Stealing the Wolf Prince Read online

  Copyright © 2015 by Elle Clouse

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  Also By Elle Clouse

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my darling husband who always had faith in me, even when I had no faith in myself.

  And a big thank-you to Sara L. Miller, Luck Hawkins, Rhonda Patton, and Polly Boughton for supporting my writing habit by reading my drafts.

  Chapter 1

  Kiera turned the ivory crank on the side of the massive oak bookshelf. The mechanism within propelled the shelf along a track in the floor, opening an aisle between the bookcases for her. She pulled her notes out of her apron pocket, verified that she had accessed the correct aisle of the law section, and edged sideways down the temporary corridor. Her lantern only illuminated a few feet before all was lost to shadow. The old tomes were dust-covered and occasionally misfiled, but she found what she was looking for without having to traverse the entire aisle.

  She had selected a book of local history she hoped would shed light on the archaic laws that still prohibited the study of magic by the masses. Hopefully, it might hold the key to instigating some changes in current restrictions on magic practice. Kiera focused on the printed letters on the book cover as she emerged from the aisle.

  When she looked up to see a man standing in front of her, she nearly dropped the book. “Good gods!” she cried. One hand went to her heart as if it might jump out of her chest. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me like that, Brogan. You know I hate it.”

  Brogan’s smirk was that of a man who had accomplished something phenomenal. “It’s hard to resist when you make it so easy to do so, dear cousin.”

  Kiera took a deep breath to calm herself and resisted the urge to hit him. “Have a nice trip back?”

  He waved her polite conversation away and motioned to a small troupe of people standing at the massive library’s rear entrance. “It’s time to celebrate, Kiera. I’m back with money in my pocket.”

  Kiera recognized all of Brogan’s companions. Friends, he called them. Wastrels, she privately thought. She fixed him with a hard glare.

  He tried to distract her with a dashing smile, which might have worked if she wasn’t his cousin and didn’t know all his tricks. “You don’t have to be holed up here all night every night, you know. Phelan likes your company a lot...”

  “I happen to like the library,” Kiera said, knowing where the conversation was headed. “And this is the only time I can get in here without constantly getting interrupted or harassed. Besides, we have creditors to pay. You shouldn’t be wasting any money at the bar or gambling with your friends. Where will they be when you’re penniless again?”

  Brogan grimaced, but Kiera knew she was right. His friends disappeared as soon as the coin ran out, but old habits died hard. He had been raised by a man who had squandered everything as soon as he had earned it and had passed his vices on to Brogan. She glanced back at the tall, gangly Phelan, who was watching both of them—especially Kiera—with great interest. She didn’t care that her wild, red locks were tied under a bandana and her smock was covered in dust. This was her domain, and she wasn’t going to feel self-conscious about her state of dress just because of him.

  The two women beside Phelan didn’t seem impressed with the library at all and resembled deer ready to bolt at the slightest sound. Erann was looking at her surroundings with disgust, and the ever-bubbly Brigid somehow managed to bounce even though she was standing still.

  Brogan waved a hand to encompass the shelves and their stacks of books. “What about all this? There’s no benefit in staying up until the wee hours of the morning in this dusty old library.”

  “I’m on a mission. All people should have the right to study magic, not just the select nobility.” Kiera waved a finger at him.

  “Yes, yes, yes.” Brogan rolled his eyes. “I know; we’ve been over this. If you get caught, you’ll get thrown in jail faster than we would from any of our cons.”

  She scowled. “But you said we wouldn’t have to do this for very long, and here it is years later. I’m still stuck in a dark library while you're out spending what earnings we make before we can save any of it! Before the rent is paid!”

  Brogan cringed. “Now, there's no need for that...”

  “Yes, there is.” She lowered her voice so the others couldn’t hear her. “You’ve made promises, both to me and to the creditors. Neither of us have seen a cent. All I can do is berate you, but I’m sure the debt collectors can extract more than just a bruised ego.”

  Brogan flinched at that last reminder.

  “When is the last con, Brogan? Or am I going to have to start looking up distant relatives to take me in?”

  Brogan frowned. “I don’t know,” he mumbled so quietly Kiera almost didn’t hear. “If we find the right mark...”

  Now it was Kiera’s turn to roll her eyes. That was a phrase she’d heard before.

  “We should go for someone higher up than these merchants.” His eyes lit up. “Someone like royalty.”

  “What? Going after royalty is too dangerous. You can fool a crooked merchant out of some money, sure, but if you get the wrong family against you, it’s all over.”

  “But why not hit one of the outlying kingdoms? On the borderlands or the outskirts?” Brogan started to pace, smoothing a hand over his chin stubble. “One that doesn’t have ties to the inner royal families in the empire. One that has a lot of wealth but is still small.”

  Kiera forced herself to remain perfectly still. There was only one such kingdom, and she hoped he wouldn't remember its name.

