Invincible: The Curse of Avalon #4 Read online

  Invincible

  The Curse of Avalon #4

  Sariah Skye

  Copyright © 2019 by Sariah Skye

  Cover design by LKO DESIGNS

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Books by Sariah Skye are only available at Amazon. If you are reading elsewhere, please note it is an illegal, pirated copy, uploaded without my permission. I, the author, nor the distributor received payment for the copy, and if prosecuted violation comes with a fine of up to $250,000. PLEASE do not pirate books!

  #piracyistheft

  #notavictimlesscrime

  Contents

  Also by Sariah Skye

  PLAYLIST for the ‘CURSE OF AVALON’ series…

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Epilogue

  Bonus Scene/Epilogue 2

  #thankyouswithoutlimits

  About the Author

  Also by Sariah Skye

  PNR/Reverse Harem fantasy by Sariah Skye

  The Curse of Avalon

  Invisible

  Inevitable

  Insatiable

  Invincible

  The Fated Saga

  Fated Souls

  Fated Magic

  Fated Hope

  Fated Fury (spring 2019)

  The Ruins of Hellfire

  (RH dystopian trilogy)

  Emergence (summer/fall 2019)

  Renegades (release unknown)

  Untitled Book #3 (release unknown)

  The Shadow of Sherwood (gender-bent Robin Hood RH retelling) (spring/summer 2019)

  Contemporary Romances as Lizzie Fox

  Be Yours Trilogy (M/F)

  Be Your Downfall

  Be Your Savior

  Be Your Everything (spring 2019)

  Be Yours standalone spin-offs

  Be Your Mistake (M/M)

  Lots of Love series (Reverse Harem/“poly” harem/menage)

  Sincerely Yours (F/M romance) (January-February 2019)

  Yours Truly (M/M, F/M romance) (April 2019)

  With Love (M/F/M/M romance) (release unknown)

  All release dates subject to change

  PLAYLIST for the ‘CURSE OF AVALON’ series…

  Yes, there will be Imagine Dragons. Deal with it.

  The entire playlist can be found at Spotify: The Curse of Avalon playlist

  “Born to be Yours”-Kygo and Imagine Dragons

  “All For Love”- Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting

  “Something Just Like This”-The Chainsmokers featuring Coldplay

  “Whatever It Takes”-Imagine Dragons

  “Thunder”- Imagine Dragons

  “Princes of the Universe”-Queen

  “The Skye Boat Song”-theme from Outlander

  “Kryptonite”-3 Doors Down

  “Gangsta’s Paradise”-Coolio and L.V.

  “Truly, Madly, Deeply”-Savage Garden

  “We Don’t Have to Dance” -Andy Black

  “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”- Kylie Minogue

  “I Knew I Loved You”-Savage Garden

  “What Is Love?”-Haddaway

  “Men in Black”-Will Smith

  “Wannabe”-Spice Girls

  “Who Wants to Live Forever?” -Queen

  “Chemical Love”- Eli Lieb

  “Renegades”- X Ambassadors

  “Extraordinary”-Liz Phair

  “Insatiable”- Darren Hayes

  “Come On Get Higher”-Matt Nathanson

  “What Makes You Beautiful”-One Direction (shut up, it’s Ava’s secret…)

  “Lonely No More”-Rob Thomas

  “Wretched and Divine”-Black Veil Brides

  “Dream”-Imagine Dragons

  “Ballad of the Lonely Hearts”-Black Veil Brides

  “Complicated”- Avril Lavigne

  Prologue

  Mordred

  Hiding in the shadows, I saw many things. Many things that I shouldn’t.

  Undoubtedly, if I had been full shadow fae like my mother, I wouldn’t be flinching like I was now.

  “The priestess—Lancelot’s bastard whore of a daughter—and her protectors are quite formidable. I have witnessed it first hand, and fooled them at just about every damned turn.” Nimue, my mother, grinned a malevolent grin, and with all the shadows upon her face it made her look even more twisted and devious than her human form revealed. She paced between a few dozen of her shadow brethren, as they stood obediently waiting their orders.

  They were a terrifying bunch. Almost humanoid normally, their forms seemed to go in and out of corporealness, blending in with the dark of night, and have an almost serpent-like quality. Perhaps it was because of their vine-like appendages, or the “holes” where their mouths and eyes should be, or the wispy “wings” that never seemed to be completely discernible, or the way they seemed to slide through the air. Not glide or float—slide as if skidding across slime or putrid ice. Or perhaps it was the fact that they were attracted to death and destruction, and malice followed them wherever they went that made them so terrifying.

