If his powers are discovered, his father will destroy him…
In a magical land ruled by ruthless Elven Lords, the Fire Lord’s son Dominic Raikes plays a deadly game to conceal his growing might from his malevolent father – until his arranged bride awakens in him passions he thought he had buried forever …
Unless his fiancée kills him first …
Lady Cassandra has been raised in outward purity and innocence, while secretly being trained as an assassin. Her mission is to bring down the Elven Lord and his champion son. But when she gets to court she discovers that nothing is what it seems, least of all the man she married …
But beneath the gilded castle lies an unspeakable evil, greater than either Dominic or Cassandra had ever fathomed, and without each other they may not survive …
England has been conquered by seven Elven Lords and their magic. King George and his court have become a pawn in the deathly games they play. Not deathly for themselves, but for their human soldiers, servants and slaves. Whenever they sire a child, that child is tested for the magic in its blood, and if it shows a certain amount of magic, the child is send to Elphame, the land they came from … or so the people believe. No one has ever returned from there.
Dominic has fought his entire life to hide his human feelings behind his elven blood. His father has used every one or thing he ever loved against him, to punish him, to make him show his hidden magic. But the deadly black fire has never been called forth yet. No matter how much he wants to, he cannot access the magic he feels inside himself.
But the humans don’t all settle in their new lives of drudgery and slavery, there is a Rebellion. And they have recruited the Lady Cassandra. She is to be the bride of the Fire Lord’s son, his champion. She is not only skilled in courtly manners, she has dance magic, and she has learned the dances of death. She is a skilled assassin, and her task is to kill her father in law. Can she surprise him enough to kill him? Or is his magic, aided with the black scepter, to strong for her? She is raised in a convent, and her Faith is strong.
To their own surprise, Cassandra and Dominic fall in love, even though Dominic fights it as hard as he can. How can he ever protect her when his father finds out? Mor’ded will only use her to torment him. But Cassandra won’t give up on him, even when he flaunts his mistress in her face, making the court shun her. She redecorates his barren chambers, she takes two lowly slave girls as her servants, and she defies him whenever she can. But she cannot resist his Elven beauty, and succumbs in his arms.
The Black Dragon Ador tries to aid them, because only together will they be able to defeat the mad Elven Lord. He reveals some of the secrets of the Elven Lords to them, so they know what they are up against. And in the course of the story, the ordinary people of London, and even the courts, come to know and love Dominic and Cassandra. For giving Dominic back his heart and his conscience, they see the real man behind the mask he has been wearing all this years.
I liked the story, but it also lacked something, although I cannot say precisely what. Am looking forward to the next one though.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten