Cordially Hexed (Spellbound Favors Book 1)

CORDIALLY HEXED SPELLBOUND FAVORS LYRA WINTERS Cordially Hexed- Spellbound Favors #1 © 2023 by Lyra Winters. All Rights Reserved. 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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Editor: Jenni Gauntt Proofreader: H.M. Darling Critique Partner: Sara Alpha Readers: Kelly, Sam, Jennifer, Rachel, Renee Beta Readers: Amy, Pat, Felicia, Hayley, Katherine, Shawna, Teeana Visit my website at lyrawinters.com Printed in the United States of America First Printing: June 2023 Created with Vellum AUTHOR’S NOTE Cordially Hexed is book one of three in the Spellbound Favors series. It is a whychoose paranormal fantasy based in the fantasy world of Hexarium. All main characters are in their late twenties/early thirties. This story is a whychoose romance, which means the main character will not choose between her love interests. There is no MM or FF in this book. The romance focuses solely on the heroine of the story. Be aware of your triggers, lovely readers. This series contains strong language, violence, torture (hanging, public execution, gore), possibly considered dub/con (*spoiler* FMC drinks a heat potion and sexual conduct occurs to help her through it), prior grief and loss, war themes, and explicit sexual content. Reader’s discretion is advised. WELCOME TO HEXARIUM! A world divided into three different empires: Allura, Lethium, and Revivium. It is populated full of mages with different classifications and monsters that roam the territories. DEDICATION Dedicated to romantasy lovers who don’t like to choose between the hot love interests. —same here CONTENTS 1. Fawn 2. Fawn 3. Jasper 4. Fawn 5. Casper 6. Fawn 7. Fawn 8. Fawn 9. Aimon 10. Fawn 11. Jasper 12. Casper 13. Bastian 14. Fawn 15. Aimon 16. Silas 17. Fawn 18. Silas 19. Fawn 20. Jasper 21. Fawn 22. Silas 23. Fawn 24. Fawn 25. Fawn 26. Fawn Acknowledgements Lyra Winters Follow me for updates! Also By Lyra Winters 1 FAWN Vile monsters. A dull ache bloomed in my chest and spread up my neck, settling in my tense jaw, as I briefed my highest ranking party on one of the most desperate contracts we’d been offered in this century of mages. Monsters wreaking havoc on innocents filled me with almost as much contempt as the Lethium Empire did. “It’s a glidaton,” I hissed. Glidatons were disgusting, mindless creatures that thrived in chaos and gorged themselves on a diet of mages. Their slimy, winged bodies oozed a venom that could disintegrate whatever part of a mage it touched. The scroll pulsated under my fingers with the anxious and fearful energy that had seeped into it from the blood mage who sent it. Scrolls were a tangible plea for help sent to adventurer guilds when mages needed monsters slain. The scrolls helped determine the severity of the plea and the best way for the party assigned to approach the monster. Mages of any classification type could create a scroll by using the summoning spell to manifest and send scrolls detailing the threats and situations to the guilds that patrolled their location. Adventurer guilds were founded as a haven for mages to seek help when their village or families were terrorized by the monsters that resided in our world of Hexarium. Guilds were comprised of different parties. As the guild master here, I managed all the parties under me. The three separate empires of Hexarium adopted adventurer guilds to keep the monster population at bay, but unlike the other two empires, the Allura Empire only had one guild—mine. This particular scroll made the spirit mage part of me wince at the twinge of despair spinning within the words. Pale purple light emitted from the words and flickered against my face. “I received this scroll a few minutes ago and called for your party because this situation is grave. The glidaton is invading the village closest to Blossom Grove and devouring mages like it’s dinnertime. They’ve lost at least twenty mages since last night.” “Why did they wait to send for help this morning if it’s been attacking for so long?” Declan’s face hardened. Glidatons weren’t the most vicious monsters, but they were nothing close to docile. Declan’s reaction was spot on. No village should have been subject to a monster for so long without help. The scroll disappeared from my hands as I stood from my chair and moved to the front of my large wooden desk, where Declan and his party gathered around it. “The scroll mentions they depleted their magic last night trying to fight it off and couldn’t generate a scroll until this morning.” Despite it being a sunny morning, my office was dark and covered in shadows cast by the candlelight around the room. It was a near-perfect atmosphere for the disturbing plea for help. The lack of windows was considered flawed to some, but in my line of work, it was necessary. No one wanted to hear about monster attacks while birds chirped in the blinding sun. The amount of scrolls we’d received lately for vicious monster attacks made my stomach churn. Monsters were running rampant, and it made little sense. Reports from other guilds and ours proved there hadn’t been this many attacks in Hexarium since I single-handedly cut down the monster population two-hundred years ago. It was how I earned the freedom to live my life the way I wanted. Occasionally, monsters were still a problem. Wiping them out completely wouldn’t have been ideal for the environment because each monster still had a purpose to serve within our ecosystem. But problematic monsters were eliminated the moment they stepped out of line.