The Merchant Witch

By K.L. Noone

Sometimes heroic swordsmen need money. So Aric and his half-fairy partner Emrys have accepted a job protecting a wealthy cloth merchant’s caravan. But the job’s more complicated than it seems.

Em’s fairy father is hunting them, and Em’s trying not to draw attention by using magic. Their client, Lady Caris, has demanded that Em stay in a simple single-gendered human form and not shapeshift -- and Aric can see his partner growing more uncomfortable day by day.

On top of that, their client’s hiding a magical secret ... and a dangerous enemy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Mar 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9781685507169

K.L. Noone

K.L. Noone loves fantasy, romance, cats, far too sweet coffee, and happy endings! She is also the author of Port in a Storm and its upcoming sequel, available from Less Than Three Press, and numerous short romances with Ellora’s Cave and Circlet Press; her fantasy fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies. With her Professor Hat on, she teaches college students about Shakespeare and superhero comics, and has published academic articles and essays on Neil Gaiman’s adaptations of Beowulf, Welsh mythology in modern fantasy, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Lady Caris is a magician, Emrys said, contentedly draped atop Aric in the aftermath of enthusiastic flexible pleasure, in their too-small tent. Desultory rain dripped onto oiled canvas, overhead; their second night in the Silfren Holt forest was quiet and green and persistently damp. I can’t tell whether she knows.

Aric considered what he and Em had just been doing, versus their present employer’s possible magic, and said, Were you worried about her eavesdropping, or thinking about her while seducing me? It was mostly a joke, especially the second part.

It made Em laugh, feather-light and satisfied. Neither. I was thinking about magic. And me. And then I remembered I needed to tell you.

Magic, and you. Aric ran a hand through Em’s hair—short, ruffled, it brushed like friendly ink along his skin—and considered how to ask the question on the tip of his tongue. He hadn’t worked it out well enough, three days in. He’d noticed enough to notice, because he knew Em pretty well by now. But Emrys hadn’t brought it up either, and that might’ve been a message too.

He said, instead, Are you warm enough? and stuck a hand out for a fold of wool. The tent was nicely outfitted—Lady Caris had money, and paid her hired guards well, which was in part why Aric and Em were here—but designed for portability. Aric had had to figure out an angle that let his feet and his head stay dry, with some negotiation. Fortunately Em was tiny, not to mention magical.

For now. Emrys sat up, kitten-flexible, and handled brief clean-up, with a cloth and what Aric suspected was some equally magical assistance. The warmth brushed between his thighs, cleansing, comforting in a way that had less to do with Em’s cock recently inside him and more to do with the ease of the care, the simplicity of it: Em loving him, matter-of-factly, the way they fit.

He propped himself up on an elbow, shook his head to get a long blond braid out of the way. Watched Emrys: smooth tanned skin, cool winter-grey eyes, the compact slim muscles of someone who knew how to throw a knife or bandage a wound or banish ghosts from a haunted mountain pass. A few scattered scars caught light from the small contained oil-lamp: a kelpie-bite, a line from bespelled iron, a slice across one finger.

Not many scars, because only iron or enchantment or Em’s own doing would leave them, across half-fairy skin. But some. More, over the last two years and six months, riding at Aric’s side.

The light slid across one of the oldest, thin and long and white along Em’s forearm, when he turned back to Aric. Being kind, the flicker of gold fell away without lingering. Em paused to throw Aric a smile, glorious as moonlight.

Emrys at the moment had opted for a very definitively male body, still petite because Em couldn’t do much about the height and weight, but with noticeable shifts to jawline, hips, that extremely luscious cock. He came back over and tucked himself into blankets at Aric’s side, quiet, radiating satisfaction.

Aric thought that was satisfaction. Certainly about what they’d just been up to—his body hummed pleasantly with aftermath, and he knew Em had enjoyed that. But that was, in a tangled complicated way, sort of the problem.

He went back to playing with the fluffy spikes of Em’s hair. Emrys all but purred. Aric said, Did you want to tell me, then? About our employer? and meant, did you want to tell me about you? How you’re feeling? I know you said you’d be fine, and I think you are, or at least you’re not NOT fine; but you did the shapeshift the second you came in and you fucked me breathless and you haven’t said a word about it…

Mmm. She either knows and is extremely good at covering up her own power, or she doesn’t know and she’s got excellent natural shields. Em yawned. I love your hand doing that. My personal vote would be the former.

"Because