Dark Court 2 Read online

  Throne of Fire

  Sophie Davis

  Copyright © 2019 by Sophie Davis Enterprises

  (Dark Court #2)

  Talented (Talented Saga #1)

  Caged (Talented Saga #2)

  Hunted (Talented Saga #3)

  Created (Talented Saga #4)

  Exiled: Kenly’s Story (Talented Saga #5)

  Marked (Talented Saga #6)

  Privileged (Talented Saga #7)

  Fated (Talented Saga #8)

  Fragile Façade (Blind Barriers Trilogy #1)

  Platinum Prey (Blind Barriers Trilogy #2)

  Vacant Voices (Blind Barriers Trilogy #3)

  SHADOW FATE SERIES

  Pawn (Shadow Fate #1)

  Sacrifice (Shadow Fate #2)

  Checkmate (Shadow Fate #3)

  Endgame (Shadow Fate #4)

  The Syndicate (Timewaves Series #1)

  Atlic (Timewaves Series #2)

  Legends Untold (Timewaves Series #3)

  Dust Into Gold (Timewaves #4)

  DARK COURT SERIES

  Throne of Winter (Dark Court #1)

  Throne of Fire (Dark Court #2)

  Throne of Blood (Dark Court #3)

  PROJECT SCION WORLD

  Alice Anonymous

  Blind Barriers Boxed Set

  For Shayne—

  As always, thank you for your incredible support, friendship, and all the laughs.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  My first conscious thought after waking to complete darkness was confusion about the warm, humid air that hung around me like a wet blanket. The cold that permeated the Freelands no longer surrounded me, but that bitter chill still lived in my bones and my soul.

  There was a throbbing ache in my neck that pounded in time with the sound of a gong inside my head. My hand automatically moved to rub the source of the pain. I winced on contact. A pale, white face and long, pointy fangs flashed in my mind. My stomach heaved, and I thought for sure I was going to be sick.

  Water. I need water, I thought, but in the unforgiving darkness, I could barely see my hands in front of my face, let alone a source of water. Calm down. Clear your head. You need to focus.

  But I felt anything but calm. A vampire had bitten me. That fanged bastard had drunk my blood. My blood. The memory inspired both terror and rage. A part of me wanted him to come back so we could go for round two, but another part of me desperately hoped never to see his face again. Never to see any vampire’s face again.

  You’re still alive, I reminded myself. Right...but where am I?

  I squinted into the darkness, craning my neck as far as the wound would allow. A long, black expanse of nothingness was all around. Clenching my jaw against the pain in my head, I struggled to stand. My knee scraped against the harsh ground. A jolt of pain shot down my calf as the skin tore beneath my black thermal underwear, and I collapsed back to the ground. A coppery sent filled the air.

  Blood, fire, and fangs flashed in my mind. I could smell the smoke as the vampire I’d killed burned to ash on the frozen beach. The rattle of my chains sounded distant, but the memory of the vampires’ caravan surfaced clearly.

  I shook my head. Focus. You need to figure out where you are. Los Angeles was the closest domed city to Fae Canyon—that was the most likely destination. No, that’s not right. Mat had said something about Queen Lilli wanting a fire fae, which means they brought me to Hawaii.

  Tears pricked my eyes for the first time since waking. Hawaii was so far away from Fae Canyon, an ocean away. How could I ever hope to escape a domed island in the middle of a frozen sea? A glimmer of hope poked through the cloud of desperation: What if I’m still in transport?

  If we hadn’t reached Hawaii yet, there was still hope. Deep down I knew I was grasping at any far-fetched chance in order to preserve my sanity; the ground was solid and stationary, even the darkness was perfectly still. I wasn’t in the back of a truck or on an airship. So, unless the vampires were keeping me in some sort of holding station on the mainland, it was too late.

  Get up. You aren’t dead. There has to be more here than just darkness.

  I ran my fingers over the uneven ground, and sharp rocks tore at my fingernails. My arms and legs were leaden, but I managed to struggle to my feet. Bare feet. Where are my boots?

  One slow, unsteady step at a time, I stumbled forward with my hands outstretched. A sharp, scraping sound broke the silence. I tripped, and my shoulder slammed into what felt like a brick wall. I had to bite back a scream and blink back tears.

  Gaia, that freaking hurt. Why am I not using my magic? I suddenly wondered. Why don’t I feel my magic?

  I leaned against the wall gingerly and summoned my elemental fire. The same warm rush that I always felt washed over me. But when I looked down, there wasn’t a fireball in my palm. My hand wasn’t even glowing.

  “No, no, no,” I moaned. “This can’t be happening.”

  Had the vampire forcibly stolen all my magic? Was I…what was I without my fire magic?

  My heart pounded inside my chest, and I suddenly had trouble breathing. You’re hyperventilating. Slow down. Breathe, I coached myself, hearing my father’s voice in my head. Ask yourself, why would they want to steal your magic? I heard him say.

  Vampires stole magic for fun a lot of the time, but the fanged assholes who’d taken me were cowboys; they hunted for profit, not sport. I was worthless to the vampires without my magic. Casters wouldn’t pay top dollar for a magic-less fae.

