Myla By Moonlight

Magic bites…

Created at Prince Taric’s birth, Myla is a spell, an enchantment designed to appear and protect him when he needs it most. She has always been content to do her duty…until one night of forbidden passion leaves her longing to experience life—and love—as a mortal woman. Yet the risk is too great. Even if her blood runs as red as his, she can never give him the one thing he needs: a child.

Taric’s blessing—and his curse—is knowing the kingdom’s future depends on his producing an heir to continue the bloodline. His bond with Myla has always been that of protector and protected. When it suddenly becomes something much more, he unwittingly sentences his people to certain death.

An old enemy is plotting to destroy all he holds dear: his lands, his people, his father, and his lover. And this time, even if they fight tooth and blade, their shared magic may not be enough to save them…

Warning: This book contains a shape-shifting bodyguard, sizzling sex scenes, supernatural lilac mist, swordfighting and heartbreaking sacrifices. No jaguars were harmed in the writing of this story.

Prologue: A Promise

Sadness and fear tightened the blonde woman’s throat as she reached for the handle of the teardrop-shaped iron brand. The glowing orange-and-yellow metal lifted from the fire and scorched the air over the squalling newborn. She took one selfish moment to loosen his diaper cloth and caress his soft, smooth skin.

“A gift, my son, heir to a world of pain and trouble but also of joy and sweetness. A gift of protection, of guardianship, of love never-ending. You shall never be alone. This is your mother’s first, last and most binding promise.”

The tiny mewl went from fussy to agonized when the bright tip touched his flesh. His scream ripped through her crying heart but she spared no time for sympathy, turning instead to the pestle beside the cradle. Her shaky fingers rubbed the dried potion into the oozing wound, eliciting a harsher screech. When the herbs blended with blood to stain the weeping burn, she summoned the fleeting edges of her strength and raised her trembling arms upward.

“Ancient magic of the earth, come now in this hour of birth.

Protect my child from evil’s hand, a guardian with him always stand.

Protection with sharp teeth and claw, dwell within the mark so raw.

Hear my words cast forth this night: protect my child with all love’s might.”

Ghost-like wind howled then roared, and rain pelted the wooden shutters with a frenzied power. Hiccupped cries filled her ears and she ached to embrace her babe, but she dared not. From flame-dancing shadows a mist grew, formed and became a vaporous cloud of swirling lilac. Her eyes followed its path until it hovered over the low infant bed.

“Come.” Her voice weakened and relief filled her heart. “Heed my call.”

The lilac shimmer considered her with eyeless sight before a sense of acceptance flavored the air. It swooped over the cradle, lingered around the crying baby’s head and then poured into his seeping blackened wound. When the last lick of purple filled him, the child’s bleating ceased. Instead, he hungrily sucked his fist.

She was found an hour later, a cold blood-pool between her feet, her hand stretched into the cradle, fingers on the cooing newborn. The bright shining eyes of the infant seemed older than his hours as his father wailed and wept with bitter loss.

Chapter One

Lust buzzed through Taric’s veins and he eagerly took the barmaid’s mouth again. She was a golden beauty, a milk-skinned damsel with breasts begging to be suckled. Half-naked and hard, he bucked between her skirted but wide-spread thighs. Her whimper penetrated the pounding of his blood. Nipping the skin below her ear, he scraped his teeth down her neck. Her hand traced up his spine. Against his lips, her throat bobbed with his whispered name. His ass hit the floor with a shocking jolt and a flash of red streaked from behind him on feminine feet.

“Damn it, Myla!”

His angered cry died on his tongue when he saw the silvered blade his magic guardian wrenched from the barmaid’s hand. A knife that no doubt had been poised just above his back. The knowledge momentarily paralyzed him but his protector struggled with the strumpet on the bed. He leapt to his feet as a feminine curse rang out and Myla was thrust back against him. Without thought, his arms came around her to prevent them both from crashing back to the stone floor. The dark-haired guardian shoved his hands off and flew into the now-upright maid with balled fists. A catfight of deadly proportion lasted only a few seconds until the blonde crumpled to the floor.

