The Opal Blade (The Ashen Touch Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  The

  Opal Blade

  BY KRISTY NICOLLE

  The Ashen Touch Trilogy - Book 1

  TRILOGY 2 IN THE

  QUEENS OF FANTASY SAGA

  First published by Kristy Nicolle, United Kingdom, October 2017

  QUEENS OF FANTASY EDITION (1st EDITION)

  Published October 2017 by Kristy Nicolle

  Copyright © 2016 Kristy Nicolle

  Edited By- Jaimie Cordall

  Adult Paranormal/Fantasy Romance

  The right of Kristy Nicolle to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  Disclaimer:

  This ebook is written in U.K English by personal preference of the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-911395-09-6

  www.kristynicolle.com

  For Amelia Shaw,

  The very first voice that made itself known above the din.

  You got me through high school, and were the start of a long line of voices that brought me to where I am today.

  This story rose from the ashes of yours,

  Thank you.

  The Opal Blade

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter One- Just A Little Lovin’

  Chapter Two- Night Fever

  Chapter Three- Cold As Ice

  Chapter Four- Firestarter

  Chapter Five- Give It Up

  Chapter Six- Careless Whisper

  Chapter Seven- Welcome To The Jungle

  Chapter Eight- Jungle Boogie

  Chapter Nine- True Colours

  Chapter Ten- Free Falling

  Chapter Eleven- Train in Vain

  Chapter Twelve- Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This

  Chapter Thirteen- Here I Go Again

  Chapter Fourteen- Boogie Wonderland

  Chapter Fifteen- Thriller

  Chapter Sixteen- Love Is a Battlefield

  Chapter Seventeen- Firestone

  Chapter Eighteen- Come On Baby Light My Fire

  Chapter Nineteen- Boogie Shoes

  Chapter Twenty- Hungry Eyes

  Chapter Twenty One- On The Road Again

  Chapter Twenty Two- You Give Love A Bad Name

  Chapter Twenty Three- Walk Like An Egyptian

  Chapter Twenty Four- Cry Little Sister

  Chapter Twenty Five- Isn’t She Lovely

  Chapter Twenty Six- I Need You Tonight

  Chapter Twenty Seven- Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

  Chapter Twenty Eight- Back In Black

  Chapter Twenty Nine- Walk On By

  Chapter Thirty- Should I Stay Or Should I Go

  Chapter Thirty One- Sexual Healing

  Chapter Thirty Two- Every Breath You Take

  Chapter Thirty Three- We’ve Only Just Begun

  Chapter Thirty Four- You Belong to me

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Want more Ashen Touch Darkness?

  PROLOGUE

  HAEDES’ DESCENT

  We all know the story of Haedes, God of the Underworld. Though less of us know the true story of how he came to be there and what his reign cost him. It began with two souls, one feminine and one masculine, alone in the great expanses of time, in the higher plains of Othrys. These two souls were known as Cronus and Rhea, and their love was so mighty that it could not be contained to merely themselves.

  Rhea bore Cronus three sons. The first named Haedes, the second named Poseidon, and the third named Zeus. As she birthed each of her sons in turn, Rhea could not imagine loving any single being more than she did her children, and with each one’s coming, her love did not diminish but multiplied. The mother’s love was split from its once single target between four, quartered and showered upon them as they grew. This, however, was not the only thing that grew, as Cronus’ anger at the division of her affection raged within his soul, making him jealous and cruel. If this were not bad enough, his sons were powerful and outnumbered him. He feared being supplanted by his own children, and he let his fear consume him.

  One day, Cronus decided he’d had enough of his wife’s distractions. He’d lived with the fear of being outgrown and spat out for long enough. He pondered this a moment before determining that there was no other way to regain the sole attention of his wife other than to do away with his children altogether.

  As they slept under the glow of the Crucible of Gaia, he approached, taking each one in turn and consuming them, power and all, until he could no longer stand. The power was enough to satiate his needy soul. Satisfied, Cronus went to bed his wife Rhea, who coaxed him forth with a cup of wine. He drank deep and wretched, poisoned by the protective mother. Rhea watched as her children were spewed, reborn, one by one, from last to first. Haedes, who had been brought into creation first, became the youngest, and Zeus, the eldest.

  Years passed, and Cronus, unable to rid Othrys of his three prodigies, became a tyrant, terrified of his rule coming to an end. His sons, however, were not oblivious to this fact. Once they were grown, the three young Gods decided they had surpassed the need for their father and were better candidates to rule over the Othrys and The Lower Plains it governed. They launched an attack against their father, uniting to dethrone him.

  After many days and nights of bloodshed, the three brothers triumphed, banishing their father to a far-off dimension, called The Island of the Blessed, where elder Tartarus would watch over him. Here, all souls rested equal, and so the brothers knew their father would be stripped of his envy and power-lust, trapped and never able to return.

  Triumphant, Zeus, Poseidon and Haedes renamed the Higher Plains and set about building a council house before dividing the Lower Realms amongst one another. Zeus became ruler over The Higher Plains and those realms devoted to its protection, Poseidon, The Seas and Haedes, The Underworld. After this decision had been made, they set about making a new order.

