The Forgotten Royal: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (Annabelle's Harem Book 1) Read online

  I guess I had my meds to thank for that. What I took now on a daily basis was pretty similar to what they gave me in the hospital on the day that it happened. Except in the hospital they mixed it with several things, and now I was only on the perodoxone.

  It was essentially used to numb emotions. It wasn’t exactly a sedative because it didn’t make me sleepy or anything, but it did block out much of my emotional affect. I had gotten used to the cold, robotic feeling of taking it. After two years, I felt like I practically was a robot now.

  But it allowed me to get through my days. Some mornings when I woke up too late, the meds had worn off and I started to feel the sadness and panic rise up inside me when I considered my life. But then I had my magic little pill to take it all away again.

  I knew it wasn’t the healthiest way to live. The doctor who prescribed them to me suggested I get into grief counseling and I lied and told him that I had. But I most definitely hadn’t.

  I didn’t have the time. I had to work nearly every day of the week just to make ends meet. When I wasn’t doing that, I spent most of my time researching criminal investigations and unconventional tactics used to solve cold cases. The very little time I had left, I spent with Jacob.

  As the cold air whipped across my face on my long walk to work, I had nothing to think about except the ways in which I was neglecting Jacob. Our relationship had never been the same after the loss of my parents. And it wasn’t fair to him considering how much he had done for me.

  I had no place to go after my parents passed. I had no job and no way to pay the rent, and they hadn’t had any money to leave me. It wasn’t their fault, we were flat broke. They did all they could to make it work. But at the end of the day, I was a girl who had lost both of her parents and had no way of surviving.

  Jacob took me in. At the time, he was living with his parents too and they were pretty strict and never seemed to like me much. So he would sneak me into his room at night through the window and I’d sleep there, leaving in the morning.

  I quit school almost immediately. I no longer saw a point in going. It wasn’t like finishing my education would open up many doors for me. In this economy, if you were working any entry-level job, nobody cared whether or not you had an education. Finishing school only mattered if you were going to go onto a higher education and try to enter a more elite field, like medicine for example.

  But I was never going to go to college anyway. I could not afford it. For me, the only reason I kept going to high school before my parents died was because I enjoyed it. I liked my friends, I loved running track after school, and I liked the community… even if my school was objectively very poor and crappy. I was there for the experience.

  After they passed, I no longer cared about the experience. I didn’t care about maintaining friendships. I was focused on surviving.

  I found this waitressing job pretty quickly, and Jacob used the income from his job to move out with me. We’d been living here ever since. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was survival.

  I actually wouldn’t have been able to survive without him at all. We shared a one-bedroom place and we could still only barely afford it. Without him, I’d have been on the streets.

  I did love and appreciate him, I really did, but the person I was before my parents’ death was long gone. I was no longer cutesy and romantic. I didn’t find the joy in life or in our relationship. I was a colder, less fun, less enthusiastic person. I loved him in a simpler, more practical way. Despite that, he had stuck by my side. I appreciated him for that.

  Fallen leaves crunched under my feet as I made my way down the sidewalk. I was fast approaching the restaurant where I worked.

  I loathed my job. I spent my days feeding other people while I worried about making enough money to feed myself. Tips were low—this wasn’t a high class place or anything. It was an affordable burger joint and most people who came in here were low on money themselves.

  I stepped into the front door and a bell chimed above my head as it always did when someone walked in. My boss, a large ogre named Timony, immediately made his way to me.

  He actually might have been part ogre and part human, because he was smaller than other ogres I had met. Still big enough that he almost ran into the tables as he walked across the restaurant, though.

  His black brow furrowed on his wrinkly green skin. “You are in charge. I have to go to the bank.”

  He usually did this as soon as I came in. I was one of the few employees he trusted to keep the restaurant running smoothly while he left. Though I was sure he wasn't actually going to the bank… Nobody has to go to the bank as often as he claimed he needed to.

  No, I suspected instead that he used this time during the day to head to the brothel down the street that was open to all species. He was married, but I knew he was a scumbag and he flirted with just about every woman that came in here. Ogre, troll, human, elf, it didn’t matter. Though he seemed to have a proclivity for elven women in particular.

  “Yeah, okay, not a problem.” I nodded to him.

  “And, hey… watch that shifter at table ten,” he said bitingly. “Don’t let him run out on the bill.”

  Man, it really pissed me off when he said shit like that. I bit my tongue because I had to, he was my boss and he had a temper and I wasn’t about to screw with him.

  But the shifter discrimination disgusted me.

  It was something my parents instilled in me from a young age: all species are created equal. There was nothing inherently wrong or bad about shifters. There was nothing in their DNA that made them particularly evil. Yet they were always viewed as underhanded or shady.

  This discrimination went back about a hundred years. It was during the fall of the royal witches’ reign that opinions on shifters took a drastic shift.

  See, they used to be highly respected. Back when there was a long line of royal witches that ruled our country of Elderan, shifters were often employed by royals for security purposes and other tasks. This was back when the country was flourishing. We did not live in poverty, things were more or less fair. Even the lowest position in society was still well paid and well respected. Back then, you could be a waitress and nobody would judge or demean you for it. Anyone could pursue higher education if they wanted. In fact, it was encouraged. Compared to the world I knew today, it was a utopia.

  And the royal witches and wizards were the most respected. Despite being royalty and living somewhat more lavishly than the rest of the population, they were still fair. They protected the country. They passed unbiased laws. It was widely known that witches and wizards were the wisest, most knowledgeable, most objective species.

  The powers they possessed were particularly useful when it came to running a country. Every witch and wizard had varying skills. All of them could use magic, were trained in spells, and could teleport, but some had additional powers like mindreading or futuresight.

  There weren’t many of them, though. They’d always been a rare species. The royal line was the last known group of witches and because they had to mate with other species, humans and shifters mostly, some of their children were not born with powers.

  That was really why shifters were so important in that past society. Though witches and wizards clearly had the power to protect themselves, there were so few of them that they needed to task another species with protecting both their castles and society as a whole. Shifters became a protection force across the country. They were known as the Security Officers and they were trained in safety and maintaining order. And they did a damn good job from what I’d learned in my history classes.

  But they got greedy. At some point, shifters began to view themselves as equally powerful to the witches. And they couldn’t understand why they shouldn’t be the ones in power, making big decisions. In their minds, being able to shift into a wide array of different animals was equally as skillful as using magic.

  That was when the attempt to overthrow the witches came. There was a large war and the end result was that many shifters lost their lives and the entire royal line was wiped out. It left the country in shambles and it eventually led to the terrible, poverty-stricken world we lived in now.

  With so many shifters dead, they were significantly less powerful and the rest of the country was able to fight against their rule. They were hated for what they’d done. Nobody wanted the witches to fall out of power—why would they? They had created a fantastic society.

  After the shifters were thrown out, humans were in charge. And the shift from magical leadership to non-magical leadership was horribly detrimental. But it was what we were left with because outside of shifters and witches, there were no other magical creatures.

  Shifters had been hated ever since, and that was despicable to me. The mistakes of shifters one hundred years ago had nothing to do with the modern shifters of today. They shouldn’t be charged with the mistakes of their ancestors. I hadn’t interacted with too many shifters in my life since they were the least populous species that existed today, but the few that I had met were always perfectly pleasant.

  Still, most people hated them. Most companies wouldn’t hire them. If anything, any shifter that was underhanded today likely had to be just to survive. Perhaps we’d see less shifter crime if we treated them differently and allowed them job opportunities.

  I rolled my eyes when Timony walked out the door and immediately headed to the table with the shifter first. There was only one other table with an elven couple that came in regularly. Despite them actually being decent tippers, I didn’t take their order first because I thought it would be nice to show some compassion for the shifter. They were always served last and almost never politely. I mean, it made sense, if even the owner of the restaurant was judging him. No customer service e
mployee was ever required to be nice to them.

  I walked up to him with a smile, even though I rarely smiled. My meds made me expressionless most of the time.

  “Hello, my name’s Annabelle and I’ll be your server today. What can I get for you?” I asked as I looked him over.

  He had dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and a very muscular build. Despite him looking so athletic and svelte, you couldn’t really tell him apart from the average human. But he had the tattoo on his wrist that all shifters were required to have so that the rest of the world would know what they were. His was a small symbol of a wolf, though I tried not to glance at it.

  It felt incredibly rude. It was disgusting that they had to get tattoo identifiers at all. It was no business of mine what animal he was capable of turning into. That used to be private information among shifters. For those that were on the security force, it was even vital that you keep your animal counterpart hidden. Doing so meant having more power to defend yourself and others.

  So this tattoo law was beyond cruel. It broke a long held shifter tradition. But shifter traditions and beliefs seemed to matter much less here in Elderan after the fall of the witches.

  He looked up at me slowly, curiously. He stared just a little too long.

  “I’ll have a cheeseburger with fries.”

  “Not a problem. And what to drink?”

  “Just a water,” he said bluntly.

  “Perfect, got it. I’ll be right out with that.”

  On my way to get his water I stopped by the elven couple’s table to get their order, though they always ordered the same thing.

  I went back into the kitchen and grabbed three cups. I filled two with a dark soda and one with water. I threw a straw in each of them and then carried the tray out. I gave the couple their soda and then dropped the water off to the shifter.

  “Your burger will be just about ten minutes,” I told him with a smile.

  “Great.” He nodded with no emotional affect.

  That didn’t seem unusual for shifters. I could only assume it was a defense mechanism against the intense level of discrimination they always had to deal with. I didn’t mind… I dealt with ogres and trolls that were a lot ruder than him.

  It was weird, though. I was feeling oddly awestruck by this man.

  For the most part, the customers that come in don’t really faze me. I do a good job, I make my money, but I have no real interest in any of them. I had no interest in anyone these days for any reason, honestly.

  But I just could not stop staring at this guy. Maybe it was just because I rarely got to see a shifter. Who could say? He was taking up all my interest, though. After dropping off his food, I was so intently watching him eat his burger that I almost didn’t even notice the short, stocky troll that had stepped in and sat down at a booth.

  After I finished taking the troll’s order, I redirected my attention back to the shifter… but he was gone. I hadn’t even dropped off his receipt yet!

  Man, if he really did run out on the bill, Timony was going to kill me.

  But when I walked over, I noticed a small paper bill worth twenty ergots sitting there waiting for me. His lunch was only seven ergots, so it was quite an unusual tip. And from a shifter? They were usually living in more poverty than the rest of us.

  Ah, shit, I shouldn’t have been judging like that. That was a stereotype. Of course there were some shifters who were doing just fine. I had to stop myself from internalizing the discrimination I was always seeing around me. It wasn’t based off anything real, and it wasn’t my place to make assumptions about anyone.

  I stuffed the bill into my check presenter and continued with my shift for another eight hours. It was an uneventful eight hours, as it always was.

  I had to wonder, if I didn’t take this medication, would I even be able to deal with my days? Or did the meds make my absolutely awful work experiences that much more bearable by numbing to me how miserable it really was?

  If they did, I was grateful.

  I heard the doorbell chime and looked up to see it was my relief, another waitress named Nessa. It was a traditionally elven name.

  She tucked her blonde hair behind her pointed ears. “Hey, Annabelle. I was hoping you’d be working.”

  I felt my heartbeat begin to quicken. “Does that mean you found…”

  “Yeah, I did. But… hush.” She nodded toward the supply closet and I knew what she meant.

  “I need some towels to do my side work, walk with me,” I said, hoping saying an actual reason I needed to go to the supply closet out loud would make it less suspicious. It probably made things weirder considering I’m a pretty bad liar, but whatever.

  We reached the closet and stepped inside, mostly closing the door behind us.

  “Okay, here’s her address.” Nessa handed me a tiny piece of paper. “She’s going to ask for 1500 ergots.”

  That was literally an entire month’s worth of bills for me, but I didn’t care. I knew this was going to be expensive and I’d been secretly saving for a long time for this. Jacob had no idea.

  “But she’s the real deal?” I asked. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m positive. She’s an old family friend and she’s been doing this underground for a long time now. But promise me you won’t give this address to a single soul. Don’t even tell your boyfriend, Annabelle. I mean it. You know the penalties for this kind of magic.”

  “Duh, of course. You have my word. I’d never breathe a word of this to anyone.”

  “Good.” She nodded. “You can show up at her place anytime, just make sure you have the cash in hand. It has to be 1500 ergots exactly. No less.”

  “Got it. I’ll have the money. Seriously, thank you so much.”

  She gave me a smile and nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  We exited the closet, and I tried to casually clock out and leave. I was doing my best to hide my excitement, but it really was damn hard. This information could change everything… It could change my whole life.

  I stepped outside and tried to breathe as the wind whipped around me. I’d been looking for anyone who might still own pebblerot—this powder that could be thrown into a bowl of seawater and upon drinking it would give a person the ability to temporarily see visions.

  More importantly, you could request certain visions. You could ask questions and get answers to virtually anything you wanted to know.

  Back when the witches reigned, pebblerot was fairly common. Witches who didn’t naturally have futuresight or pastsight used it to be able to see the things they normally couldn’t… But plenty of other species used it too.

  It wasn’t illegal for non-magical creatures to use magical objects or potions, and they were even sold in shops. It was commonplace. But that all changed when the humans took power back.

  Actually, maybe it wasn’t immediate. I think maybe it took a few kings before they completely banned all magic. My memory of the history was a bit fuzzy.

  But one thing I knew for sure was that our current king, King Robert Colhaven, was absolutely against it. During his reign, he upped all the punishment for using magic. It used to just be a few months of jail time or a fine… now you could be imprisoned for life. Hell, in some cases, if the magic was deemed harmful to another individual, you could even be put to death.

  King Robert was very serious about that. He was a pretty ruthless ruler in most regards. In the last fifty years, many of our rules and punishments had become a lot harsher. The king wasn't well loved, I’d say that. But there wasn’t much anyone could do about it.

  In a way, this made magic even more lucrative. The higher the punishment, the higher the cost of business. But it also meant that anyone who practiced it or sold it was putting their life on the line. That was why it had been so hard to find anyone who dealt in magic.

  Finally I had, though. After much searching, after much waiting, I actually had the opportunity to find out what I’d been dying to know for so long…

  Who the hell killed my parents?

  Chapter 1

  When I came home that day, I had no intention of telling Jacob what I had discovered.