“Imprison her. She may have knowledge of who seeks your death.” Panting softly, Myla did not face him. Taric threw open the door and called to the guard. Myla stumbled and he rushed to her side. Inches away, he stopped cold. She clutched her belly, a deep crimson stain spreading rapidly along her bright silk chiton. Her bloodied hands trembled and she stared at them. Slowly, she raised her wide green eyes to his. Fear as he had never known flooded his gut, sending a chilled backwash of dread into his throat.

“You bleed?”

Her lips parted but no sound came. She slumped and he caught her slight frame. A guard rushed in at that moment, his eyes wide at the scene.

“Take that bitch to the cell and hold her.” His voice thundering in royal command, Taric stepped over the slumped woman, gently laid his precious burden on the rumpled sheets and knelt before the bed. The guard removed the blonde, dragging her by one bare arm.

Taric stroked the frigid cheeks of his guardian. Smoothing the chestnut hair from her temple, he silently prayed, although he wasn’t sure for what. For help? For guidance? It seemed a waste. Myla was all those things to him and more. “Tell me. What do you need?”

“I need
you
, Taric. The wound is mortal but I am not. I must return to you to heal, to sleep, be reborn.”

Shuddering in fright, he nodded as if he understood. He didn’t but trusted she knew what was best. Myla was his constant companion even if he went for months or longer without seeing her. She lived within him. For so long, she had appeared when he was in danger and he had never seen her injured. No matter the foe or how deadly the threat, Myla fought with a warrior’s skill and a dancer’s grace. That she could be hurt had never entered his mind. Now, faced with the very real possibility of her death, he swallowed emotions that had no name but tasted of burnt meat. “Return then.”

“I can not.” Cat-green eyes slid closed sluggishly and he could tell she had to force them wide once more. “You must do it, Taric. Call me to you. Let me use your strength to become as I was created. Call me to your side so I may heal.”

“I—I can do that? I didn’t know.”

Lips of ripe pomegranate curved in a gentle smile. “Yes. I obey when you call. Call me now. The room grows dim and I have no time to waste.” Before his mouth could speak, she clutched his arm with an unsteady grasp, her formal speech unaffected by her injury. “I ask one favor. Do not leave these walls this night. Since the hour of your birth, I have kept charge over you but tonight I must stand down. Promise you will stay here in this chamber with none for company save the most trusted of your allies. Please, Taric. Ease me in this so I may heal without guilt.”

“I won’t leave the bedchamber, I swear it.” He lifted her cold fingers to his lips before he thought better and pressed a soft kiss to a bloody knuckle. “How’ll I know if you’ve recovered? I have to know you’re safe, Myla. I have to.”

“Tomorrow…after sundown, call for me. I will come, if only to ease your mind.”

“I can call for you? Why haven’t you ever told me this?”

“There has never been a need. Please, Taric…” Her voice was a fading whisper.

“Return now, Myla, my guardian. Return to me and find a healing sleep.”

On a sigh, her form faded to lilac mist and drifted straight to his side. The teardrop-shaped burn he’d always carried seared at her re-entry but he relished the ache. His callused palm slapped against the mark, holding it as though it might give her comfort. The stench of sweat, sex and blood from the twisted linens in front of him churned his stomach and he ripped them from the mattress with a growl. Pitching them to the hall, he told a passing servant to find and send Bryton to him before slamming the door.

Taric threw his body into a plush chair beside the hearth, his hand straying once more to his guardian mark.
Myla can bleed?
The thought was so ghastly foreign to him, his brain shuddered. He’d never known life without her and couldn’t imagine it now.

