal romance series with intriguing characters and zippy action . . . Gideon masters the tension required to keep her complex and engaging story moving.”
—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“Sizzling . . . dark and compelling!”
—
Susan Sizemore,
New York Times
bestselling author
“Vivid, dark and memorable . . . I couldn’t put it down.”
—Janet Chapman,
New York Times
bestselling author
“Brilliantly spellbinding with fascinating supernatural aspects, heated passions, and unanticipated dangers.”
—Single Titles
“An exceptional read. It will have the reader laughing one minute, crying the next. It’s a compelling story and a tremendous first book in Gideon’s new series.”
—NewandUsedBooks.com
For my coworkers, who get excited with me and for me.
contents
prologue
Excitement and pride added a strutty arrogance to Cale’s step as he followed his father. The summons from their clan’s leader had come as a surprise, and he was eager to prove himself in his newly elevated position in the House of Terriot.
He hadn’t expected the chance for redemption to come so soon, only two days after his punishment. He schooled his features to reveal none of his discomfort and asked no questions, though curiosity bubbled through him. Whatever the task, he would be up to it.
The night air was crisp and sharp with the scent of pines as they followed the winding path down from the main lodge of their Lake Tahoe compound to the cluster of individual family homes. Cale was very aware of the head of his father’s security team close behind him. He knew the intimidating man only by his nickname, Bull, earned not only for his bulky mastiff-like build but for his skill at bringing down whatever he went after and never letting go once he grabbed on. Bull wasn’t called upon unless the situation demanded it.
So where were they going, on foot, just the three of them alone in the darkness?
A trickle of sweat started down the back of Cale’s neck. What if the unexpected invitation wasn’t about a second chance?
Then he saw their destination, and his pace faltered. Bull’s palm flattened between his shoulder blades, delivering a firm push to get him moving again.
Though he’d never been inside, Cale knew the bungalow housed his father’s close friend and adviser, Dean Terriot, along with Dean’s mate, Gemma, and their daughter. He also knew Dean was in Las Vegas on business.
What business could they possibly have here at his house, in his absence, in the middle of the night?
Cale’s father, Bram, climbed up onto the porch with its inviting Adirondack chairs and tinkling wind chimes. He pounded on the door and, after a minute passed, gestured to the solid wood panel. “Break it down.”
Cale stood frozen as Bull kicked the door open. After his father had gone in through the shattered opening, the formidable man called down, “Get up here. Move, boy.”
At first glance, the home appeared empty. Cale hoped it was. With his heart hammering against his yet bruised ribs, a cold, sick certainty began to rise.
This was about him. About what he’d done. His protest stammered out before he could catch it. “My king, please—”
His father’s words struck like a blow. “Be silent.”
Cale swallowed back his appeal and stood motionless, as if he’d become cold, unfeeling stone.
“Stand by the door. Don’t move unless you see someone coming.”
As Cale took up his post, a rigid sentinel, his father followed Bull down a side hallway. He flinched at the sound of another door giving way.
Be like stone.
He stared out into the night, down the dark, quiet drive, gaze fixed and unblinking, breath coming in short, tight bursts. He heard heated voices, his father’s and a female’s, but couldn’t make out the words. He cringed at the first shriek, swayed when the second was cut abruptly short. Then he couldn’t hear anything over the thundering in his ears.
This was his fault. He’d never considered the consequences.
He didn’t know how much time passed. He’d gone numb. Then Bull was gripping his arm, jerking him around to growl, “Your father wants you.”
Cale edged down the hall toward the light at the end, knees stiff to still their trembling. It was so quiet. Bram met him at the bedroom’s broken doorframe. He gave his son a smugly satisfied look. It chilled Cale to the bone.
“Go inside, boy, and take a look at what it means to rule.”
After Bram left him with that command, it took every scrap of Cale’s courage to step across the threshold into what it would mean to be a Terriot male.
The first thing he saw transfixed him. A photograph of an angelic blond girl sat on the night table. Her carefree smile clutched at his racing emotions. He managed a raw swallow and forced his gaze to travel from the twisted bedcovers to the figure on the floor.
