Savage Beauty Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  ALSO BY

  DEDICATION

  MAP

  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

  PLAYLIST

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  NEW RELEASE

  Savage Beauty

  Copyright © 2017 by Casey L. Bond. All rights reserved.

  First Edition.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior express permission of the author except as provided by USA Copyright Law. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.

  This book is a work of fiction and does not represent any individual, living or dead. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Book cover designed by

  Melissa Stevens / The Illustrated Author Design Services

  Formatted and professionally illustrated by

  Melissa Stevens / The Illustrated Author Design Services

  Professionally Edited by

  The Girl with the Red Pen/ Stacy Sanford

  Published in the United States of America

  ISBN-13: 978-1981268382

  ISBN-10: 1981268383

  ALSO BY CAsEY L. BONd

  Riches to Rags

  The Frenzy Series

  Frenzy

  Frantic

  Frequency

  Friction

  Fraud

  Forever Frenzy

  The Keeper of Crows Duology

  Keeper of Crows

  Keeper of Souls

  The Harvest Saga

  Reap

  Resist

  Reclaim

  DEDICATION

  To my witches.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, and in the time of faeries, there lived a beautiful Queen named Briar Rose. Her husband, the King, was desperate for the Queen to provide an heir. For years they tried to conceive, but the Queen was barren. She, too, became desperate. The Queen loved her husband and did not want him to seek out another to bear his child, so she snuck away from the palace in the middle of the night in search of one who might help in her time of need.

  In the heart of the dark forest, she found an equally dark faery who ruled the land. When the Queen explained her predicament, the faery offered to help her, but he warned that such magic always came with a price. Briar Rose did not care what the cost was, and readily agreed to any price he might require in exchange for his magic.

  The faery promised she would conceive on the next full moon, and the Queen ran back through the wood and snuck back into the castle, no one the wiser. When the moon was full and round, she waited for her husband to arrive home from his visit to a nearby village.

  But her husband would never return.

  However, the Queen did conceive that night. The dark faery found Briar Rose in her room and forced himself upon her. His magic overwhelmed her body, placing the Queen into a deep sleep.

  She woke with a swollen belly and with great pains radiating through her abdomen. She cried out for help, but every soul in the palace had been placed under a similar sleeping spell. The Queen, disoriented and frightened, somehow made her way to the nearby village where a widow agreed to help her birth the child.

  The labor was intense and complicated as there was not one, but two babes in her belly. Twin girls, born in the moments when the full moon passed in front of the earth’s shadow, soaking its surface in blood, to match the sheets the Queen lay upon.

  Just before she died, Briar Rose named her twin daughters. The firstborn, whose head was dusted with hair as fair as the sun, would be named Aura. Her sister, whose downy hair was as dark as the midnight sky, would be known as Luna.

  The widow sought help for the Queen, but it was too late for her. It was not, however, too late for the twin princesses. With the Queen’s death, the spell over the inhabitants of the palace was broken, and in two days’ time, at dusk, knights came searching for the Queen. The widow handed the girls over to them, both swaddled tightly against the spring winds.

  And so began their strange lives that revolved around one another, the heavens, and the changing seasons.

  The girls were brought up together in the palace by a caring nursemaid who tried her best to teach them right and wrong, but as they grew and matured, it became terribly clear that the girls were not like other princesses...

  LUNA

  Sisters can be such witches.

  Especially mine.

  Aura was a vindictive nuisance, hell-bent on making my life miserable. Not that I could say I didn’t have a similar goal. But while she wanted to irritate and weaken me, I wanted her dead.

  She claimed she hated me as much as I hated her, but she wouldn’t leave me alone. All summer while I slept, she entered my mind and insisted on sleepwalking with me. Today was no different.

  “Take a sleep walk with me, sister,” she said, her voice tinkling like a tiny silver bell. Her sickly-sweet voice was the last thing I wanted to hear. She was like a gnat buzzing round, landing, only to buzz again once waved away. I was the hand to swat her, the fingers to flick her battered body off my pale skin.

  It was late summer, if I was thinking clearly. My body was physically asleep and lying safe in my cottage, but Aura had cracked into my mind and forced this dream and herself into it.

  Paybacks would be a real bitch come winter.

  Unless I could finally end this cycle – end her – before she took her winter slumber. Inwardly, I smiled.

  “Come on, Luna,” she sang. “Wake up.”

  I was seething, thinking of all the ways I could send her running away, back to her shining, opulent palace and out of my mind.

  “Sister, we must talk,” she cooed.

  Our chats were my least favorite thing in the world. Her voice was like a summer day, bright and chipper and beautiful, just like her; like the roses she grew all around her castle, their long thorns protecting the blood-colored blooms.