  “Cearbhall?” Brogan smiled. “That’s what it was called, that little place where you grew up. Cearbhall would be perfect for an endeavor like that.” Brogan's gaze grew unfocused as he stared past her into the darkness of the library. He seemed to have forgotten that Kiera was in the room.

  She gave a loud ahem to get his attention again.

  “Right, Cearbhall.” He clapped his hands together. “You know what to do.”

  Kiera folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t want you to go there and swindle those people out of anything. They are good people, and they don’t deserve a visit from you.”

  A crooked smile tilted his lips. “Well, seeing as I’m the only one able to support this little twisted family we have here, I don’t see that you have much of a choice. I want a plan by tomorrow night. Have fun.”

  “Are you scheming again?” Erann shouted from the door. She stood with her hands on her hips, glaring in their direction, tapping her foot impatiently against the floor. “We haven’t even spent the profit from Lord Blackling’s folly, and you're already plann
ing another job?”

  “Come on, Mr. Fletcher, let’s go celebrate.” Brigid waved Kiera and Brogan both toward the exit.

  “Kiera?” Brogan held out a hand.

  Kiera shook her head. “You go ahead. I have some more work to do here.”

  “Suit yourself.” He spun on his feet and sauntered back toward his friends. “I’m feeling lucky. Anyone up for a game of Twenty-one at Hit the Deck?” He draped an arm over Brigid and Erann’s shoulders and steered them out of the library. Phelan lingered only a moment, then left as well.

  Reluctantly, Kiera headed down the aisle to put back the book she had just retrieved. Her private research would have to be put on hold for now in favor of finding information about the royal family of Cearbhall. She was pretty sure she remembered some of the histories, but she would need help to fill in the blanks. It was going to be another long night of research, notes, and black tea.

  EARLY-MORNING RAYS were beginning to shine through the library windows when Kiera stacked her final notes together, threw the books she had been using back on the shelves, and hurried out the service door. Only the head librarian and Brogan knew of her evening research binges.

  In the beginning, Kiera had tried to do her research during the day, but the staring and snide comments had been too distracting. All it had taken was one entitled nobleman heckling her before she made up her mind to become a night owl. Her late father had taught her how to read and write during his tenure as the head scribe to the Cearbhall royal family, but it was very unusual for a lowborn woman to have the skill. For the most part she feigned having no formal education. At least Brogan didn’t have to act—he couldn’t read. She’d tried to teach him, but he didn’t have the patience for it.

  Kiera concealed her papers in a basket of laundry and made her way down the city streets of Talesin toward the loft she and Brogan shared. It wasn’t in the best area of town, so she wanted to get home before too many people flooded the streets. Only the riffraff coming home from the taverns were out so early, and Kiera knew from experience that they were to be avoided. Even though Brogan had taught her to defend herself, she preferred to avoid confrontation altogether. The gas streetlights flickered as they extinguished themselves. It wouldn’t be long before the shopkeepers threw open their doors and set up stands outside their brownstone shops.

  The loft was the attic of an old stone mansion that had been broken into apartments. To avoid her landlord, she crept up the old servant stairs in back; Brogan was late on the rent again.

  Once inside the loft with the door locked, she let out a sigh of relief. In the relative quiet she could hear Brogan snoring gently in his bed. The fire in the hearth was nothing but cinders, and if a candle had been left for her, it had burned down long ago.

  She unpacked her research and stored it in the small writing desk she’d saved from a sledgehammer a few years back. The desk was one of her most prized possessions, ever since the loss of her mother’s necklace, which had disappeared shortly before her mother died. When she was done, she climbed up a tall ladder to her bed. She was tired and knew it wouldn’t be long before Brogan would wake up and want to start creating a plan. But this time, she knew with weary certainty, his usual method of charming a lady out of her dowry or inheritance wouldn’t work. Her cousin would have to come up with a different scheme to endear himself to the royal family of Cearbhall.

  Kiera curled up on her lumpy straw mattress and tried to get comfortable. The mere thought of Cearbhall stirred up memories better left untouched. She had been ten years old when her father had died and her mother had moved them away. It was too painful to think about all she had lost: her childhood home, her life, her father.

  A tragic accident, her mother had said, but every time Kiera had asked, she’d refused to elaborate. Kiera herself could barely remember what had happened. Every time she thought about it, her head ached and the memories refused to surface as anything more than obscure flashes. It was easier, she’d found out over the years, to let the images slide away like receding water. She couldn’t even recall what her father had looked like. All she knew was that the man she called father had not been her sire, though he had loved her mother and her all the same. The identity of the man who had sired her had been a mystery.

  Absentmindedly, she ran her finger over the small, pointed tips of her ears. She took great pains to conceal her ears, but she could never stop herself from fidgeting with them when she was nervous. The unconscious habit got her teased mercilessly everywhere she lived. Cearbhall had been the only place where her ears had never been a problem.

