Unchained by a Forbidden Love (Eternal Mates Romance Series Book 15)
Felicity Heaton
Lost to the darkness, Fuery wages a daily
war against the corruption that lives within him, constantly in danger of
slipping into the black abyss and becoming the monster all elves fear. Work as
an assassin gives him purpose, but what reason is there to go on when he killed
the light of his life—his fated mate?
Shaia
has spent forty-two centuries mourning her mate. Tired and worn down, she
agrees to wed a male of her family’s choosing, following tradition that has
always bound her as a female and hoping she will be able to gain just a little
freedom in return. But as she resigns herself to being the mate of a male she
could never love, fate places an old friend in her path—one who tells her that
her lost love is alive.
Will
Shaia find the courage to break with tradition and leave the elf kingdom in
search of her mate? And as a ray of light pierces his soul again, can Fuery
find the strength to win his battle against the darkness or will it devour him
and that light of their forbidden love forever?
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It had been the third time he had seen
Prince Vail.
Fuery didn’t remember much about their
first meeting. Not how he had found Prince Vail’s location, or his arrival at
the small countryside cottage in rural England. He had only fragments of the
time he had spent with his prince and commander, scattered pieces that felt
more like a dream than memories.
Hartt had assured him the meeting had
happened, and Fuery was inclined to believe him since he definitely recalled
his friend coming to find him, and taking him back to the guild.
A lingering sense of warmth returned
whenever he thought about seeing his prince again for the first time, a
sensation that had built inside him during his time at the cottage. He had felt
safe.
Home.
He hadn’t experienced such a feeling in a
long time, and it disturbed him now, because home was an impossible dream.
He couldn’t turn back time to when he had
been another male, one free of the darkness.
Untainted.
Prince Vail believed it possible though,
and Hartt held on to that hope like a male possessed, or possibly obsessed, had
spoken of it to Fuery more than once since that first meeting, encouraging him
at every turn.
Fuery had no such hope, but he also didn’t
have the heart to tell his friend he was dreaming, and that reality was a far
darker beast, one without mercy and light. There would be no saving himself.
He doubted Hartt would listen even if he
did voice his thoughts.
His friend insisted he continued what he
had started with Vail, allowing the male to assist him by attempting to bring
him back into touch with nature in the hope it would lessen the burden on his
soul and clear some of the darkness from it. Vail’s connection to nature was
strong. Despite the darkness he still held within his heart, Vail had a
stronger connection to it than his brother, Prince Loren, the ruler of the
elves.
Fuery’s own connection to nature was so
severely diminished by the darkness that it was almost non-existent. He
couldn’t remember how it had felt to be connected to it, to feel life flow
through his veins and light fill his soul, and to take pleasure and comfort
from being surrounded by pure, untainted nature in all her glory.
The garden of Vail’s mate, the fair witch
Rosalind, was beautiful, filled with colours that Fuery found dazzling, almost
breathtaking, and Vail was convinced that it had helped him fight the darkness
and claw his way back towards the light.
But Vail had retained his connection to
that nature.
The same nature that had rejected Fuery,
left him alone in a dark world without her light to guide him.
Hartt had taken him back to visit Prince
Vail twice since that first meeting, convinced that it was doing him good and
that it would help him as it had their prince, and eventually nature would
begin to welcome him again, would open her arms to him once more.
Fuery wasn’t so sure.
The sensation of home he had experienced
during his first visit was fading with each subsequent one, like the light in
him. It felt weaker with each trip to the cottage, and the calm and peace he
had felt on first spending time with Vail in the garden surrounded by the trees
and flowers, and the endless blue sky, was slipping away with it.
There would come a point when he would feel
nothing again, when visiting his prince would give him no benefit.
Would Prince Vail and Hartt suffer when
that happened? Would it pain them to know that there was nothing they could do
for him?
Would they give up on him?
Like he had given up on himself.
Gods, he didn’t want to disappoint them,
even when he knew it was inevitable, so he went to see Prince Vail whenever
Hartt wanted it, and he would continue to do so until they both realised there
was no saving him.
It was no hardship for him.
The cottage was a beautiful place, nature
condensed into a small area that made it feel like a bubble, a haven, a place
removed from the world. He could see why Vail benefited from it, but he was
sure it wasn’t only that stunning pocket of nature that was restoring his
prince’s light.
It was the beautiful witch who lived there
with him.
His prince’s mate.
Mate.
Darkness stirred in his veins at that word
and crawled through his soul at just the thought of her, and it whispered at
him to stay away from Prince Vail and that cottage.
Stay away from her.
He didn’t need to be around females who
belonged to another, and didn’t need a mate of his own either. He didn’t want a
female in his life, despised how other assassins at the guild brought them into
his damned home and paraded them in front of him, or how Hartt would sometimes
make him speak with female clients. He wanted nothing to do with them. Mates.
Females.
He closed his eyes, drew down a shuddering
breath and held it as he wrestled with his darker urges as they rushed through
him, stirred to a frenzy by the path his thoughts were travelling.
Pain shredded his insides, anguish ripping
at his heart. Memories flickered and his veins went as cold as ice. His claws
lengthened, razor sharp and itching to tear into flesh, to spill blood and
cleave bone as the darkness surged in response, a need to lash out flashing
through him. He needed someone to take out this aggression on, to satisfy this
terrible dark need to purge the pain from him.
Fair Rosalind danced into the black abyss
of his mind and he snapped his eyes open as his breath gushed from him.
Never.
He would never hurt his prince’s mate.
He would never harm a female. Not again.
Rosalind had been kind to him, sweet and
caring. She had taken care of him whenever he had visited, knowing when to show
herself and speak with him, and when to leave him alone with her mate as he
struggled with his black urges, on the verge of losing himself to the darkness.