  That had been the most difficult lesson for many in Virosa to learn: the idea that some of the most beautiful things in the world were deadly.

  That was my sister, Aura.

  Lovely.

  Enchanting.

  So achingly beautiful was she, that no one could resist her. She barely had to use magic to lure them in, but once they came near, they quickly learned how intricate, sticky, and inescapable her web truly was.

  They were fools, taken in by a beautiful face. But their regret in trusting her was as short-lived as their lives.

  She hadn’t always been this way. Aura and I were raised
by people who had the best of intentions for the princesses left behind when the King and Queen of Virosa died. Humans who did their best to understand the powers we had inherited and slowly learned to wield, who looked beyond the pointed tips of our ears and the elongated canines in our mouths. People who loved us despite the inner darkness we both tried to fight for so long.

  While Aura was groomed to take the throne when she came of age, I was made to watch and learn along with her, just in case something terrible happened. Because that was our reality. In the Kingdom of Virosa, terrible things always happened.

  They happened again and again and again...

  One by one, people began disappearing from the palace and from our lives. It wasn’t until I watched her kill the woman who had raised us without a flicker of hesitation, that I realized it had been Aura making them disappear. It was always her. She’d been killing for years, slaughtering anyone who got in her way.

  The mattress dipped under her weight. My blood began to boil. It took everything in me not to backhand her off the bed.

  “Do you miss him?”

  My eyes snapped open, fixating on her radiant smile, her sunshine hair. She spoke of him as casually as she would the weather. Aura laughed as if she knew what I’d been thinking.

  “Sleep walk with me.” Rising from the bed, she took a few steps and glanced over her shoulder, waiting for me to join her. “I think I’ll let him join us today,” she offered.

  He was my weakness, and she knew how to wield him like a sword. I tried to be cold and indifferent, but seeing him was something I needed. Not because I yearned to relive the heartache, or feel the guilt and sting of not preventing his death. No, I needed to see him to remind myself of what I must do when I woke on the first day of autumn.

  When she killed him, she started a war between us; a war I would fight every day until I could mop my floor with buckets of her blood. What a beautiful sight that would be.

  “Very well,” I said, rising from the mattress with a pleasant grin. Two could play this game. But only one would win.

  “You’re in awfully good spirits,” she remarked, smiling stiffly over her shoulder. “And I was worried you wouldn’t be well rested. It’s almost time for you to awaken. I’m sure you can’t wait until autumn. I hate my winter slumber probably as much as you hate your summer one.”

  I would love my slumber if she would leave it and me alone. It was only her incessant visits that made it unbearable. Thanks to a powerful spell I learned several years back, her constant pestering didn’t drain my power like they did in the past, but allowed me to siphon hers instead. Didn’t she feel herself tiring after our little strolls? I wondered.

  The bedroom I was in during this dream she gave—an exact replica of my room in her palace—disappeared, everything fading to white, until she replaced the scene. The scent of rain hung in the air, even though no droplets fell from the sky. Soft, green grass sprouted beneath my feet, tickling my soles. Wildflowers bloomed around us and trees shot up from the ground, growing from saplings to towering giants in an instant, green and vibrant. A brook babbled to my right. The room may have disappeared, but she was never able to erase my bed. It lay in the middle of it all, the covers thrown back, reminding both of us that this walk would only be temporary and that it wasn’t real at all.

  She waved for me to follow her. There was a time when we enjoyed our sleep walks, but that was ages ago. Before she tore away my life, my home, and him.

  I looked at the scene she created. The leaves of the trees were too bright, the wrong color of green. The bark was more yellow than brown or gray, and the moss was the wrong texture. It was too smooth.

  The little details she missed spoke volumes. I couldn’t help but smile. Aura had always preferred the palace over the forest, but when she came for a sleep walk, she always painted an outdoor scene. She must miss it more than she knows. She hated my binding spell as much as I hated her sleep walks. And yet, here we were: her stuck inside the palace grounds, unable to enter a real forest but able to enter my mind and shove me into a fake one, and me stuck with her for a short time.

  Aura took one look at the contentment on my face and growled, anger simmering beneath the surface. She waved her hand in front of us and suddenly he was there, freezing me in place. Over time, I’d stopped reaching out for him. I hadn’t run to hold him in seasons. Hadn’t begged her to let him stay with me as I slept, watching as he walked away with my sister or faded to nothing at the wave of her hand, while I lunged to grab him and keep him safe from her, failing every single time.

  My jaw clenched, and I relaxed it so she wouldn’t see.

  She’d committed him to memory. Every detail. She may have forgotten the look of the forest, but she hadn’t forgotten him. Every strand of his chestnut and caramel hair was exactly right. His musculature and proportions, his height, the beauty mark near his right ear, the small scar on his chin, his proud brow.

