Lady of the Lake

Fey Spy Academy Book 3

Nia finds herself entangled in a world of lies and betrayal, where the truth is as elusive as the Dream Stalker himself. Now trapped in a perilous court, she must navigate her own web of deceit while honing her magic. Every ally may be an enemy, and every word could be her last. In this treacherous world, survival depends on mastering her powers as Lady of the Lake. But as Nia's strength grows, so does the danger, and she must if she can trust those closest to her—or she risks losing the war, her life, and her heart.

— Excerpt —

Claret-tinged moonlight slants in through the palace windows, an otherworldly glow that lights up Talan’s powerful body from behind, sculpting the angles of his muscled arms. Droplets of water gleam on his broad shoulders. The dark, rich wood of this room envelops us in a cocoon of warmth and darkness, as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. It’s just me and the sadistic prince.

The worst person I’ve ever met is so beautiful, the sight of him steals the breath from my lungs. He takes a step closer, moving with an unhurried grace, the torchlight gilding his features—the sharp cut of his jawline, the elegant curves of his cheekbones. His dark eyes lock on mine, smoldering with a challenge. I'm sure he knows the effect he has on others. His beauty is a weapon, a poison he uses to disarm his victims before he strikes. A sedative before a lethal blow. 

“Nia?” He says quietly. “I need to get you ready for our wedding. Now. I sent for the dressmaker the moment I heard you were riding back into the kingdom.”

My thoughts are a raging storm. Maybe it doesn’t help that he’s only in a towel, or that his jasmine-tinged scent wraps around me. And yet in the hollows of my mind, my own voice is screaming at me to run. In the Fey world, and especially with him, danger is all around me.

“Our wedding,” I repeat, stupidly.

I’m not sure if it’s the fatigue, or if it’s just him, but my thoughts can’t seem to catch up with the reality of the situation.

Our wedding?

I scan the room. His clothes are laid out on the mahogany table beneath tall, mullioned windows. His wedding clothes?

I wonder if he plans to drop that towel and get dressed in front of me.

“I didn’t say yes to a wedding,” I finally manage.

He has no idea that just days ago, we were on opposite sides of a battle. He doesn’t know his soldiers slaughtered my friend Viviane, or that I crept back into my bedroom in Auberon’s palace, still spattered with her dried blood. 

He’s talking about marriage, and I’m here to help kill him. My life is now layers upon layers of lies. 

Deep in the heart of enemy territory, I’m a player in a dangerous masquerade, and I need to don my costume again. 

Here, in Castle Perillos , I’m Nia Vaillancourt—a farm girl, a fake mistress to the crown prince of Broceliande. A lifelong subject of King Auberon in the kingdom of Brocéliande. This is my role. 

The copper in his dark eyes burns brighter, and he takes another step closer to me, the torchlight carving the angles of his abs with gold and shadow. “I don’t have much time before I’m supposed to marry Arwenna. You’re my only way out.” 

This man? He’s a flickering flame in the darkness, and I’m the moth fighting to stay away his fire, knowing he’ll singe my wings if I get too close. 

My mind offers up a memory—Talan, the first night I spoke to him, torturing a servant. His victim writhed in pain on the floor, half-mad with the agony. Broken. Then—a more recent memory flares to life: Vivian’s body, shattered on the wintry Scottish earth, her jaw slack, eyes vacant, staring up at the grey skies as if hoping for an explanation for the glistening pool of gore spreading out beneath her back. 

Talan’s work. 

He’s an artist, and his medium is violence. His magic is his bow, his victims the strings, each stroke a chord of exquisitely brutal music. 

And yet I’m still here, standing before him, risking ruin.  

Doesn’t matter how gorgeous he is, I can’t ever let me guard down around him. Not for a single moment. 

Mentally, I’m scrambling to put a thought together. At last, I manage, “Not much of a proposal, is it? This isn’t how I imagined getting married. Rushing into it so another woman doesn’t get there first.” 

Holding his towel in place, he arches an eyebrow. “Should I get down on one knee and profess my undying love?” 

When I was twelve, in another lifetime, I had a friend named Gina, who used to be obsessed with planning her future wedding. She said she’d wear a princess ballgown, draped with layers of tulle. She wanted rainbow roses all over the place. Sometimes she’d ask me to imagine my own wedding, and all I could picture was the groom—which changed all the time, depending on my most recent crush. But never in all my fantasy wedding iterations had I imagined I’d be planning my betrothed’s murder on my wedding day. 

“Surely a commoner can’t marry the prince,” I say.

