Read The Dark Huntsman: A Fantasy Romance of The Black Court (Tales of The Black Court Book 1) for Free Online Page A

fresh in his senses. No, he’d avoid killing her. If he could.
    “You know that killing her won’t be enough. The queen will find something else for me to do to earn my freedom. I need an edge, and this witch is it. Someone as powerful as the queen shouldn’t be concerned with a human witch. Somehow, she’s important, and I mean to find out why.”
    “Be honest. You were all set to kill her ‘til you saw her in the flesh. You always were impulsive, now you’re finally free and making the same mistakes. Leave the fucking politics alone, be a free agent, like me.” The puca kicked up his hooves in a little dance. “You’re playing with fire. Pacify the queen and kill the wench.”
    Logan swung up on the puca’s back. “Don’t forget, she’s an important piece in the game. There are other girls, to be sure, but none like this one.”
    “Too many years without getting any, and your noggin is fogged. Do her and clear your head man,” Solanum said.
    “Good advice. I’m working on it. Now back to the witch’s lair, I don’t want any loose ends leading back here. My uncles will not be happy.”
    “I thought we were going to Court.”
    “We will, but first, we fire the witch’s house.”
    “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Cauldron burn and cauldron bubble. Burn, baby, burn!”
    Logan hung on to the capering puca and cursed the queen. They sped up and the portal opened. There had been too many years of the puca running free, causing havoc. It was a wonder world upon world wasn’t burnt down to ash.
     
    Logan lounged against the antechamber wall of the Black Queen’s court, a small inlaid box waiting at his feet. Surreptitiously he looked around, taking in the crowd of petitioners who were there before him. A tiny, familiar-looking fae dipped her chin and buzzed her wings from the opposite bench, her multi-faceted eyes glittering. He nodded back, struggling to come up with her name. It seemed he had the dubious distinction of still being recognized, even if only by the minor fae.
    “Logan Ni Brennan!”
    He almost jumped. But he wouldn’t do that, not here, instead, he casually moved off the wall and over to the official gnome standing behind an equerry’s desk. Here, if one jumped, he was in danger of being the victim. In the Black Queen’s court it was better to be hard as iron.
    “The queen will see you now.” From his spot guarding the entrance to the throne room the gnome’s expression, and small, disapproving sniff, said someone had obviously made an enormous error.
    Logan straightened off the wall, picked up his box, and kept his face smooth and emotionless. This was the first time in a lifetime he could remember the queen ordering him to be seen immediately. A flicker of foreboding touched his neck. A sudden black cloud of knowledge that the witch was more important than he’d thought settled inside him. Maybe keeping her had been a mistake.
    He walked past the hard wooden benches filled with petitioners, and shut out the disgruntled mutterings and stares. A malicious foot stuck out and only fast reflexes, honed from years spent here in court, saved him. How could these fools know he would prefer to be anywhere but walking into the Black Queen’s court.
    A sobbing blue fairy spat hot venom and missed his boot by a finger. “I’ve been here three weeks. Three weeks!”
    You always had to watch out for the sweet looking ones.
    “Wait here.” The officious little gnome wasn’t finished letting him know his place. He left Logan once again cooling his heels at the base of the twenty-foot-tall doors that opened into the thousand-year-old hedge, and into court.
    A drop of sweat licked its way down his spine as he admired the soft, hot pink roses twining up the side of the thorny hedge walls. The skin at the small of his back began to itch. That he’d forget the queen favored an almost tropical heat showed his level of distraction. Black leather was not working here. He’d been