The Unseelie Duke

THE UNSEELIE DUKE DEAL OF SHADOWS: BOOK ONE KATHRYN ANN KINGSLEY Copyright © 2023 by Kathryn Ann Kingsley ASIN: B0BY9QBXK1 Paperback ISBN: 9798393850623 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. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental. CONTENTS Forward or Warnings 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 For More by me… Follow Me! About the Author FORWARD OR WARNINGS This series is an entry point into the world of Tir n’Aill. You do not have to read Maze of Shadows to enjoy Deal of Shadows. Every now and then I get a lead male character who demands that I put aside all other things and give him his time in the spotlight. Izael, our Unseelie Duke, is one of those characters. He has been an absolute joy to write, and I hope you find him as fun to read as I had making him up. This series is a dark fantasy that centers around a love story. I can promise you that there is a happily-ever-after ending; it just might be a little bumpy getting there. But for the sake of making sure you know what you’re getting yourself into, this series will have scenes of graphic (non-sexual) violence, murder, and horror. The sexual content in this series is always consensual, but may involve scenes of mild bondage, breath play, and the like. He’s a constrictor half-snake Unseelie fae with a dubious attachment to reality. What do you think is going to happen? CHAPTER ONE Alex had lost everything. It was amazing how one little problem could send the whole house of cards crashing down. And what little she had left was going to follow suit real fast. Plucking her cellphone out of her pocket, she checked the time as she made the walk back home from her former place of employment. The coffee shop was closing its doors. Business in Cambridge just wasn’t what it used to be, now that most of the companies around the Boston area had shuttered their doors to all work from home. At least she hadn’t been fired. At least there was that small benefit. But she was already behind a few months on the rent, and her clunker of a car had finally died three weeks ago. She had barely been able to afford the cost to get it towed out from the front of her place, let alone get it fixed. Without what little money she had coming in…poof. It was all going to disappear. Her shitty apartment. Her meager life. Gone. There was no point in even trying to comprehend how much she owed in student loans. Her BFA diploma in music would make a great umbrella for when she was homeless. She had known there wasn’t money in being an artist, but she hadn’t known exactly how bad it would be. Her landlord was understanding enough, but that was only going to go so far when he learned that she lost her job. A few random gigs here and there, singing in the local bars, wasn’t enough to pay the bills. It wasn’t predictable. Tucking her midnight purple hair behind her ear, she let out a wavering breath. She wanted to cry, but she refused to let it happen. She hated crying. Tried never to do it. And the few times in her life it’d gotten away from her, she’d been furious with herself. No, there had to be a way out of this mess. Somehow. Maybe I could start an OnlyFans. She snorted at the idea. It wasn’t a terrible one—she had no problem with people who did that. But she’d have to drop a lot of money on the setup, and…it just seemed like a lot of work. And she’d need money immediately. She had no family to move in with. Well, no family worth mentioning, anyway. There were no friends she could call to ask for a loan. None of her friends were in the position to help her. And besides, that felt so wrong. Especially seeing as she had no way of guaranteeing any kind of schedule of repayment. Fishing her apartment keys out of her pocket, she walked up the stairs of the dingy three-family building she called home. Hers was on the top floor, a small one-bedroom that had once been an attic, but it was all she could afford. Or rather—had been able to afford. Locking the door behind her and flipping the bolt, she collapsed onto the sofa and threw her arm over her eyes. She hadn’t even bothered taking her shoes off first. It wasn’t like the carpet could get any dirtier. It had been that way when she’d moved in, but she didn’t care enough to pester the landlord to get it replaced. And she certainly wasn’t in any position to bargain. Fiddling with the necklace she wore, she stared up at the flaking paint of the ceiling and tried to think of a way out of her predicament. The ridges of the snake carved out of bone were worn smooth over the years. Fidgeting was a bad habit of hers, and the necklace she’d owned since she was a child was the most frequent target. There wasn’t going to be any solving her problem tonight, she figured. Not when her thoughts