  So why can’t I access my magic? I asked the version of my dad inside my head.

  That wasn’t quite right, though. I could feel the powers inside of me, I just couldn’t use them. Was I in some sort of magic-deprivation chamber? For good measure, I tried once more to call my fire power. This time, a small flame flickered on the end of my forefinger but blew out on a nonexistent breeze within seconds.

  The effort cost me the last of my strength. I slumped against the wall as my eyelids drooped. Sharp stone snagged my shirt when I slid to the ground, collapsing in a pile of limp limbs and tangled hair.

  Just before the darkness surrounding me completely took over, I saw the faces of Sienna, Gregory, Ilion, and my father.

  They’re safe, I thought. That makes whatever comes next worth it.

  *****

  In the days that followed, I had my confirmation that I was indeed on the Domed Island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Kingdom, though I would not see the blue skies or breathe the fresh, island air for weeks after my arrival.

  “Make it easy on yourself, girl,” the Pit Master growled. “Madame Noelani offered you a spot at her academy.”

  Right, because I belong at a prep school for fae wives, I thought bitterly.

  I spat bloody saliva at the man’s foot. “Not the right fit for me.”

  The fist struck out so fast and so hard that my head snapped back into place before I knew what hit me. It wasn’t the Pit Master, but rather a scrappy, blonde shifter that he wanted to see kick the crap out of me.

  “Then take the job with palace janitorial. These are your choices, fae,” the Pit Master yelled.

  This time, the shifter landed a kick to my ribs. I doubled over in pain, clutching my injured side.

  “I choose to go home,” I grunted.

  The shifter literally kicked me while I was down.

  “This is your home now!” the Pit Master hollered, his cries reverberating off the high ceilings in the sparring room. “Either you pick your placement, or I will. And if I pick, I promise you won’t like it.”

  His smug, gleeful tone set my teeth on edge. Fury liked I’d never known surged within me. Still crouched over, I glared daggers up at the Pit Master. A small, arrogant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. I’d thought he was trying to break me, to force me to take a position at Madame Noelani’s ridiculous finishing school. But I’d been wrong. He wanted to see me suffer before he broke me, and then stuff me in a hole even worse than the one I’d been living in the past few weeks.

  Don’t give him, or anyone else, the satisfaction.

  My feet were already in motion before the thought had fully formed in my head. My arms locked around the shifter’s waist. She struggled as I drove her backward, finally slamming her on the practice mat. Her leg darted out in a sweeping motion. Next thing I knew, I landed on top of her, the two of us a heap of sweaty limbs and tangled hair. The world seemed to move in slow-motion as I wound her stringy locks around my fingers and slammed her head into the thin mat.

  She wasn’t the source of my
anger. It wasn’t her fault I was in this predicament. I didn’t even know her name. None of that mattered. The rage I felt for the burly Pit Master watching us fight like dogs and clapping with glee, it needed an outlet.

  The shifter wasn’t a great fighter. Her defensive moves were as sloppy as her offensive ones. She was much larger and much stronger, though. If not for the adrenaline coursing through my veins, we might’ve been evenly matched. But the real fight had been beaten out of her long ago. She stopped struggling and simply tried to protect her face as I pummeled her with my fists over and over again. A mix of sweat, blood, and tears dripped into my eyes.

  Two sets of hands lifted me by the shoulders and set me on my feet, my fists still swinging wildly at an opponent I could no longer reach.

  “Get off of me!” I shouted at the people holding my arms, so mad I no longer felt the blossoming bruises or smarting scrapes from the shifter’s blows.

  The girl rolled to her feet and charged. She was quick; too quick to catch her before she slammed her skull into mine in a jaw-rattling headbutt. Stars dotted the edges of my vision, and then everything went black.

  I woke up only a few moments later, flat on my back on the practice mats. My vision was blurry, and I felt, rather than saw, the hands checking me over for broken bones. I gasped when a finger poked what was surely a cracked rib. Someone forced a vial of potion between my lips. It smelled like onion and tasted like liquid smoke with a fishy top note. I turned my head to the side and spit out the healing tonic, then clamped my mouth shut.

  “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, girl,” barked the Pit Master from somewhere close by.

  Maybe I was being stubborn, and surely it would’ve been easier to just do as I was told—not doing as I was told was how I’d ended up thousands of miles from home in a foreign land. But I didn’t want them fixing me up just so some other veteran fighter could beat me black-and-blue again.

  Someone shoved a jar of the most acrid odor I’ve ever smelled beneath my nose. I held my breath as long as I could manage, but eventually my lips sprung apart, and another vial was dumped down my throat. A hand covered my mouth, forcing me to swallow the liquid.

  “You’ll feel better soon,” a soft voice promised me, fingers stroking my sweat-soaked hair back from my face.

  This tonic wasn’t like the healing potions in the Freelands that took at least a few minutes to kick in. This one worked instantaneously, and one of the major side effects was drowsiness.

