Happily Ever Awkward (The H.E.A. Files, #1)(14)

10



DATE NIGHT


All afternoon, gloomy rainclouds clotted the skies above Theandrea. When they finally broke, they revealed that night had crept in when no one was looking. Warm, golden lights blinked to life within every window of the magnificent city, welcoming people home to warm meals and warmer beds. As the night hugged Theandrea ever deeper into its bosom, those lights winked out one by one.

All was quiet.

But not all was still.

A shadow passed over the crescent moon and descended in a swirl of charcoal mist. It spiraled out of the starry sky and settled upon a delicate battlement high atop the Imperial Castle. The foul mist poured itself into a man-shaped space, growing blacker and blacker until it finally assumed physical form.

Seeboth the Shadow Wizard surveyed the castle from beneath his heavy black cowl, his eyes slowly burning their way across all that was bright and good. Satisfied, he whisked through an archway.

He entered a long, vaulted corridor fashioned from the most exquisitely cut stone, only to find himself facing a burly imperial guard clad in gleaming gold armor. The guard instantly dropped into a defensive crouch, his shield up and his sword poised. “Halt! Who dares trespass—”

Seeboth barely gestured.

With a rumble, the wall sprouted a tangle of arms that grasped the terrified guard and pinned him within their grip of stone. Trapped by the interlocking web of granite biceps yet unable to accept the impossible event that had just victimized him, the guard took the only reasonable course of action open to him and passed out.

At the end of the corridor, a pair of heavy oaken doors blocked Seeboth’s path, but not for long. Under the sheer force of his gaze, they began to melt, which astute readers may realize is not something wood typically does. Both doors pooled upon the floor like puddles of brown wax, melting outward from handles to hinges. In so doing, the doors parted like a pair of curtains pulling back from a stage and they revealed a sight that took Seeboth’s breath away.

Even someone like the dark wizard Seeboth, Lord of Shadows, found himself transfixed when looking upon the beauty of Princess Luscious. She lay stretched beneath her satin sheets, her body a series of hidden, luxurious curves.

He stared at her for a long moment.

His eyes unexpectedly softened…

…but then he spun and pointed at the far wall. Fire jetted from his finger and seared writhing letters of green flame into the stone.



EMPEROR DUNCAN, WEEP.



SEEBOTH.





Upon hearing the harsh crackle of the flames, Princess Luscious woke. Her eyes widened at the sight of the terrifying silhouette standing backlit against the inferno of green fire.

“You came!” she squealed.

Seeboth gestured. The princess instantly levitated from her bed and floated across the room to hover beside him. She squealed again.

“I saw your ad,” he said.

Princess Luscious threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “I knew it would work!”

“Princess? I heard a noise — are you all right?”

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Laura entered the chamber to check on the commotion, but she didn’t get very far. Seeboth pointed his finger at her and used the merest fraction of the magical power it contained to levitate her.

“Ahhhhhh!” Laura shrieked as invisible forces yanked her body into the air.

Seeboth prepared to gesture again, but Princess Luscious grabbed the wizard’s arm.

“No, wait! Don’t hurt her! She’s mine!”

Seeboth tore his scowl away from the intruding handmaiden and turned it instead upon the princess. Its intensity could not withstand the concentrated force of her beauty, and his expression once again softened. Reluctantly he lowered his arm, but as a nod to his inner wickedness, he left Laura floating ten feet above the floor.

“As you wish, princess,” he said.

Princess Luscious shot a sideways smile at Laura and mouthed the words, “See? I told you so!”

Throwing his cloak wide, the wizard enfolded Princess Luscious within the sweep of his robes so only their faces remained visible atop the billows of dark cloth. Hesitantly, tenderly, he brushed the hair from her cheek.

“How long I have waited for one such as you,” he whispered into her ear. His voice was deep and husky. “And I have so much planned for us. First, a romantic cruise to the edge of the world, and then, after a quick stop at Treasury Island—”

“Ooh! Pirates!” Princess Luscious squealed. “How exotic!

“Yes, and after that, I shall take you to the full moon… and beyond.”

His dark eyes.

His romantic words.

His magic finger.

Princess Luscious beamed. Her abduction was everything she had hoped it would be.

Before Laura could voice a protest — not that it would carry any weight since she herself was currently weightless and floating ten feet above the floor — the wizard and the princess flared from the balcony in a storm of shadows.





Far beyond the coastline of Theandrea, Seeboth’s three-masted Shadowship, the Dawnslayer, jutted from the sea like a giant, bristling beetle made of blackened bone. From the night sky, a swirl of shadows crashed down onto the deserted deck. Before those shadows swirled away into nothing, they disgorged Seeboth and Princess Luscious from their depths.