  Being in their presence was disconcerting and frightening. They didn’t have my mother’s “glamour,” so they couldn’t appear totally human like she could. Or like I could because I was half human. The people that stood before them shook and trembled with fear. And these were soldiers. Arthur’s soldiers, primed for fighting and war.

  “Mi—milady.” One daring soldier stepped forward in his shiny silver armor and the red Camelot tabard with the Pendragon insignia upon it. He carried his sword at his side, and struggled to lift it before him.

  “Yes?” My mother’s sneering gaze flicked towards him.

  “What… would you have us do? His majesty ordered us for fighting formations. We are unsure as to the presence of these… beings,” he said, attempting to be confident but his shaky voice revealed otherwise.

  “Well, you will fight them. Perfect practice for fighting Lancelot’s daughter and her devious demon protectors,” she replied, with a bitter frown.

  “But…” He glanced at the shadow fae in front of him. The so
ldier was tall and broad, and I knew him to be one of Arthur’s strongest knights. But, when he attempted to look at the fae, now directly standing before him, he shivered with fear, his armor rattling from it. “We do not take our orders from you.”

  From my hiding space behind the trees in the woods, just east of where Nimue had gathered her shadow army of a couple hundred, and a few dozen of Arthur’s best soldiers, I sucked in a silent breath. Nimue’s face grew angry, shadowed—quite literally—with fury. Her deep brown eyes, tawny skin and full features normally appeared attractive, I supposed, to others. But right now she appeared more frightening than any other demon I had ever seen in my entire lifetime. Not that I had seen many, of course, but I couldn’t imagine anything being as terrifying as this.

  I was about to be very, very wrong.

  My mother lifted her hand, and it twisted and morphed into some sort of dark tentacle. Not the first time I’d seen it, of course—I couldn’t do that—but it was the first time I’d ever seen her outright attack someone. It shot out and wrapped around the knight’s throat, lifting him into the air and choking the life out of them.

  “You will fight them because I said so. I am acting for Arthur, it doesn’t matter if I am only his consort, or not! And if you disagree, this will be your fate!” Nimue shouted ominously, her voice echoing all through the clearing and well into the night.

  The knight struggled as Nimue’s other arm turned into another shadow tentacle, and wrapped around the knight’s chest, effectively crushing his armor and squeezing the air out of him. He couldn’t even struggle or make a noise except for a haggard wheezing her hold on him was so tight.

  Then he was suddenly released, and fell to the ground in a gasping heap.

  “I… am…” he began, coughing, hands at his throat, trying to catch his breath. “…apologies.”

  Nimue smiled an evil grin. “Too late for that.” He was wide eyed just before her tentacled limbs morphed back into regular hands, and she pushed forward, her hand resting on his shoulder. He cried out loudly, pained, as Nimue’s eyes widened and a blast of—well I didn’t know what. Energy? A blur escaped the knight and disappeared right into her hand. Her humanoid form seemed to grow larger, as the energy was taken into herself.

  The knight fell to a lifeless heap when she was finished, appearing to be very satisfied with herself. Several of the other soldiers stepped back, awed and frightened.

  “And if you refuse, gentlemen, this fate will befall you. Is that understood? Arthur gave me reign to guide the army for the trying times we have ahead. These methods may seem dark, and evil but that is nothing compared to what the Avalonians have in store for you, or humanity,” Nimue said, and the remaining soldiers spoke in agreement with quiet voices to each other, or just stood at attention, ready for orders.

  A self-satisfied smile slipped across my mother’s face. “Good.” Nimue ordered the knights to fight, and fight they did with the dark demons. Only, the demons didn’t fight fair. They used their magic, knocking the weapons out of the hands of the knights, and pinning them with evil tentacles themselves, telling them to show no mercy.

  This went on for an indeterminate period of time before dozens of Arthur’s knights fell themselves, having been bested by the horrible demons before them.

  I knew things were bad, but I didn’t think they were this bad.

  How terribly wrong I was.

  Chapter One

  Everywhere I looked I witnessed destruction and death; heard agonizing groans and rattling gasps as people took their last breaths.

  So much destruction and death.

  The stone walls and tall turrets that made up the palace of Camelot just beyond the field were crumbling, falling to the ground with thuds that shook the kingdom like thunder, either struck down with magic or burning from the inside. People, more than likely servants, were jumping out of the windows to escape the flames and heat, and most were coming to gruesome deaths as they fell to the ground. It was probably more merciful then meeting one’s end at the point of a sword or an arrow.