He’d never seen a naked female. That wasn’t what stunned him. His wide eyes took in the deep scratches, the hideous bite mark, the blood. All the blood.
Had he . . . killed her?
And then a slender hand twitched.
Paralysis broken, Cale tore the tangled covers off the bed and knelt to bundle them about the savaged form. Shock and horror had his teeth clattering. He couldn’t think of what else to do, of whom to call.
“Cale!”
The shout had him leaping to his feet, shaking like a released spring.
In that instant, his wild stare flashed up and focused on the louvered closet door on the opposite side of the bed, and then upon huge dark eyes peering at him through slats close to the floor.
“Cale, now!”
He bolted.
In the time it took him to suck in a huge gulp of fresh air to keep down the bile wedged in his throat, he made a silent vow.
No one he loved would ever suffer again because of him.
At eleven years old, he was now the youngest prince in the House of Terriot.
one
“One suitcase. Five minutes.”
“It takes me longer than that to put on my makeup. Let me go. I’m capable of walking.”
“You’re capable of a lot of things. I don’t trust any of them.”
Exiting the steamy bathroom barely concealed by a towel, Kendra Terriot froze at the sound of angry voices coming from the hall. Her cousin Brigit and . . . Cale? She had just enough time to grab up her robe and whip it around her still-dripping figure before the outer door opened.
Brigit MacCreedy stumbled on her impossibly high heels as she was propelled roughly inside the room they shared. She thrust back a tumble of bright red hair to fix a skewering glare on the figure in the doorway. Her words stabbed with equal violence.
“If forced to accept you as a mate, I’d fight you to the death.”
“If I had to
take
you for a mate, I’d
let
you kill me.”
Cale Terriot released her, taking a precautionary step back. His glance caught on Kendra and held for a long second, his gaze doing an almost imperceptible sweep from her wet hair, over the water-splotched silk she clutched together while trying to keep the towel from slipping, to her bare calves and feet, before looking back to the other female.
“Wait until I tell my brother you put your hands on me,” Brigit seethed. “Next time his aim will be better, and he’ll take your head.”
Cale gestured to the scar that cut through his left eyebrow and scored the top of his cheekbone. “Make sure you tell Silas I think of him often, and not fondly. And that I’m looking forward to next time being our last time.” He caught her wrist, intercepting the palm flashing toward his face like a snake strike. His drawl was chilly. “Always the lady. Five minutes. Don’t make me wait.”
He pulled the door shut behind him just in time to block the spit Brigit sent flying his way.
“You’re a punk, Cale!” she shouted. “A bullying little punk, and you’re never going to get away with this. Never!” She turned to Kendra, flushed with temper. “If it comes down to him as your only choice, throw yourself out a window and make sure it’s higher than the first floor.”
“Bree, what’s going on?” Kendra gave up the struggle and let go of the sodden towel so she could secure her robe about her now shivering form. “What’s Cale doing here?”
“He’s come to personally boot me off the premises. If he thinks he’s going to get rid of me that easily,
he’s wrong
! Did you hear me, you bastard?” That last was elevated for the sake of anyone on their floor listening.
Kendra heard only one thing. “You’re leaving?”
At the sound of her dismay, her cousin’s dramatic attitude crumpled. “I’m sorry, Kendra. This is my fault. I should have . . .” Brigit swiped angrily at the sudden shimmer in her eyes, her mood growing serious. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
Numbly, Kendra stared up at her. “You’re leaving me here? Alone? With
them
?”
Her cousin caught her in a tight embrace, her tone shaking with urgency. “Not for long. I swear it!” Then she pushed away. “I’ve got to hurry.”
In shock, Kendra sat on the foot of the bed as Brigit raced about their small apartment flinging random things into an open bag. What had happened? She couldn’t form the question as she watched her cousin yank one of her fancy party dresses from the huge sparkling rainbow selection in the closet. When she reappeared from the bathroom after sweeping up all the toiletries that would fit into a gallon zip-top bag, Kendra rose on unsteady legs to meet her.
