Royal Artifactual Guild Series by Ruby Dixon – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read

Royal Artifactual Guild Series by Ruby Dixon – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com Thu, 25 Sep 2025 16:04:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 http://www.ilovenovels.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Royal Artifactual Guild Series by Ruby Dixon – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com 32 32 By the Horns (Royal Artifactual Guild #2) Read Online Ruby Dixon http://www.ilovenovels.com/by-the-horns-royal-artifactual-guild-2-read-online-ruread-online-dixon Thu, 25 Sep 2025 16:04:37 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/by-the-horns-royal-artifactual-guild-2-read-online-ruread-online-dixon Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Magic, Paranormal Authors: Ruby Dixon Series: Royal Artifactual Guild Series by Ruby Dixon
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Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)

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In a world of magical artifacts and fantastical beings, a woman with a deadly magic secret needs the help of the minotaur she’s trying to forget in the sizzling sequel to Ruby Dixon's New York Times bestseller Bull Moon Rising .

Gwenna has always considered herself a normal person. A former servant, she wants nothing more than to land a steady job with the Royal Artifactual Guild so she can make some steady coin to send home to her mother. She's not special. She's certainly not a necromancer. That would be impossible, given how necromancing (or any 'mancing) is forbidden upon penalty of death. So if the dead keep talking to her? Well, she's going to keep on ignoring them. They're not going to stand in the way of her dreams.

Also standing in her way? One big, arrogant, far-too-flirty Taurian named Raptor. They slept together once, and now he wants more . . . but she doesn’t have time for that. Her focus is on being a fledgling, a trainee for the Royal Artifactual Guild. But Raptor won't go away. He's on a secret mission for the guild to find an artifact thief.

Problem is, he thinks the thief is Gwenna.

How can she convince Raptor that he's got the wrong girl when all the signs point to her? And how do you tell a Taurian you can't date him because you hear dead people and it might cost you your life?

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

One

Gwenna

Dere Ma,

Aspeth is helping me to rite to you. She is teeching me my letters so I can better myself. I am still a repeeter at the guild but we will have recruitment day soon and I hope to be picked as a flegling again. If I can work for the guild I can send money home. I have enclosed a few coins. Please pay someone to rite back and let me know you are well. I love you.

Love, Gwenna

The dead man in the alley is really bothering me.

Not that I killed him, of course. I just know that he’s there, and I can’t tell anyone.

Nor can I tell anyone that I’ve been able to sense the dead lately. I don’t know why. I don’t know how it started. All I know is that if there’s a dead person somewhere nearby, my skin itches and crawls as if a hundred bugs were moving over my body.

It makes it damned impossible to concentrate.

I swipe at the window I’m supposed to be cleaning, hoping no one notices that I’m not truly giving my all. I need to keep my head down and stay out of trouble to remain as a repeater, one of the workers for the Royal Artifactual Guild. Repeaters have a strange sort of position in the guild. We’re considered “failed” students, but because we’ve been students in the past, we’re also allowed to be first in line when it comes time to sign up with a new guild master for the next year’s training. If I piss off Mistress Umala, though, she’ll drop hints that I’m a bad, lazy employee, and she could ruin my chances to get picked as a fledgling for the next year’s tutelage. True, my best friend is married to a guild master, but I can’t count on Aspeth to grease the wheels for me. I need to earn my place, and as a woman in a male-dominated guild, I need to make doubly sure that my record is impeccable or people will talk.

Focus, I remind myself. Concentrate. Ignore the dead man in the alley and how hard your skin is buzzing because it must be a fresh murder—

A throat clears behind me.

I lower my arm, turning to greet Mistress Umala. She’s an elderly woman with thick coils of white hair atop her head, and she wears a severe, high-necked dress in guild colors, along with a repeater sash at her waist and a second one at her shoulder. She’s not a repeater, though. It’s just part of the uniform. I’m told that she’s a guild member’s widow who decided to take up cleaning to keep her husband’s pension, and now she just makes all of us who clean miserable. I really wanted to like her, because we maids should stick together, but Mistress Umala made it clear from day one that she didn’t think much of me because I’d actually “dared” to try to be in the guild.

“Is there a problem?” she asks, looking down her sharp nose at me. Her skin is so pale that she looks unhealthy, and for a moment, I wonder if she’s the corpse I keep sensing.

I put on my sweetest smile. Only one more month until recruitment day. Then I’ll be free of drudgery. “Why would there be a problem, ma’am?”

She arches one hairy silver brow at me. “You’ve been rubbing that window with a dry rag for ten minutes now.”

I…have? I glance down at the rag in my hand and sure enough, I’ve forgotten to wet it. “Just getting a few of the worst smears taken care of,” I say cheerfully, and rub the window with the rag again as if this is all according to plan. “See?”

“I do not see,” Umala hisses. “All I see is a young woman not doing her job properly.”

Biting back a retort, I keep the smile on my face and take the shit she shovels at me. It’s the servant’s lot in life to smile through their true feelings, to never let their employers know what they’re really thinking or else they’ll get the boot. After years of working as a kitchen girl, and then a maid, I know all about how to look fawning and humble. “I’m very sorry, ma’am. I’ve no wish to be a bother. I’ll finish up this window quickly.”

And then I scratch at my neck and the high-collared uniform I’m wearing, because by the gods, that dead man is going to make me crazed.

I keep on scratching as she harrumphs. “See that you do. And then get the windows on the second floor. They look filthy.”

I nod and bend over to dip my rag in the soapy bucket at my feet. “Of course, ma’am.” One more month. One more mucking month. “Even the rooms with the patients?”

