A Thorn in Every Heart (Enchanted Legacies, #1)

by Kate King

Dyaspora is the dumping ground where the four Fae kingdoms exile their undesirables—criminals, rebels, and, most frequently, the poor and impoverished. I don’t fit any of those labels, yet I’m trapped here like everyone else, with no hope of ever escaping alive.

Fae might be immortal, but we’re still going to die here—sooner or later. For me, it will be sooner. In less than a month, I’m going to die. And some days, I’m completely fine with that.

I share my cell with three other men: Jett, who’s constantly smiling despite every reason not to. Fox, who almost never talks but is smarter than the rest of us combined. And my best friend, Kastian, who understands what it’s like to go from living in a palace to mining ice, day after day.

The curse on the Kingdom of Vernallis robs its victims of control over their own bodies whenever the sun is out.

“Hello, brother. I would say it’s good to see you, but I’d hate to lie.”

She found her way into Ellender sixty years ago. Her name is Isabelle.”

Your mother is still living on the Ashwater Estate, and that servant you call a sister is at court. I could send them here to see you.”

“Before Isabelle left, I intended her to be my bride. Obviously, I couldn’t allow her to wither with age, so I gave her an enchanted necklace. As long as she wore it, she would remain just as young as she was on the day I met her.”

If I could take only one item to a deserted island, I’d bring my violin.

Oh, thank God. “Me too.” I stop Nana’s lullaby mid-verse and switch to the requested theme song, which I’ve grown to hate on principle, only because the movies simply can’t do justice to the books. I wonder what that girl would say if I told her that my Nana wrote the book this song is based on, and she hates the movies more than I do.

Nana is Isabelle Reading, world-renowned author extraordinaire. The mother of modern fairytales and the peddler of happily ever after. Her most famous book, A Kingdom of Thorns, has been a pop culture phenomenon for over forty years and this year is scheduled to be rereleased to coincide with the new movie.

Some part of me already knows what I’m about to find, but my mind refuses to process it. It’s racing, spiraling—too fast to think, too fast to react.

I’m twenty-nine, married and childless, broke, and now heading for divorce. How the fuck did I get here?

“The fire won’t stop him forever. The beasts are coming! He’s coming!”

Maybe that should scare me, but it doesn’t. Even if her house drives me just as crazy as she is, “beasts” can’t be worse than my cheating soon-to-be ex-husband and former best friend. “I am very sure.” I hiccup. “I’ll be on the first flight to Ironhill tomorrow morning.”

Sitting beside me is the most physically gifted man I’ve ever seen. Even seated, he’s tall and his burnt-honey hair is just slightly too long and falls into his face, half obscuring his bright green eyes. Like almost everyone else in here, he’s wearing a leather jacket, but somehow his looks sexy instead of scary.

It might be my imagination, but it almost seems like the man relaxes at the sound of my name. “I’m Daemon.”

In my head, I’m a slut. But in reality, I just read a lot of spicy books.

Fuck, I think I might love him. Like, not really, but I definitely love the way he fucks me. I can feel a real infatuation barreling toward me like a freight train.

Once, the Fae were everywhere, and mortals viewed us as gods or angels. Now, most of our gates have been destroyed, and there are only a few places left where one can accidentally fall into one of the four Fae kingdoms, or come across a creature not of this earth.

As panic clawed at my chest, I felt a familiar pressure between my shoulder blades. Without conscious thought, my wings unfurled, displaying their striking combination of red and black feathers. Like most Fae, I kept them hidden, but in moments of intense emotion, they couldn’t help but reveal themselves.

Perhaps I’d still look more attractive than the average human, but that really couldn’t be helped.

It was no coincidence that human myths frequently featured Fae males seducing fair maidens. We found humans just as beautiful and tempting as they found us. It was a match made in fairytale heaven. Or, hell, in this case.

“I’m losing my fucking mind,” I mutter aloud, echoing Alix’s earlier words. Wait. What the fuck am I thinking? I’m echoing Isabelle’s earlier words. Alix is Isabelle. There’s no other explanation. This is a fucking mess.

This thing isn’t human, but neither does she look like an animal. Her scaly mauve-colored skin is stretched around an angular face that’s sort of mouse-like in shape. Her eyes are beetle-black and pupilless like an insect.

I look frantically between AI Barbie and the purplish alien. Looking at them fills me with an uncanny dread that makes me want to curl into a ball on the floor.