“I can’t do this without you,” she whispered in a tight little voice.
They hugged emotionally, shedding tears together in a panic of dread and despair. Finally, Brigit took a fractured breath and told her, “Silas won’t let this happen. He loves you, Kendra. You know that.”
She nodded weakly.
“Don’t let them see your fear. If they smell it on you, you won’t be able to keep them back. You’re better than they are, smarter than they are. Remember that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let this happen. We’ll be back for you soon. I
promise
!”
A hard rap. “Time.”
Brigit snatched up her single bag and jerked open the door. She confronted Cale on the threshold, towering over him in her heels. In a magnificent fury, she got into his expressionless face to warn, “If you touch her, if you hurt her, you brutish little bitch, I will come after you with the biggest blade I can find and start chopping. And I won’t begin with your neck.”
He never blinked before speaking with low, deep menace. “Enough. Behave or be unconscious.” He took her arm and pushed her toward a silent sentry in the hall, who began to march her toward the stairs.
That was when the magnitude of everything hit Kendra.
She felt Cale recoil when she seized his hand. Before he could react, she dropped to her knees, pressing her cheek to his knuckles so he’d feel the heat of her tears.
“My prince, I beg you. Please don’t strip me of my family.” And then a softer, achingly personal petition. “Cale, please.” Her anguished gaze lifted to take in the harshly magnetic features he shared with his clan: strong, scowling lines beneath short, spiky dark blond hair shot through with Terriot red.
He took a quick breath. Anger infused his expression, not quite disguising a flicker of agitation. He pulled his hand away, warning, “Don’t ever do that again.”
She searched for some sign of sympathy in the stropped-steel-gray eyes, now so unmoved and pitiless. Yet he drew her to her feet with deference he hadn’t shown her cousin as he pronounced, “We’re your only family now,” and walked purposefully away.
She huddled in the doorway, panting wildly as the truth closed around her like a noose. She was on her own for the first time in her life, surrounded by a clan of ruthless preternatural beings determined to rip away the only thing of value she could still cling to.
Her virginity.
The mere thought of Bram Terriot was usually enough to reduce Kendra to a timid shadow crouching at the high heels of her cousin’s bravado. However, Brigit was gone, and there was nothing to hide behind but hatred.
She’d carefully prepared for her meeting with the patriarch of the Terriot line, choosing a dress of gray wool, both modest and nondescript. She’d braided her hair back from a pale face, going without the makeup or jewelry adored by most of their females, so she looked fragile and far younger than her twenty-seven years. She wanted to remind him of who she was and what had been taken from her.
Not that it would matter to a tyrant.
Escorted to the main lodge where it sat on the edge of a sheer rock face with a spectacular view of Lake Tahoe far below, she contemplated that precipice. The perfect spot from which to jump. Wouldn’t that be the slap of defiance she longed to deliver without having to endure consequences she feared? But Brigit had been gone only two days, and there was hope of rescue. So she’d keep that ledge as a backup plan.
Kendra had been called to the lodge only a few times, and each had resulted in life-changing circumstances. Never for the better. The last was when she’d returned voluntarily to the family compound in order to bargain for the safety of her cousins Silas and Brigit, now her only remaining relatives. Her protection and leverage had since been torn away, leaving her at the mercy of those who knew none.
Bram Terriot knew how to make a powerful impact. His rule was dominated by sweepingly dramatic gestures and precise, intimate cruelties. Never knowing which he was in the mood for made being in his presence terrifying. He held court from a leather recliner angled before a massive stone fireplace set in a wall of glass. He was flanked by his three eldest sons: James, Wesley, and Cale.
In their expensive black suits, white shirts, and silk ties, with the arrogant wink of diamond ear studs, his heirs were every bit as impressive as the view. To Kendra, their adornments were like sparkly rhinestone collars on pit bulls. The flash couldn’t distract from what they were: the most brutal killers imaginable. Their presence filled her with apprehension. She kept her focus on Bram as she approached, a lamb to the lion.
“My king, how fine you look today.”
