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    Into the Deep: Wicked Games, #1
    Into the Deep: Wicked Games, #1
    Into the Deep: Wicked Games, #1
    Ebook100 pages1 hour

    Into the Deep: Wicked Games, #1

    By H.N. Coven

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    About this ebook

    Thea of Greenthorn wasn't happy, but she was surviving. And when you're in love with the village's golden girl in the rural countryside of a province trying to rebuild after bing ravaged by the fae—that's enough. Until one day, when Thea and her soulmate stumble too far into the Deep, a forest with magical connections that leads to Thea making an irrevocable and deadly decision: to save the love of her life, she must volunteer in her stead to go to Faerie and give up her life in servitude.

     

    But Thea is not fodder for fairytales, and vows to return to her life. She will not be taken in by beauty and lies. She will do whatever it takes to reclaim her life. To complicate matters further, the royal family, namely Prince Casimir, has other ideas. Soon, Thea is caught in a deadly game where her only prize is survival. If she's lucky. 

     

    Out of options, Thea does the unthinkable and turns to one of the fae as an ally. But soon, the lines between friendship and romance start to blur. And when disaster strikes and mayhem descends upon the castle, Thea must make a choice. But what can she give when she's already made the ultimate sacrifice? 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherH.N. Coven
    Release dateApr 27, 2020
    ISBN9781393387107
    Into the Deep: Wicked Games, #1

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      Book preview

      Into the Deep - H.N. Coven

      Chapter 1

      The mud was caked halfway up the skirts of our dresses. The forest floor was wet this far in, where the sunlight barely reached and brambles wound up from the ground in thick cords that looked as though they were trying to reach out and grab you. The Deep was the most dangerous part of the forest, rife, not only with wild animals, but, even worse, with fae.

      Griselda and I were forbidden by town law to come this far, though we would often ‘lose our way’ through the forest until we were skirting the edges of the Deep. It wasn’t like there was an actual border drawn through the forest — we all grew up knowing how far was too far — and it was the only place to find the wild truffles that grew. The stinking mushrooms would bring back a decent pile of coins when traded on the black market in town, one of the secrets to surviving here that my mother had taught me before she was taken, and the only thing that’s kept both Grisie’s and my families from starvation. The women of our village have always done what we must to survive. For some, like us, that meant breaking the law, for others, it was a lifelong marriage to a farting, sweating oaf of a husband.

      For the most unfortunate of us—it meant both.

      Still, I’d never been in as far as we’d wandered this day. I felt the air shift, dampening as we went in deeper, my hand wrapped tightly around the sharpened stick I carried like a knife.  

      Thorns caught along my dress, tearing at the material, cutting into my legs. But Grisie kept pressing ahead. I’d have followed her to the ends of the earth, so I pressed on as well.

      She was always in charge of our expeditions, ever since we figured out she had ten times the knack for finding truffles than I did — they were near-impossible things to find, but somehow, Grisie could wander aimlessly through the forest, and no matter direction she picked, she’d stumble right upon them. The air was so damp this far in that wetness clung to everything, my hair, my skin, dampening the fabric of my dress so it stuck uncomfortably against me.

      Grisie took no notice. She somehow seemed to float through the forest as I trudged, her pale skin catching in little patches of sunlight as we walked, singing to herself. Some nonsense about dashing princes and honor among gentlemen.

      I snorted at her. 

      Singing it won’t make it true, I told her, yanking another briar from my skirts. They were growing thicker with every step. The men of Greenthorn will always and forever be the same pious, sluggardly bunch of ogres they are now.

      Oh, stop, Grisie said, sticking her tongue out at me. If you aren’t going to say something kind, then don’t speak.

      Then I shouldn’t ever speak at all, I announced, sticking my tongue out right back at her.

      Grisie shook her head at me and laughed, but she knew it was true. I was as barbed as the thorns that caught in my skirts. "Anyway, they’re not all bad," she said.

      Name one who isn’t, I said, hoping she wouldn’t, that this was all just a game, fair play for me mocking her song.

      Why should I, when you’ve just admitted you’ll have nothing nice to say?

      Let me guess then, I said, while a tinge of bitterness rose in my chest, already anticipating having my feelings hurt. Is it Jameson Millworth with his rotting teeth and fish-breath? Or Bartholomew Buttram with that ugly little habit of his? I said, miming picking my nose as I listed off only the foulest boys in our village.

      Must you always be cruel? she snapped, and stomped off ahead of me.

      Grisie, wait, I called, instantly regretting my taunts. I chased after her, my boot catching in a tangle of brambles. I fell hard into the thorns, my pocket half-full of the truffles I’d already collected spilling out into the mud.

      Grisie appeared at my side instantly, grabbing my arms and helping me up. I was covered in mud and blood and barbed thorns, some stuck in the fabric of my dress, others cutting straight into my exposed skin. Grisie sat me down on a large tree root. My side was bleeding where the sharpened stick I’d been carrying around for protection cut into the soft flesh there.

      Let me see, said Grisie. Is it bad?

      I’ve had worse. The cut wasn’t too deep, but with the blood spilling out into the waist of my ripped dress, it looked worse than it felt. 

      Grisie lifted the bottom of my skirts up over my knees, wiping away the wet leaves and mud and whatever muck was clinging to my legs. She examined the scratches and bruising along my dark skin, running a gentle fingertip along my shin and over my knee, setting my nerves buzzing. There wasn’t a day in the last year I hadn’t spent my idle time dreaming of her touch. 

      I would fall a million times, forever, if only she was at the bottom to catch me like this.

      I’m sorry for running off like that, she told me in a quiet voice. She leaned in closer and brushed my dark hair away from my face. I was only sore from your teasing.

      I looked at her, dirty-blond hair and pale blue eyes the color of the sky right after a rainstorm. Faint dark circles, like little moons, beneath them that I knew that were from not eating enough, because she always gave extra portions to her younger sisters instead of taking enough for herself.

      And I was only sore from your secret crush, I said.

      What else would you have me do, Thea? Spend the rest of my days crying over the one I really love? She tipped my chin up to meet her face as my eyes darted to the forest floor. I didn’t know how to look at her right now, when she said the thing neither of us had ever said. The thing I’d only ever dared to hope when I was alone at night with total darkness surrounding me. The one I’ll never be able to have, she continued, so long as we live in this muttonheaded village. Our village was the pious sort, run by men, where even the women who’d reached eighteen were still bound by their rules, unless we wished to be strung up by our necks or burned in the square.

      So why can’t we run away? Stay hidden in the Deep forever, I said.

      Besides us being eaten by beast or abducted by fae? Because I can’t abandon my sisters. You know that.

      She was right. I did.

      And anyway, she went on, "I want to have a family someday. I want children. Even if my options for marriage are...limited. They’re not horrible."

      I looked at her.

      She grinned at me through the dim of the forest, a tiny shred of sunlight catching on her freckled nose. Well, they could be worse, she amended. She wiped a smear of blood away from my collarbone. I could feel her breath against my skin there. You know that you’ll always be my biggest secret, though, don’t you? I’ll always wish for a world where we could live together.

      We’ll never have it, I said, depressed at the thought, at the unfairness of the world.

      She touched her finger to my chin and lifted it again, as my gaze returned to the forest floor.

      But we have right now, she said, linking her fingers in mine. She tilted her face toward me in a way that made me newly aware of the softness of her skin, the way her freckles scattered in little constellations

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