  Zeus decided that in order to avoid the problems of the past, each of his brothers would assemble a council of the divine, familiar with their part of the lower plain, that was to advise them, helping them to see clearly and preventing them from finding themselves walking in Cronus’ footsteps.

  Zeus brought together divine entities from the other Kingdoms within The Higher Plains, outside of the newly renamed Olympus, and asked that they begin a more democratic way of life with the three brothers. Zeus recruited those who had been closest to Rhea to form the Aetherial Court. Poseidon closely followed him, naming the council of chosen sea deities the Circle of Eight as they joined him and his wife to rule over the waves below.

  However, not all of the brothers were happy with this arrangement. Haedes didn’t agree with Zeus’ decree that he should be ruling The Underworld with the aid of others. “After all,” he thought, “what kind of God needs help ruling over their own domain? Surely not a good one.” He wanted to rule his kingdom as he saw fit and didn’t feel, as the true eldest son of Rhea, that he needed aid, or Zeus’ advice. Zeus looked upon Haedes, seeing his father’s rage resting behind the fire in his brother’s eyes.

  Frowning, he thought for a moment befor
e his eyes widened and an idea struck him.

  “Alright Haedes,” he said, “If you can answer me this, then I’ll know you need not foster a council, for you truly understand your domain. If you fail, you will, as I ask, set up the council and undertake more research, facilitated by me, into your domain? Yes?” As he spoke, Haedes narrowed his eyes, sensing his brother’s aptitude for bargaining, but reluctantly agreed.

  Zeus recalled the riddle of the Sphinx, which he had heard on the winds of The Higher Plains along with rumours of Oedipus. He smiled down at Haedes and recited the riddle.

  “It walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening. What is it?” Haedes thought for a moment but came up empty. Frustrated, he launched himself at his brother, who merely laughed, being the strongest of the three, swatting him away as though he were no more than a fly bothering a rotting corpse.

  “How dare you make a fool out of me!” Haedes hissed.

  “I need not make you anything brother, for you do not even know the premise over which you are God. The answer to my riddle was man, for you know as mortals travel through your antithesis, life, they move from crawling on all fours, to walking, to needing the aid of a cane. You, of all Gods, should know this. How can you rule over death if you do not understand death? You say you do not need a council to assist you, but perhaps you need not only the council, but as I suggest, a little first-hand experience with that which you rule.” Haedes, at this, cocked his head.

  “What do you mean brother?” he asked, fear taking hold of him.

  “I am ruler of the heavens…am I not?” Zeus asked him.

  “You are,” Haedes replied, bitter in this fact.

  “Then I can expel you from this place. You will be placed in a mortal coil, to live out your life and be reborn a God once you have learned this most important lesson. I will not be subject to another tyranny. You must learn the preciousness of life if you are to rule the dead.” Haedes opened his mouth to object in outrage, but Zeus’ mind had already been made up. Zeus, nodding once, expelled Haedes, banishing him from the heavens and sentencing him to exile in The Underworld. When he awoke, with a throbbing temple, he found his godly essence funnelled into that which he despised most.

  A mortal body.

  Chapter One

  Just A Little Lovin’

  SEPHY

  The sound of rapping knuckles on heavy wood startles me into consciousness. Head pounding, I reach under my pillow, wrapping my fingers around the hilt of my pocket knife before rolling over, nude and draped only in sheets, to hurl the blade without looking. It lands in the wood of the fine mahogany door, which opens at the thud, leaving only the vibrations of the blade to echo throughout the room. A hungover moan escapes my lips, which I instantly regret as the mere utterance of it causes yet more thudding on the inside of my skull.

  What the hell did I do last night? Or more importantly, who did I do? I contemplate my blended memories of the last sixteen hours, licking my bottom lip which is plump and raw. I reach out to my left, letting my long limbs splay through the sheets, assuring me with their free motion that I am totally alone.

  Phew. I breathe out, relieved, sitting up and blinking a few times, feeling frail and tender in the early morning. Jules, my butler, stands on the other side of the gaping doorframe, collecting his breakfast tray from the portable stand on which it’s propped outside the door, before he walks from the hallway and into my room.

  I groan.

  “Good morning ma’am,” I hear him say. I bring my hands up to cradle my head.

  “For the love of Christ, Jules, small voices,” I complain as he places the stand on the floor, bedside, before putting the breakfast tray atop it with expert grace.

  I wrap the sheets around me, knowing that Jules has seen far more of me than I ever want to admit, but, as ever, not really caring.

  I’m hot, so why should he complain?

  “Brad left his number ma’am,” he announces, and then it hits me.

  “Brad. That’s right!” I exclaim, remembering the name of the man I’d mounted last night. He was fun, but I’ve had better.

  “Yes ma’am. His number.” Jules pulls a card with a number scrawled on the back from the inside pocket of his three-piece suit. His green eyes remain nonchalant as I snatch it from him, crumpling it within two seconds before throwing it behind me and onto the floor. He rolls his eyes, and I cock an eyebrow at him.