He gave a big ribald laugh. “I look like hell and am probably dying, but I’m still vain enough to like hearing lies from pretty girls.”
Kendra hadn’t seen him up close for some time and was frankly startled by his deterioration. A huge, torso-heavy man with a mane of red hair, he’d spent his lifetime indulging in every possible vice, because he could. Apparently, those fleshy pleasures had caught up to him. His skin was sallow, his once piercing eyes almost filmy. There was wetness in his faint gasps for air. Whatever was eating at him, Kendra hoped it was horribly painful and of irreversible progression. She took the hand he offered with its excess of gaudy rings and placed a dutiful kiss upon it. She kept her gaze lowered, fearing that if she glanced up, she’d find him ogling down the front of her dress. The feel of his clammy skin was repulsive enough.
“You honor me with your attention, my king.”
“It’s been an honor having you placed in my care.”
Over the corpses of my family
. Teeth gritted, she kept her reply mild. “You’ve been very kind and generous. And patient.”
“My concern for you is the reason I’ve called you here.” A sudden wracking cough made him pause; he began again with a slight wheeze. “I’m being unpleasantly reminded that I’m not immortal. I need to make sure our clan is entrusted to the right hands. I have eight eligible sons. All would make strong leaders if they had you beside them.”
Kendra almost dropped to her knees as they went traitorously weak.
Time’s up
. Her breath caught as he continued.
“I have four bonded sons who have fine mates, but none of them would be my choice as queen. You’re the one I would have seated next to my successor.”
Her thoughts scrambled desperately. “I have no political pull, no experience.”
He cut her off. “You have sentimental ties to my people. They’d rally behind you no matter which of my sons you picked. Your father was beloved by our clan. He was a great man, with many friends.”
Her shock and distress loosened a tongue she ought to have held. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have killed him.”
Her soft words echoed in the room like the sound of a trapdoor dropping out from under her feet. Kendra could see her death in the widening surprise and slow furious narrowing of Bram’s eyes. The fact that he refrained from immediate retaliation had her wondering if she held some degree of power after all.
“One makes mistakes that are later regretted,” he told her with careful control. “I plan to amend that by bonding you to one of my sons.”
Cale stepped forward with a quick “I demand the right of first claim.”
Startled, Kendra glanced his way. His tightly leashed intensity reminded her that behind the civilized veneer, a barely restrained attack dog quivered at the end of its chain. She had no doubt that, if released by a word from his father, he would take her to the floor right then and there to seal the deal for that coveted place on the throne.
Bram chuckled. “I’m sure you do. But you’ll wait your turn, just as your brothers will have to. The decision is hers. Step back and be silent.”
Cale inclined his head slightly, withdrawing to stand beside his siblings, though his coiled focus never wavered. His stare remained fixed upon her.
Bram offered an apologetic smile, saying, “Boys,” with an indulgent shrug, as if that explained away everything. “Patience is not a virtue of the young, so I’m afraid I must insist on an answer before the decision is taken from you.”
Kendra swallowed in panic. “How could I choose among them, my king? I’ve never even exchanged words with most of them, so how could I pledge my future? I can’t rush a decision this important if I’m to serve your crown by choosing wisely.”
Impatience wasn’t just a curse of the young. She could see it thinning Bram’s lips before they eased into another smile. “I was right to select you, my dear. You’ll give this task the gravity it deserves and this clan the heirs it needs.”
Heirs
.
Suddenly, all Kendra could hear was the hard rhythm of Cale’s breathing. Imagining the forceful heat of it on the back of her neck quickened a shiver. She held her ground, but not without difficulty.
“If it’s courting you want,” Bram announced, “that’s what you’ll have. A little contest to put my sons through their paces will be good for them. Some competition to impress you and some conversation to woo your affection. And then you’ll choose.”
Kendra had no interest in getting to know the fiercely misogynistic Terriot princes. What she already knew was the stuff of nightmares. All she was after was a stay of execution that would give Silas time to snatch her from their grasp. And keep her from their beds.
“Thank you for the opportunity to be fair and wise.”
And, if she were very lucky, to escape.