The door creaked open without invitation and he focused on the long, shockingly bright copper hair of his captain and best friend. Bryton’s hair was almost too pretty for a man and Taric loved to tease him about it, but women flocked to him, finding any excuse under the moon to run their fingers through it. Bryton claimed it was his duty to keep the feminine stalkers at bay and therefore his hair was not a vanity but a defense mechanism. He was full of bullshit but Taric loved him like a brother.

Bryton glanced around the now-empty room before he looked at Taric. His deep blue eyes went wide. “Shit! What happened to you?”

A frown pulled at his mouth but Taric suddenly felt the stickiness on his torso and glanced down. He was coated from mid-chest to crotch in blood. Snapping out of the chair, he hurried to the wash basin, eager to rinse the evidence of Myla’s mortality from his skin. The water was tepid but the strong soap did its job, filling the cloth with harsh bubbles that stripped the red from his skin. A swipe over his teardrop scar produced a tiny blood smear and he swiped it once more. It seeped bright drops in slow dots but he had no pain. Not his blood, but Myla’s then. The warm room did nothing to stall his shiver of fear.

“It’s not my blood, although I nearly got a knife in the back from a large-busted would-be killer. She’s down in the cell, waiting for you. Find out who sent her.”

Bryton, now assured his prince wasn’t near death, settled into a chair and crossed his long legs at the ankle. A devious smirk lifted his lip. “I heard you had two women in here and that one was dragged out unconscious. The entire castle is buzzing with the tale already. Two, Taric? Was one paid piece of ass not enough for you?”

Taric threw the sopping cloth at his head. “One, Bry, one. Myla showed up. She got hurt trying to protect me.”

“Myla?” Bryton squeaked, going pale. “Myla was here? Your—your guardian?”

“Yeah.” Taric stripped off his blood-soaked trousers and pulled on a soft pair of fawn cotton leggings. “She bled, Bry. She got hurt. I didn’t know that could happen.”

“Uhm, how can she bleed?” Bryton swallowed hard. Talking about a mythical guardian he had never seen made him uncomfortable, so Taric rarely mentioned her around his friend. “I mean, she’s not real, right? She’s just a spell of some sort.”

“Well, her blood was certainly real enough!” Taric snapped.

His large hands held up in surrender, Bryton diffused the angry mood. “Calm down, I’m just talking, thinking out loud. Did you call for a healer?”

“No. She just wanted to return to me. Tomorrow she said she’d appear, healed again.”

“Tomorrow? She’s going to just…pop out?”

Taric arched his brow and settled back into his chair. “Yes, Bry, she’s going to ‘pop out’ and let me know she’s okay. I need to know.”

“Can I meet her? I mean, come on, I’ve known you since forever and I’ve never met her. I wouldn’t even believe you except, well, I’m not sure why I do believe you but I do.” Eager now, he sat forward with his face glowing. “You say she’s beautiful but fierce. Let me meet her.”

“You’ve seen her, at least a form of her.”

“When?”

A deep chuckle grew from his belly. Devilment tinged his words. “Don’t you remember the wolf when we were hunting as boys?”

Bryton quaked exaggeratedly. “Of course I remember. That was the last time I pissed my pants in fear. I thought we were wolf food for sure until that jaguar appeared out of nowhere.” The younger man stopped and stared at Taric with widened eyes. “The cat? That was Myla?”

“One version of her. I’ve only seen the woman and the cat. I don’t know if she can take other forms.” Deep in thought, Taric absently rubbed his scar, which was still weeping blood. He felt no different now that Myla had returned inside him. He never had been able to tell there was another living being within him. And he had no doubt that she was a living being. Her blood convinced him of that.

“Actually, I know very little about Myla. Strange, I’ve depended on her from my birth and I don’t know anything about her. I didn’t even know I had the power to call her out. Tomorrow, I’m going to try to talk to her, just get some answers. Every single time I’ve seen her, it’s been because she’s helped me. This will be the first time in my life I can just speak with her.”

“I want to meet her,” Bryton insisted.