He had come close to losing his fight
against it the last time and had left before Hartt was due to come for him,
muttering some sort of excuse, although he didn’t recall the exact words he had
used. Scattered ones had filled his mind, a collision of excuses that had
fought to be the one to leave his lips. He might have muddled them, because
Prince Vail had looked confused in the heartbeat of time between him speaking
to the male and somehow teleporting.
That teleport had drained him, left him
weak and shaking, the black tendrils of the dark beast that lived inside him
snaking over his vulnerable body and seeping into his heart.
It was always dangerous to attempt a
teleport. All of his powers were unpredictable, but teleporting was the biggest
drain on his strength, because he had to force it to happen. It had been a long
time since he had been able to control a teleport too. The only time he managed
to teleport, it was because he was desperate for some reason, driven by a base
instinct to escape that ruled him.
If his powers failed during a teleport,
there was a danger he would end up somewhere that might kill him, or worse,
would be lost in the infinite darkness that waited in the space between
disappearing and reappearing. That space was cold now, like ice, and stabbed at
him with frozen needles that punctured his flesh and dug deep to chill him
whenever he passed through it. It was tainted by the darkness inside him.
Darkness that was growing stronger by the
day.
Nothing Vail did would change that.
He needed to stay away. Hartt would press
him to return, and Prince Vail would be upset if he stopped visiting, because
both of them wanted him to get better. Both of them needed to believe they
could save him from the darkness before he was lost.
He couldn’t risk it though.
As much as he wanted to be there, as
fiercely and desperately as he wanted to believe they could save his black
soul, he had to stay away.
He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if
he did something to Rosalind.
It would break him.
Every inch of him tensed and stilled as a
sensation went through him, a feeling that something wasn’t right and he needed
to leave.
It was a feeling that often struck him now,
and one he knew the root cause of even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it.
He looked back in the direction of the
guild, aware of where it was, always aware of it, no matter how far he
travelled from it.
It was the same sensation he had whenever
he was in that building now, one that stirred whenever Aya was staying with her
mate, Harbin, in his quarters.
His home was beginning to feel like a
prison.
A nightmare.
He shook it off and focused back on his
work, scouting the lamp-lit black cobbled streets below him as he crouched on
the dark pitched tiled roof of a two-storey inn in a large town near the
borders of the free realm. Mountains rose beyond it, forming a steep barrier
between the free realm and the land of the dragons. A final outpost for fae,
travellers and mercenaries.
The last town.
Beyond the mountains, the valleys were deep
and numerous, with only a handful of villages nestled in a few of them, none of
which welcomed travellers or those outside the dragon species. Not unless they
had gold anyway.
The sky glowed dim amber in that direction,
the fires of the Devil’s lands burning hot, and his sensitive ears picked up
the distant sounds of the black earth cracking and splitting as the lava broke
to the surface, forming new valleys and mountains.
Fuery chuckled low in his throat.
He had half a mind to venture there, to pit
himself against the strongest male in Hell.
The chance of him winning was slim, but
gods, it would be a glorious way to go. If by some miracle of the gods he won,
he would take his place on the black throne and rule the strongest realm in
Hell, legions of demons at his command.
A fitting role for a creature like him.
Whatever evil and darkness lived inside the
Devil, it beat within him too, a drum that he marched to and embraced. He bent
it to his will and wielded it like a weapon.
A blade more devastating than any made of
metal.
Voices dragged him back to the town, ripped
him from his fantasy of ruling Hell and bloodying claws and fangs on the
battlefield as he swept across the lands like a black shadow with an army at
his back, subjugating all who didn’t fall to his blade.
He gritted his teeth and screwed his eyes
shut, and fought back against the whispers in his mind, the ones that urged him
to go through with it. Fight the Devil.
Rule Hell.
No.
He had been a protector once. He had fought
to defend his homeland, and its people. He had been good.
He opened his eyes and stared at his hands,
at the long black claws his armour formed over his fingers. They flickered
between clean with the town people blurry beyond them, and drenched in blood,
glistening against a gory backdrop of carnage.
He had been good.
He breathed through it, each inhale and
exhale making the timing shift, so his claws were clean for longer, and the
sight of them bloodied grew shorter, until it was only brief flickers and then
faded completely.
His claws were clean.
But not for long.
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Book 1: Kissed by a Dark Prince (FREE AT SELECTED RETAILERS)
Book 2: Claimed by a Demon King
Book 3: Tempted by a Rogue Prince
Book 4: Hunted by a Jaguar
Book 5: Craved by an Alpha
Book 6: Bitten by a Hellcat
Book 7: Taken by a Dragon
Book 8: Marked by an Assassin
Book 9: Possessed by a Dark Warrior
Book 10: Awakened by a Demoness
Book 11: Haunted by the King of Death
Book 12: Turned by a Tiger
Book 13: Tamed by a Tiger
Book 14: Treasured by a Tiger
Book 15: Unchained by a Forbidden Love
Felicity Heaton is a New York Times and USA
Today international best-selling author writing passionate paranormal romance
books. In her books, she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing
action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary
from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to
sinful angels and hot demons! If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors
Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan
then you will enjoy her books too.
If you love your angels a little dark and
wicked, the best-selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong, powerful,
and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series or any of her stand-alone
vampire romance books. If you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful,
passionate and erotic then try the best-selling Vampire Erotic Theatre series.
Or if you prefer huge detailed worlds filled with hot-blooded alpha males in
every species, from elves to demons to dragons to shifters and angels, then
take a look at the new Eternal Mates series.
If you want to know more about Felicity, or
want to get in touch, you can find her at the following places:
