About the book

Aidan never knew he could do magic until a cat dared him to have sex. His life must be truly tragic, if even felines knew he was too pathetic to find someone to share his bed. Wanting to prove the talking cat wrong, he takes the first offer he can find, sleeping with a blond stranger. It was just his luck that the stranger turns out to be King James, ruler of several kingdoms. To make matters worse, James insists he is the foretold warlock who's destined to stand by his side, setting in motion a chain of events which will lead both Aidan and James further away from home than they could’ve ever imagined.

An excerpt from the book

"Hello," the sleek black cat mewed, vivid green eyes blinking at Aidan. Then she lifted her paw and started licking, nose slightly scrunched up in the eternal I am a cat and I can't be bothered with humans, so let's get this over with... feed me expression of cats.

"Uhm... hello?" Aidan offered weakly.

"Why are you still here?" she asked while she continued licking at her paw, occasionally biting softly to make sure her claws were clean as well.

"Where else should I be?"

The cat shrugged−shrugged!−before she sat back on her hind legs.

"In there... " The cat's tiny head made a gesture as if she were pointing towards the small tavern next to the road. A huge, ancient tree was looming right next to it, shrouding most of the wooden construct in shadows, but instead of looking alarming or frightening, the old tavern only managed to look more inviting with every newly rustling leaf.

"I'm not working today," Aidan objected.

He actually liked serving tables and chatting with travellers. The conversations usually brightened his otherwise dull existence, but even he didn't enjoy his work enough to show up willingly on his one free day. Besides, the sun was shining, only very few clouds were in the sky, and the nippy spring temperatures were actually quite tolerable. No, he honestly couldn't imagine a good enough reason to head back to work today.

"You should," the cat insisted, a stubborn tilt evident on her cute little feline face.

"And why is that?" Aidan couldn't hide the curiosity and disbelief in his voice. He was after all talking to a cat. Granted, maybe he shouldn't have overindulged in his ale last night, but then again, maybe he was finally living up to his namesake who had gone mad and gotten burnt at the stake.

The entire nation might be clamouring to find the real Aidan, while he cursed his own mother for having the strange sense of humour to name her only son after the dreaded individual. Seriously, what had she been thinking? She had probably been nose-deep in the weeds she was growing in her backyard, smoking them... this would surely explain quite a few things!

Either way, Aidan had gotten nothing but grief all his life for having been called that, and what made matters worse was he didn't have a single shred of magical talent. There had been quite a few who didn't believe him, and if it hadn't been for his luck, he might've ended up dead by now. All of this could've been avoided if his dear mother had kept her rather weird sense of humour in check and just given him a normal name. Like Owen maybe or even James, for crying out loud.

"Why do you insist on being ordinary, Aidan?" His mother's clear voice was full of mirth with a hint of confusion. Her long, dark hair flowed freely down her back, while she was simply dressed in a long skirt with shirt, and a scarf wrapped around her bony shoulders. Her feet were bare--she always insisted she needed to feel the earth underneath her toes to stay connected. Only during winter had Aidan managed to talk some common sense into her, and he often wondered how he had ended up the sensible one of them. He was the son, after all, while she was the parent.

"Why did you have to name me after the most powerful sorcerer to ever live? The one who died?"

"Your name was whispered to me."

Aidan could barely resist rolling his eyes because, contrary to how his mother had raised him, he still had manners, and he wasn't going to start disrespecting the woman who had birthed him. Even if she deserved it.

"Of course," he said sarcastically. "Was this during emptying the bottle or after smoking the weed?"

"Aidan," she admonished, but she had never denied drinking or smoking the strange weed she still kept growing in her garden. "Every child, every living thing on this earth has a unique name and, once yours was revealed to me, I wasn't going to call you something else simply because you might run into a few problems later on. Embrace who you are. Otherwise you will never be happy."

Aidan scowled, growled and even glared, but he knew his mother well enough to know no further explanation was going to be provided. In her own strange mind, she had given him the answer.

Aidan remembered the incident clearly and, yes, once he had left home and his village, he could've simple invented a new name. Who would've been the wiser? But his mother's words about embracing who he was kept on ringing through his head, and in the end he couldn't even come up with the simplest of lies.

Still, being this far from Dinas and the centre of the surrounding kingdoms made things a lot easier. Around here people were quite relaxed when it came to the legend of Aidan and the curse put on their lands. And frankly, anyone looking at Aidan more than once realized fairly quickly he was no one to fear, and he most certainly wasn't powerful.

He was skinny and tall, and while his work kept him reasonably fit, he would never gain anything resembling a powerful physique. Even hours of being exposed to the sun didn't change his pale skin tone, and his unruly, midnight dark hair refused to be tamed at any cost. Add his piercing blue eyes and wide smile to the mix, and no one in their right mind would ever look at him twice or think him dangerous.

Even though no one in all the lands had a clear image of the missing Aidan, confidant of King James and his royal court sorcerer, even the simplest of men quickly realized how this Aidan simply couldn't be the Aidan everyone was more or less searching for. That was common sense, really.