Like any self-respecting child of the 2000s, I’ve read my share of fantasy books. I’ve seen movies with aliens and monsters, with special effects so good they almost feel real. But there’s a big difference between watching a CGI creature on a screen and staring into the enormous, bug-like eyes of a very real humanoid goblin.

“Shit,” the strange man curses behind me. “Ashwater! Get down here, your damsel is in fucking distress.”

Would you rather that your one night stand kidnapped you and took you to a castle full of monsters, or that you’re really hallucinating in a mental hospital amidst a divorce-induced psychotic break?

I actually almost got eaten by a wolf. And the guy I picked up at a bar can actually fly. I’m not in fucking Kansas anymore.

Ellender isn’t just a fantasy. Nana’s books are real, and somehow, I’m in one.

Everyone in the room is model-material, but this woman is a little creepy. She’s curvy, like the Venus in the half-shell, with red-blonde hair that looks straight out of a shampoo commercial. Her face is way too symmetrical, her movements slightly too graceful to be real, and now that I’m looking more closely at her, I notice that her eyes aren’t blue, they’re violet. Like Harold and the purple fucking crayon.

“She’s not. It’s been sixty years, but I remember my friend. Belle wasn’t afraid of me. This isn’t her.”

“Humans are so funny about that. You should be much more afraid of the Fae than the sirens. Outside the water, I’m no stronger than you are, but the Fae could kill you without blinking an eye.”

“Unfortunately, no. I wish. Human clothing is so interesting, I’d just die to be a part of your world.”

Nice little mermaid reference

She can’t break the curse.” “How do you break it?” Jett asks. “It only breaks when the king finds his true love,” Odessa explains.

“Why would anyone cast that curse?” “Spite,” I mutter bitterly. “Ninety-nine years ago, Thorne was betrothed to a woman the entire kingdom believed was his soul-bonded mate.”

“Apparently not, because the week before their wedding, he betrayed her with another woman. Unfortunately, the girl was a powerful sorceress. She was so heartbroken that she cast the curse on the entire kingdom, then flung herself off a tower.”

Everyone knows that once mated, Fae males never stray from their partners. Ever. It’s not exactly a choice, but a compulsion—a biological shift that only happens once in a lifetime. That’s why it’s so astonishing to hear the reason for Thorne’s curse. I’ve only ever heard of two cases of infidelity in the history of the kingdom: my brother is one. The other is our shared father who betrayed the queen by taking my mother to his bed. Betrayal runs so deep in our family it’s practically written on my bones.

“What about me?” I scowl. “There’s no saving me, Peaches. I already expected to be doomed. I have nothing to lose except for them and everything to gain if by some miracle the fucking curse does break.”

“It says they attack humans and eat them.” “That’s bullshit,” I snap before I can stop myself. “There are many species of Fae, and most of them don’t look like us. I’d try not to stare.”

“Sorry, mate. I forgot to mention that Dessa is from Hydratta, and she’s not as oblivious as Thorne.” He blanches and looks a bit green. “Fuck,” he mutters, before disappearing into the train car after my cousin.

worst of all, the details of the curse on Vernallis have been so sanitized that it’s no wonder Alix was willing to bargain with her life to break it. She thinks we’re living in a fucking dreamland.

“Belle found her way here on her own,” Odessa interjects. “Her father was a miner, and accidentally traveled through the Ironhill gate where King Thorne took him prisoner. Belle followed, and agreed to be the king’s prisoner in exchange for her father’s freedom.”

“Remind me never to save your life again. Next time, I’m just going to let you get run over.” “Hate to interrupt, but I don’t think we’re at the sexually charged banter portion of the show!” Jett yells.

“Fae wings only come out in particular circumstances. Life threatening situations being the most common.”

“You know when people say ‘it could be worse?’ Well, that’s true. It could really always get worse, I mean, what’s your husband cheating on you when you could be kidnapped? Who cares about kidnapping when you could nearly get eaten by a wolf or die in a train crash?”

In less than an hour, I earn more than enough coins to pay for rooms at the inn, plus all the ale Jett can drink.

In all those fantasy books I like to read, the main characters never seem to internalize all their near-death experiences, but that is so not me. I feel like I need an emergency therapy session and a prescription for horse tranquilizers—and that’s just to deal with my impending divorce. How the fuck am I supposed to process all this when I can’t even google near death experiences? Should I be crying?

“Who do you think taught the humans? Gambling is probably the second most popular Fae pastime.” “What’s the first?” “Seducing fair maidens.”