  The Pit Master’s large head appeared above me. His face split into a grin that revealed a cracked front tooth. “Looks like you’re a fighter after all, faeling. Time to move you to the commune.”

  I didn’t know or care what the commune was. For three weeks, all I’d known was the dark cell with the magic-dampening stone walls and floor, and the sparring room where the Pit Masters put me in the ring and told me to fight. I didn’t know what the outside world had in store for me, but I did know that living in a dungeon wasn’t getting me any closer to escape.

  My first glimpse of artificial sunlight came while being carried on a stretcher from the sparring room to a waiting medical transport van outside. The rays blinded me through the haze brought on by the healing tonic. I didn’t care. The sight was so beautiful that I cried. Even the air tasted fresher than I thought air could ever taste. Floral scents assaulted me, their fragrance cloying after so much time in a stale atmosphere. I caught glimpses of color through the van’s windows as we drove along a smooth, winding road.

  I fell asleep briefly, only to reawake once the van stopped. I was too overwhelmed with all the sensations I’d been missing the last few weeks to worry as I was wheeled from the van through the back doors of a large, residential building.

  We rode the elevator to the second floor, where I was taken to a small room with a bunk bed against one wall. A stout woman in her late fifties stood with an electronic tablet in her hands.

  “Maybrie Hawkins?” she asked.

  I nodded. At least, I meant to. I wasn’t sure if I actually managed the gesture.

  “My name is Ms. Rutina. You are at the commune for all new residents of the Domed Island of Oahu, in the Hawaiian Kingdom of the Americas. Her Majesty, Queen Lilli, is your sovereign, and by her grace you have come to live beneath the protection of the dome.”

  Fuck Queen Lilli, I thought bitterly. But even if I’d been ballsy enough to say that, I felt like there was a spoonful of peanut butter in my mouth preventing me from speaking.

  “I am the matron for this floor,” Ms. Rutina continued, rattling off her well-worn introduction speech. “Once you have rested, I will return to go over the rules and regulations you must obey during your stay with us. For now, all you need to know is that you may not leave the commune grounds. You are free to walk around, as long as you report for meals within five minutes of the food bell and return to your room within ten minutes of the curfew bell.”

  She gestured to the two people who’d wheeled me in from the van. They unhooked me from the stretcher and transferred me to the bottom cot. I was no help, since my muscles were still like jelly.

  Once everyone had gone, and I was alone in my little room with its tiny window, I curled up and basked in the few rays of dying light shining on my bed. As I often did in my darkest moments, I pictured Sienna and Gregory safe in Fae Canyon. I imagined my little brother sitting in class, learning to control his magic. I thought of my father sitting up late at night by the fire and waiting for a daughter who might never come home.

  Does he know what happened to me? Does he think I ran away? Is it better for him if he does?

  These were questions I’d asked myself numerous times. My father would stop at nothing to find me, or he would die trying. I didn’t want that. I hated that one stupid night out with my friends had ended in disaster, and I hated myself for the toll my mistake would’ve taken on my loved ones.

  The sun’s light hurt my eyes, but I refused to so much as blink until the moon was high in the sky. Then, I drifted off to sleep to the sounds of people talking and laughing in the room next door.

  Over the course of the next few days, I quickly learned that calling the commune a home for new residents was very misleading. We were captives. We needed permission to leave the grounds, which was granted for training sessions only. They told me what to eat and when, when to sleep and for how long, and even when I was permitted to shower.

  During the days, I channeled all my anger and sadness into my sparring matches. At night, I laid in bed and watched the springs bend toward me with morbid fascination as my roommate Bonnie tossed and turned.

  Maybe they’ll break, and Bonnie will crush me, I would think. Put me out of my misery.

  My dark thoughts fueled the fire inside of me, stoking my desire not only to escape but to make the vampires and the casters pay for their crimes against me and everyone else they’d kidnapped. I didn’t share my feelings with Bonnie or any of the other fae and shifters I met at the commune. Not everyone was like me. Not everyone wanted to escape this hell. And some of those traitors weren’t above reporting people with my mindset to the government. The only thing I could imagine worse than living at the casters’ whims, was dying for their pleasure. That was the punishment for escape, or so Ms. Rutina had told me many times.

  I would leave this damned domed city. I would return to the Freelands, to my family and my friends. I would hug Ilion and tell my father I loved him, and I would never disobey orders again. I would find Sienna and Gregory happy and healthy and free among our kind. All I had to do was bide my time, sit back and observe. One day, the opportunity would present itself, and I would be ready.

  Until then, the Pit Masters wanted me to fight? No problem. I would make them all regret the day I arrived beneath the dome.

  Chapter One

  Never in my strangest imaginings had I envisioned myself living in a palace and dating a prince. Of course, Kai was no longer a prince. He was king—King Kai II of The Hawaiian Kingdom of the Americas. That should’ve made our story all the more a fairytale, but it was anything but a happily-ever-after situation. Kai had inherited a nation on the verge of civil war; it was fae versus casters, with the shifters and vampires drawing hard lines in the sand one way or the other.