  As she fell asleep, she wished wholeheartedly that she didn’t have to be at the mercy of Northam’s laws and customs. She wanted the right to earn her own living without having to be under the care of male relatives. She wanted the right to own her possessions. She wanted the right to study anything she desired. Even the banned magic arts.

  “CEARBHALL IS LOCATED in the northernmost region of Northam,” Kiera began, looking down at the notes on the desk in front of her. “The summers are warm but shorter, and the winters are longer and colder. Their population was last recorded at a couple thousand people, mostly farmers, manual laborers, and textile producers.” She broke everything down in her usual manner, starting with the large basic facts and then drilling down to the specifics. Brogan nodded as she spoke, and she knew he was filing the information away in his strange brain. He was still in his nightshirt, to her dismay, his brown hair tousled from sleep and his arms crossed as he listened to her briefing.

  “They don’t actually import or export much,” she continued. “Like most of the outer city-states, Cearbhall has to be self-sustaining. It’s so close to the Wylderlands that most merchants avoid it altogether. They have their silver mines, though, and thanks to that, they have a strong economy for being so isolated and are one of the wealthiest of the outland kingdoms.”

  It was strange to be listing facts and statistics about her childhood home as if this was just another research job. Brogan might see it as the next con, but it was new and surreal to her. These would be people she had known once, people she was certain didn’t deserve to be deceived. But she had to present it as though it was any other job or else give away her true feelings, that it felt personal to her.

  “The House of Canis has been ruling Cearbhall for well over a thousand years. The house crest bears a timber wolf and the full moon. The king, Roudri, has three sons: Lachlan, Ian, and Ayden. The king has no surviving siblings, and the queen, Therese, passed away long ago. The direct line stops with the sons. There are no daughters.” She placed a heavy emphasis on the last sentence. There. That was it. From the frown on Brogan’s face, he realized what that meant as well.

  “The only people left in the family are men?” Their cons were mostly contingent on a young woman and Brogan’s rugged good looks.

  “I guess that puts an end to your plan, then,” Kiera said.

  “No. There has to be another way.” He stared at a point in the distance, and she could all but see the wheels turning in his mind. “Only sons, you said?”

  “Three of them.”

  “Are any married?”

  “No, they’re all unwed.” Kiera raised an eyebrow at her cousin. “Why?”

  “Well, I’m sure that Roudri wants to see grandchildren before he passes away...”

  “I’m sure he would too, but how can you help him with that?”

  A slow grin spread across Brogan’s face, and he made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “You are of marrying age, Kiera...”

  Kiera gaped. “Absolutely not. This wasn’t part of the bargain at all. I just do the research and forge the documents needed. I don’t actually deceive people. And I am not going to get married for your sake.” She pushed herself away from her desk, glaring.

  “Well, it is my job to find you a suitable husband, and who better than a prince?” His smile widened. “A prince of a backwater city-state close to the Wylderland is better than no husband
at all.”

  “I will have no part of this.” She crossed her arms and gave him the evilest look she could manage. He smoothed a hand over his morning stubble, still smiling. “Someone in the castle will recognize me for sure. I lived there until I was ten years old, and my father’s death was no small event. And don’t forget, I grew up with the princes. We had lessons together.”

  “Would they remember you?”

  “It’s possible. The younger ones tormented me, but Lachlan...”

  “But Lachlan what? Were you close?”

  She frowned. “I can’t remember.”

  “Then you weren’t, so that’s not a problem,” Brogan assured her. “Besides, no one will recognize you now. Your hair isn’t that mousy brown anymore. It’s red and curly, and all of your freckles are gone. You’ve grown into a lovely young woman, when you aren’t beating people over the head with your ideals. Just keep those weird ears of yours covered and you’ll be fine.” Brogan’s idea of a pep talk needed an adjustment. “Think about it, Kiera. If you are the queen, then you can have free run of their library and no one can naysay you.”

  That idea made Kiera pause. The library at Cearbhall was extensive. Still, she shook her head.

  “You could open a public university as well,” Brogan offered, leaning in for effect, “where anyone could learn regardless of rank or station. And you could study all the magic and herbology you wish.”

  “I’m not a convincing liar like you are, Brogan.” It was the last excuse she could think to make. The idea of opening a public university rolled around in her mind. Nowhere in all of Northam was there a university open to absolutely everyone. If she could build one, it would be the first of its kind. Maybe a gateway to more such establishments. Then she could research the laws banning magic. Perhaps repeal them.

  “You don’t have to be. Well-bred women aren’t very outspoken. All you need is the right paperwork, an obscure law, and a spokesman. And that would be me.” He started to pace. “You’ll need lady attendants. Brigid and Erann will do. They’ve helped with previous jobs and have served at noblemen’s parties before. You’ll also need a coachman, a coach, and a wardrobe. What a great con this will be. A finale! You become royalty and settle a title and land on me. We can retire in the lap of luxury, Kiera. All they’ll expect of you is to produce a male heir, and that shouldn’t be a problem.”