  She studied him and learned every feature that made my heart ache.

  Enough of this. He isn’t real.

  He’s dead.

  “Luna?” he asked. His voice was drenched in wonder and disbelief, as if he was seeing me for the first time after being away for years. It was as if he was alive.

  She’d studied his voice, perfected his mannerisms, his facial expressions and his clean, masculine scent.

  My teeth ground together. She had no right to know him so intimately.

  “Aura,” I said to my sister. She turned from her creation, a pleased smile on her face. “You must be very bored in your palace to wake me with this nonsense. I no longer care about William.”

  Her smile dropped, but only slightly.

  It was time to ruin her day—which happened to be the favorite part of mine. I smiled and waved my hand.

  Aura watched as the summer sky faded to dull gray-white, and in response, waved her hand. Storm clouds built and churned in the sky. It began to rain.

  With a smile, I turned the air cold. A sharp wind cut across our skin and flakes of snow flurried from the sky. The leaves on the trees surrounding us withered and quickly dropped to the ground, and a frigid blanket of white coated everything around us. Aura began to shake, rubbing her arms. “What are you doing? This is my vision!” she screeched.

  “Not anymore.” Now that I was stealing her energy, I could really take control of the scene…

  I looked at William, whose face was blank as he waited for his puppet master to pull his strings. I looked at the stitches that ran down the length of him from his scalp to where they disappeared into his breeches. She added the stitches to his flesh to remind me that she was the one who’d torn him in half.

  Snow fell onto my sister’s hair, shoulders, and the ridiculous pink gown she wore. It distracted her just like I planned, as Aura was too cold to worry about him anymore. Her teeth chattered as she tried to growl at me. She hated winter as much as I hated summer and sunshine, and I hoped this left her hating me more as well.

  “You can’t do this!” she wailed.

  “I can, dear sister, and you should remember that soon, you will be the one sleeping, and I can pull you into your worst nightmare,” I told her. “Maybe you’d like a taste now. Our powers are growing. I know mine are…”

  The snow stopped falling.

  “You like it warmer?” I taunted. “Allow me to make it warm for you, sister. But I prefer the dark of night. It’s soothing, comforting. Don’t you think?”

  The ground thawed because I willed it. Darkness stretched over the sky and crickets began to sing so loudly, she covered her ears. The ground came to life under my will. Centipedes and spiders crawled up her fine skirts.

  “Stop this!” she yelled.

  I smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  The tips of her pretty fae ears turned bright red and the same angry flush spread over her face. In an instant, Aura was gone. I looked around for him, just to be sure she didn’t forget for a moment, but she’d taken William with her.
<
br />   I walked back through the wood, my bare feet sinking into the soil, back to the bed in my dreams. I lay in it and drew the covers over me once again. A few more weeks of summer, and a few more weeks of slumber before I woke. I would rest so that I could be strong.

  Aura would go back to her palace, lick her wounds, and begin planning another battle for when I was lucid. Because when she killed William, she started a war she would not win. In a split second, she took everything from me.

  For that reason, I would take my time destroying all she held dear.

  CHAPTER TWO

  AURA

  Three weeks before autumn begins...

  The rose’s petals were soft, like silk, and yet they were alive. I released the crimson bloom as a rotund servant whose name I couldn’t remember interrupted my stroll through the gardens. Clutching her skirts, she ran toward me, careful to avoid the thorns on the bushes. “Princess, a rider has arrived. He says that he needs to speak with you post haste,” she panted.

  “Who is this man?” I asked the woman.

  She brushed a piece of fuzzy red hair back from her face. “He refuses to give his name or even speak to anyone but you.”

  A trick from Luna? But how could she possibly orchestrate it while sleeping? I still had a few more weeks before she woke, but she had been more powerful during our sleep walk today than she’d ever been. She said it was because our powers were growing. We were almost at the age of fae maturity, but mine weren’t as strong as hers, and we should be equal in every way. After all, we’re twins. She was up to something, but was she behind this? I wasn’t sure yet.

  “Is he human?” I asked.

  She swallowed and nodded. “Yes, Majesty. He appears to be.”

  “Take me to him.”

  Gathering my skirts, I kept the fabric from dragging along the ground. We walked through the garden into the palace yard and up the marble steps. Inside, we were surrounded by white marble and the cold stones made the air cooler. The servant was short, and she took two steps to each of mine. “He’s waiting in the green parlor, Princess.”

  The marble floor shone, our reflections gliding across their slick, glassy surface. The servant paused outside the green parlor with her hand on the brass door handle. “Shall I announce you?”