  Between the walls and I, in the large expanse of the field, muddy with melted snow and blood lay hundreds of people, some had met their ends already, others were damn close to it. My grandmother, my aunt, and all of the witches darted around in shrouds of mist, trying to assist everyone with heals or have a peaceful journey to the other side, but they were waning. After hours of trying to heal, everything seemed futile. Hardly anyone remained of Arthur’s army, and only a few of ours…thankfully Mathias, Trystan, Bash, and Xander stood tall, but they too were tiring. I stood motionless in the center of the field, Excalibur gleaming in my hands in the air as heavy snow fell from the sky, thinning out the viscous blood that had been spilled, easing the smell of iron in the air.

  Each of my men fought no less than five of Arthur’s soldiers each, and it didn’t matter how many they cut down, another few stood back up. Almost like they were possessed with something…like shadow magic. Human shadow zombies… it was bizarre. But they were unbeatable.

  “Ava!” A voice rang out from behind me, and I spun around, just before I watched Lachlan, my father, be struck down at the end of Arthur’s gleaming, silver sword. It was no Excalibur, but Arthur was bolstered somehow with some sort of magic. It was dark, and frightening and the mere sight of it made me tremble where I stood. Everything moved in slow motion, Arthur raising the sword in the air, Nimue in the background, head tipped back in evil laughter as Arthur plunged the sword straight into my father’s heart.

  “Noooo!” I shrieked, desperately wanting to run to him. I could heal him, I could avenge him—something. But I couldn’t move. I was stuck, my feet buried in the mud and blood up to my ankles. The guys were too busy to notice my father meet his end and I sobbed openly.

  “Now, it’s your turn, dear Avalon.” Nimue’s triumphant grin was obvious as she raised her hand, calling for a blast of magic that she shot out at me. It came flying like a ballistic missile, but I was in no shape to stop it; it would only be a matter of seconds before I was just memory in my men’s minds.

  Before it could hit me, though, the air around me was filled with a bright, shimmering gold. Excalibur lit up and heated brightly, revealing a sudden silhouette of someone I didn’t recognize. I thought he was tall, with long hair but I couldn’t be sure. However it was the voice that struck me.

  “Don’t worry, Ava. We’ve got this. You only need to believe in me, and I’ll never steer you wrong.”

  It was deep, warm, and comforting… I knew it somehow, but… not. I didn’t understand it, I just knew that I trusted it.

  “Do you trust me, Ava?”

  “I do…”

  “That’s all I need.” And with a bright explosion of light, the image was burned out of my mind.

  I gasped, and tried to sit up, my heart beating and thudding in my chest like a snare drum. I tried to catch my breath, but it was hard to do. Somehow I was pinned to the ground by…something.

  No, not the ground. Not the blood-covered, snow-muddied ground, but the bed. Mathias’ bed. And I was completely covered by nearly three-hundred-pounds of hulking, damned incubus.

  And, all right for that! I thought triumphantly. Sure was better than a nightmare of a bloody battle.

  Speaking of “hulking”, I wasn’t talking about the hulking size in his pants. Partially because he wasn’t wearing any. No, this time I was talking about somehow, in our sleep, the six-foot-seven, former Roman gladiator who could rip off someone’s head with just a clench of his fist and stab a sword into someone’s guts without flinching had a real cuddle streak. He probably realized I was having another strange dream, and the war with Arthur was on the horizon and had been trying to comfort me in my sleep, but we ended up… well like this.

  This is what happened when your boyfriend—fiancé—whatever was well over a foot taller than you.

  Normally I wouldn’t mind one bit. I loved being cuddled and held by my guys: either individually or all at once.r />
  That thought was rudely interrupted by the sudden full sensation in my abdomen: I really had to pee. I was probably freaked out from this stupid and bizarre dream, and somehow Mathias’ huge thigh pressed sharply on my bladder making everything that much worse. Oh, and if I wasn’t mistaken, even though it’s not morning, his morning “wood” was stabbing at my ass cheek. I’d deal with that later. Happily. For now, I really, really needed to use the bathroom.

  At least since this is the floor Mathias is on solely I wouldn’t have to worry about sliding into the toilet, like I did downstairs because Mathias was generally pretty good at that. Oh, and I wouldn’t be assaulted with the scents of cleaner and bleach on the second floor from Xander and his obsessive-compulsive need to clean. He knew better than to come up here; if Mathias catches him in here more than once a week, fists start flying. I didn’t know what was more hilarious, the thought of Xander not being able to restrain himself from cleaning Mathias’ bathroom, or Mathias getting that pissed having him in here.

  Now that I thought about it… why did it matter so much? What was he hiding? One day, I’d find out. But for now, it was go time in the worst way.