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Bull Moon Rising (Royal Artifactual Guild #1) Read Online Ruby Dixon http://www.ilovenovels.com/bull-moon-rising-royal-artifactual-guild-1-read-online-ruread-online-dixon Mon, 21 Oct 2024 11:26:24 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/bull-moon-rising-royal-artifactual-guild-1-read-online-ruread-online-dixon Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal Authors: Ruby Dixon Series: Royal Artifactual Guild Series by Ruby Dixon
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Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)

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The special first edition hardcover will include a gorgeous, shimmering jacket with effects, brilliantly illustrated four-color endpapers, striking and detailed-stained edges, and a beautiful foil-stamped case.

In a world of magical artifacts and fantastical beings, a woman determined to save her family joins forces with an unlikely partner, in this steamy romantasy by USA Today bestselling author Ruby Dixon.

As a Holder’s daughter, Aspeth Honori knows the importance of magical artifacts . . . which is why it’s a disaster that her father has gambled all theirs away. Now that her family is in danger of losing their hold—and their heads—if anyone finds out the truth, Aspeth decides to do something about it. She’ll join the Royal Artifactual Guild and the adventurers who explore ancient underground ruins to retrieve the coveted arcane items.

It’s a great plan—with one big problem. The guild won’t let her train because she’s a woman. Aspeth needs a chaperone of some kind. The best way to get around this problem? Marry someone who will let her become an apprentice. Who better than a surly guild member who requires a favor of his own? He’s a minotaur (it’s fine) who is her teacher (also fine) . . . and he’s about to go into rut (which is where it gets tricky). He also has no idea she’s a noble (oops), and he’ll want nothing to do with her if he discovers her real identity.

Now Aspeth just has to pass the guild tests, thwart a fortune hunter, and save her hold—oh, and survive a rut with her monstrous, horned husband, whom she might be falling in love with.

It’s time to dig deep. Literally.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

ONE

ASPETH

27 Days Before the Conquest Moon

The coach taking us to Vastwarren City is creaky, the seating is uncomfortable, and I paid far too much for the ride. But it’s also very obviously an artifact, which is why I wanted to take it. The exterior looks the same as every other coach that was waiting on the street in front of the inn, but this one had no horse harnessed to the front, nor a yoke for it. Instead, there was a symbol carved into the wood that I recognized as Old Prellian.

The coachman charged a pretty penny but I didn’t care. I wanted to ride in that damned artifact coach.

And now here we are, and it’s a dreadful, bouncy ride. I can’t help but eye the coach covetously anyhow. It speeds along the cobbled roads without a horse to draw it, heading for the city in the distance. The driver is a cheerful sort, too, and seated inside with us instead of riding on a bench atop the coach. He faces the windows and holds reins as if he’s steering a horse, yet there’s nothing pulling us along. More symbols in Old Prellian crawl over the front of the coach and I’m absolutely dying to lean forward and read them, but I’d have to shove my face into his lap to do so because my vision is so dreadful. I have to content myself with the knowledge that the coach is indeed magical and the merrily chatting coachman won’t sell it. No one sells an artifact.

Well, no one except my foolish father.

I bite my cuticles, squinting out the window as the magic coach barrels past a field with a great deal of people standing in it. They dig at the dirt with shovels, and it looks as if there’s a booth at the far end of the muddy land. A sign next to the booth reads in bright, colorful letters, DIG FOR ARTIFACTS! YOU FIND YOU KEEP!

“Does that work?” I blurt out to our driver as we pass by. “Does anyone truly find an artifact in the fields?”

The driver chuckles. “Oh, no, that’s purely for the tourists. Everyone shows up with a few pennies and their spades, ready to turn their luck around. They all think they’ll find the next automaton or Pitcher of Endless Wine. No one does, but they leave at the end of the day happy. I heard some of the more unscrupulous sorts take broken artifacts and bury them in the fields so people can find something.” He shakes his head. “You’re better off avoiding that sort of thing.”

“But your coach is an artifact,” I point out, ignoring the stomp of Gwenna’s foot on mine. “How did you acquire it?”

He reaches out and pats the coach like it’s a person. It might as well be. Any working artifact is more prized than gold. “A gift to an ancestor from the king. It’s been in the family for generations. I’m lucky to have her.”

“It’s quite rare,” I agree. “No one’s tried to steal it from you?”

This time Gwenna pinches me.

“It’d be useless if they did,” he tells me cheerfully, oblivious to my line of thought. “It dies at sunset and there’s a magic word to make it activate at sunrise. That word is a carefully guarded secret in my family and we wouldn’t share it, even upon pain of death.”

I think perhaps this man just hasn’t been pressed enough yet. Surely someone could coax a magic word out of him with the right sort of convincing. Then I’m disgusted at my own thoughts, because I’m imagining someone torturing a coach driver (who’s been quite lovely, honestly) over his artifact.

It’s just that the Honori family needs artifacts dreadfully. I debate how to approach my next question in a delicate manner, and all the while Gwenna stares at me with narrowed eyes. “I don’t suppose you’d sell it?” I ask. “I’d make you a very wealthy man.”

I’m lying, of course.

If I had two pennies to rub together, I wouldn’t be fleeing Honori Hold. If I had two pennies to rub together, I would have married Barnabus Chatworth despite the fact that he’s a title hunter. As it is, I am quite, quite broke…but that doesn’t mean I can’t try. If I could get the driver to sell this carriage to me, it wouldn’t solve my problems, but it’d be a step in the right direction.

It’d be something.

“Oh, I can’t do that,” the coachman says, and I’m not surprised. “I inherited this girl from my father, and she’ll be going to my son after me.” He caresses the front of the coach again, like a lover. “I can’t sell my family out for money when the money will come in simply because of the artifact.”

“I understand.” I still think someone could torture the word of power out of him, but I understand.

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