“By me, of course,” Zephira answered.
“How dare you?” hissed the queen.
“You cursed my daughter?” Graciella cried.
Their husbands’ blustering threats of retribution somehow echoed in the open space, adding to the pulsing tension.
“Enough!” Zephira shrieked, throwing both arms into the air. Another crack of thunder rent the air, making everyone shudder. Even the castle seemed to quake beneath the power of her voice. “If you or anyone in your hire raises a hand to me, I shall curse you all and this entire kingdom!” Zephira pointed at King Caden. “You know what I am capable of and that I will do as I vow. Warn the others what they will face if they disregard my words!”
Ronan’s father stiffened but stopped yelling at the sorceress and faced the rest of the adults. “She does not lie,” he admitted. “She has the power to bring down my entire family and kingdom.”
Silence fell around them all.
“The young ones earned what has befallen them and they shall pay without your interference.”
With those words, a flash of light engulfed Zephira and she vanished in a puff of smoke.
Ronan suddenly became aware of the hand clasping his, holding tightly. He looked down as saw that Dominique was standing so close that their arms were touching. It was her hand intertwined with his, gripping him as if he were the onlysafe place in this garden. The matching crescent moons on their wrists nearly touched.
As though she sensed his eyes on her, Dominique looked up at him, her face ashen. Her aquamarine eyes were huge and frightened, filled with tears.
Before he could speak, rough hands seized his shoulder, and another pair grabbed Dominique’s. They were torn apart. Ronan heard her cry out in pain, but he could no longer see her because his father was dragging him into the castle.
His feet stumbled on the stone steps as his father dragged him down toward the dungeons. Panic lanced his chest because he knew where they were going. His father was going to punish him, even though he had no idea what happened.
Ronan clenched his teeth together to stop from babbling an explanation. He’d endured this often enough to know that nothing he said would stop King Caden. His father wouldn’t believe a word he said until he began asking his questions between lashes of the strap.
The door to the whipping room slammed open, and Ronan was dragged inside.
An hour later, he sank to his knees, a bitter taste of sickness in his mouth though he hadn’t vomited. His back burned from the strikes of the leather. There were some places where he knew the skin was broken because he could feel the slow trickle of blood as it dripped down his back to the waist of his breeches.
“That was the entirety of the encounter?” his father asked, slightly out of breath.
Ronan started to nod but caught himself just in time. “Yes, Your Majesty.” To refuse to answer aloud would have earned him another five lashes with the leather strap.
“Very well. We will not speak of this again. Nor will we tell anyone that you are cursed. We have plenty of enemies already. No need to give them more ammunition against us. This stayswithin our family and the Proxa’s. I know they will maintain their silence. A cursed fairy godmother would never be trusted to find the proper match for any highborn fae.”
Unfortunately,his father was wrong. The curse didn’t remain between the royal family and the Proxa’s. News spread like wildfire, far and wide, that the crowned prince of the Byrne family was cursed and that one of the Proxa girls had suffered the same fate.
Offers of marriage arrangements had already been arriving for Ronan when he turned twelve, but they dried up. His father was furious, claiming that no kingdom would ally themselves with a cursed prince who would someday become a cursed king.
For thirteen years, he suffered at the hands of his parents and their demands. He fought against their growing greed and selfishness. He argued in defense of their people and their suffering. But those arguments fell on deaf ears. Each time, his anger toward the golden-haired girl grew. She had put him in this position by not listening to him and returning to the castle when he insisted. She was to blame for so many of his struggles and so much of his pain.
Until his mother fell pregnant when he was twenty-five. It was then that his father disinherited him, claiming their second-born would rule their kingdom as he was not fit.
His father intended the pronouncement to be another punishment, but Ronan felt nothing but relief.
He was free.
Without the burden of the kingdom on his back, Ronan left Magic for the human realm and discovered an entirely new world.
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
Ronan Byrne was fucked.
Which also meant he was desperate. That was the only reason he was walking into the doors of Mystical Matchmakers to talk to Dominique Proxa. The one woman he truly didn’t want to speak with. Unfortunately, he had no other choice.