The corner of his lips curve into a smile. “She can if I fucking say so. And as I said, if you don’t marry me, you’ll likely end up dead.” 

I clasp my hands to my heart, sighing. “Ah, why profess your undying love when you can just issue a threat? How very Talan of you.” 

“I’m not the one who will kill you. If Arwenna has my army at her beck and all, she will end your life like a child squishing a bug. And if I marry you today, it will solve my problems. So, that’s what we’re doing. And you, my little rustic poppet, get to spend more time with the most devastatingly seductive man in the kingdom. We both win.”

I wrinkle my nose. “At what point in your life did you start referring to yourself as the most devastatingly seductive man in the kingdom?” 

He shrugs. “You hear it enough times in people’s dreams, and it sinks in.”  

“And why me, exactly, and not a noble woman?” 

He goes still, one hand on his towel. Water slides down his skin, trailing over his dark tattoos and his abs. It’s hard to think straight around this man, or even to keep my eyes on his face when he’s half naked.

“Why you? Because as far as everyone knows, you’re my mistress. I’m refusing to marry Arwenna, but my father is desperate now. Our army just took a terrible blow. My own plan of beating the human military failed spectacularly.” 

My blood goes cold as I imagine what he’d do if he learned that was because of me. “A military loss? That’s a shame,” I say weakly. “Do you have any idea what went wrong?”

He shakes his head. “A traitor among us, as usual. Someone alerted the humans of our invasion plan. But I will find the villain, and I will crush his bones into dust, then hang his head from the castle door.” 

My lungs feel tight, my head dizzy. Fuck. “Of course.” 

 “It’s part of why my father is desperate to marry me to Arwenna. With our treasury empty, the nobles are starting to rebel. There’s unrest within the commoners as well. Auberon is taxing them to death, and they’re ready to light this palace on fire. My father needs money desperately, and he can get that easily from my marriage to the countess. According to our laws, the king can force me to marry even if I refuse. In fact, I don’t even need to be at the wedding. He threatened to keep me in the dungeons until it was over. The only thing that can stop him is if I’m already married.” 

“So why not just marry Arwenna and get the money?”

He arches a dark eyebrow. “The woman who shot me with iron-tipped arrows? You’re asking why I don’t want to marry her? I’d sooner burn the kingdom to the ground myself.” 

“Fair point.” 

“And trust me, my darling mistress, if Arwenna becomes my wife, her power will only grow. The first thing she will try to do is murder you. Do you know what she did once to a woman she mistakenly believed to be my lover? When I was away on a hunting trip, she had the woman stripped, covered in bacon fat and eaten by wild dogs in the Corbinelle Square. I may not show it, Nia, but my hatred for that woman runs deep.” 

I swallow hard. “I admit that doesn’t sound ideal.”  

“I’ve brought you into this castle, but I told you that I would protect you, didn’t I? The best way for me to protect you is for you to be my wife. No one will touch a princess. Not even Arwenna. You will outrank her, and my soldiers will keep you safe.” 

My heart slams against my ribs. She’d already tried to kill me twice. If she did manage to marry Talan, I wondered if she’d demand my death from Auberon as a wedding gift. “But that’s not really what this is about, is it? Keeping me safe? What’s your real motivation?” 

“I still want to wrest full control of the council from my father,” Talan adds. “If Auberon doesn’t get Arwenna’s dowry, his position will weaken. That will buy me some time to get the nobles fully in my grasp. I will promise them that I’m better at managing money than he is, after all his spectacular failures. I’ll show them that I can end the war faster.” 

Talan turns away from me and he drops his towel. I stare at the back of him—at the network of muscles, his perfect ass—until I force myself to look away. 

When I turn back again, he’s wearing a pair of black underwear, and he lifts one of the candles to light a lantern. As its light washes over his abs, my skin goes hot. As he turns around again, heat warms my cheeks. 

I may be here to kill him, but I can’t take my eyes off him as he grabs his trousers, and he pulls them on.

“Instead of staring at me, my little farmer, why don’t you do what I tell you, and take off your clothes and wash the dirt off. Be a good girl and wait for the wedding dress. You get to be a princess. Isn’t that what every woman wants?”

“No, Talan. Not when the prince…” I bite my tongue. 

Not when the prince is my enemy, a target on my kill list—and on top of that, a temptation I’m not sure I can resist. 

Talan prowls closer, every movement graceful and controlled. He pulls on a shirt, and I find myself slightly better able to focus. 

 “Not when the prince what?” His tone has turned glacial, each word like an ice running over my skin.