  “Something you want to say, Jules?” I ask him, reaching forward to take my bloody Mary, which he picks up with distaste and hands to me. It’s served in a fine china teacup, with red flowers around the rim, and sits upon a frail looking saucer with a celery stick beside it. I hate all this fine china crap, but Jules insists I should drink my beverage, which isn’t tea, like a lady, even if it is alcoholic and I’m already hungover.

  He hates that I drink anything that isn’t tea, and so I sip the tomato-juice and vodka concoction slowly, looking up at him, half nude and expectant, as his mouth twists into a grimace.

  “Persephone Sinclair, I’ve known you since you were no bigger than a loaf of bread, and I know that you have heard it all before and that you may think you know better than an old codger like me, but I’m going to tell you what I think your father would want you to hear if he was still alive.” He clears his throat, preparing for the same speech he always gives me on mornings such as this. “You’re far too beautiful and far too smart to be playing with men into the early hours and then discarding them like they’re no more than a joy ride. What about love?” he asks me, and I give him a deadpan stare.

  “One, you know I hate it when you call me Persephone, and seeing as how you’ve known me since before I could tell you that, I’d think you’d remember. Two, I am smart, and beautiful, and I’ll flaunt those qualities and utilise them however I choose; whether that be riding men all night or not. You know I don’t want love. Love is bullshit.” I stick up my nose, and he gives me a look of utter superiority, walking around the frame of my king-sized bed, which is carved from some sort of ivory wood. It’s expensive, just like everything I sit on, wear, drive or sleep in. In fact, the cheapest thing around here is the fleet of men I bring back for fun before discarding them as utterly replaceable the next morning.

  “Bath ma’am?” he enquires and I sigh.

  “For the love of all that is holy, Jules. SEPHY! My name is fucking Sephy! Enough with the ma’am crap!” I yell, instantly regretting it as my eyelids flutter, the pain in my head amping up a notch. I’ve only been back here for a month after graduating from Oxford with my doctorate in classical studies, but you’d think he’d never met me. Being stuck here with my Uncle Peter has done more damage than I thought.

  “Sorry, Sephy,” he corrects himself as he walks across the plush lilac carpet and up two rose quartz stairs into my open plan bathroom. The bath is sunken into the pink stone of the floor which is mapped with white veins. Around it, four rose gold Grecian pillars rise, tracing its white curve as they meet with the high domed ceiling which is lacquered, a luxurious cream paint that swirls, matte upon the curves.

  I gaze around the room as I hear the sound of running water hit the air, it has been this way since I was six, before I’d been shipped off to boarding school in England by my Uncle Peter, and it hasn’t changed since. Lilac carpet meets with cream and pastel pink wallpaper which is covered in shimmering silver roses. My bed is ivory, and the sheets are crumpled silk. A cream armoire stands in the far corner of the room with my prized record player atop it, that which I cannot do without.

  Next to the door, a lilac sofa with gold armrests and feet sits, and beside that a large doggy bed pillow is on the floor. As I look around at each of the pieces of furniture, I realise I’ve fornicated on nearly every single one of them and smirk.

  I inhale as I take in the space, finally waking up fully, the scent of fresh flowers wafting from several of the surfaces, not that I put them there. It’s Jules’ feminine touch that has kept thi
s place modern, but I really need to get redecorating, because the pink, white and purple theme is just so over.

  I rise from the bed, placing my feet on the floor and my teacup and saucer down on the tray. The motion causes my stomach to turn from the obscene amount of whisky I consumed last night, and I feel immediately queasy. I stretch up, letting my arms extend from me as the sheets fall-down around my ankles, reaching my full height of five foot eight. I’m nude as I walk around the frame of the bed, and don’t even blink as I step up the marble steps into the bathroom before sitting down in the water.

  Jules coughs, averting his gaze from my slender form, as the hot water caresses my skin with a gentle and tender touch. It’s just what I need, because Brad had been anything but.

  “How you sit in scalding water without so much as blinking I’ll never know.” Jules sighs, and I laugh as he adds bubbles. They begin to froth and foam, the scent of cinnamon rising with the steam and filling my head in a comforting aromatic bloom.

  “We can’t all be weaklings,” I remind him and he smiles as I let the water continue to rise around me, bubbles pluming as I examine the flawless alabaster sheen of my skin.

  “How very observant of you,” he quips, and I smirk as I raise a long and muscular leg out of the water, taking my time as I check myself out.

  “You’ll get it down eventually, Jules. After all, you learned pretty fast to wait until after I throw Ol’ Faithful at the door before entering. So at least I’m not having to call an ambulance like I did that first morning.” I remind him of the horrible surprise he’d received after walking into my room, tray in hand, only to be in the direct line of my daily bladed projectile. It had only nicked him, which I’d found amusing as he’d cried like a baby, but it had nonetheless caused him to learn to knock and wait quickly enough.