“If she allows it, I’ll send for you.” The grin slipped from his lips. “First, go down to the cell and find out from that bitch who paid her. I want to know who’s plotting against me inside my own land.”

“She’s a woman. How far do you want me to allow the questioning to go?”

Head bowed, feeling the weight of an invisible crown, Taric sighed.
Damn, I hate this bloody war
. “Do what you must. Just…she may be a whore, Bry, but leave her her dignity. Make the men keep their pants on. I’ll not have the raping of prisoners added to my legacy.”

“Some of the techniques are harsh. She might not be so pretty when she’s allowed to leave.”

“War’s a bitch, my friend. She had a knife at my back. There’ll be no leaving the castle for her.”

“You’d have me put a woman to death?” The question was so softly spoken, Taric knew his friend was testing him. Only a close advisor would dare.

He looked deep into sky blue and firmed his jaw. “And if I said yes?”

Bryton tongued his cheek but inclined his head. “You order, I obey, but I don’t have to like it.”

“It’s the law.” Burying his head in his hands, he sighed loudly. “I don’t know. Just…get out of her what you can for now. I’ll have to think about this. The law is clear but it was never written with a woman in mind.”

“Male or female, she did try to assassinate the Crowned Prince of Eldwyn. You can’t be too lenient. Times like this either make or break a reputation, Tar. You don’t want to be seen as soft.”

“Bryton, go do your damned job and leave me alone. I’m in no mood to play royal politics with you.” Wearily, he ran his hands over his face, rubbing at gritty eyes. “Look, I’ve been nearly screwed, stabbed and had my magical guardian almost die in the past thirty minutes. I really don’t feel like playing the good little prince right now.”

A friendly and steady hand clamped on his bare shoulder before the door closed with a soft bang. He felt some calm settle when the palm straying once more to his scar came away clean. No more blood oozed from the long-closed wound. Perhaps Myla was already healing.
Or she’s dead.

Taric bolted upright and stalked to the door while chugging back the fear which cascaded over him. Fingers reaching for the handle, he stopped. He’d promised Myla he would not leave the chamber until she came to him again. As prince his word was law but as a man his promise was his honor and he wouldn’t break the vow. Spine straight, he flung the door open and asked the first person he saw to send a maid with fresh linens.

Within minutes the bed was redressed and he snuffed the candles. The night was too warm for a fire so he stood in shadows with only the pale light of a sickle moon streaming in the open window. Leaning against the stone frame, he soaked in the shaded mountain vista, drawing mostly from memory. The deep purple twilight slipped to ink and caressed the faraway hills he’d hunted in all his life. He knew each dell and vale like his own palm and would defend them with his last breath. His homeland was secured by nature as well as by might, sitting in a green valley ringed by a ridge of beautiful slopes and crags.

In this land, peace had always permeated his soul, no matter how bloody the battle. But now, now he worried. Was his sanctuary to be endangered even on his native soil? Was everything he knew to be threatened? Disquiet rumbled in his mind like a hungry bear and he thrust away from the window, away from his fears.

He crawled onto the bed with a long sigh. He hadn’t gone to bed this early since he’d grown whiskers. Although in bed, he did not sleep. He fingered the scar, tracing the tear over and over in a rhythmic flow, and his thoughts filled with Myla…of Myla and her presence in his life.

He didn’t often think of her. She simply was. He had no memory of a time when he hadn’t known the battle-ready beauty. She hadn’t changed or aged, always wearing the same cherry silk chiton, her hair pulled back in gold combs and left to stream down her back in ripples of mahogany. Like the fire she was born from and the warrior passion in her spirit, the exotic red silk embodied her power and her strength. The hue it leant her lips was something he had overlooked until tonight. Just like he’d never noticed how it offset her dark hair and made it shimmer like moonlight on a night-darkened river. He’d known his guardian was a woman, a beautiful one, but he’d never felt drawn to her as a man.