Bride by Midnight (18 page)

“It’s more than magic, Lyssa.” He sounded positively disgruntled. “When I thought you were gone, when I was running through the woods wondering if I would find you, if I would ever see you again, I knew that if I
did
find you I would never let you go. You were not in my plans. You took me by surprise—you take me by surprise every day—but I will not let you go.”

It was everything she’d ever wanted from a man and nothing she’d ever expected from Blade. “What about your revenge? The man in the palace... ?”

“He will still be there when this is done.”

“When what is done?”

He waited several long seconds before answering. “I’m not sure.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, glad of his warmth and his strength. “I’m sorry I did this to you. I didn’t mean to... I didn’t... When I married you, I... I didn’t know.”

He didn’t claim not to understand what she was talking about.

***

Princess stood at the window and looked out into the night, as she so often did. She preferred night to day, dark to light. Her sisters were still awake tonight. They were all on edge, and she knew why.

“The witch and the blade are farther away now,” she said without turning to look at them.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Divya asked.

Princess liked Divya. Divya was a real sister to her, but she did not always care for the other. Runa was a demon daughter, a Ksana demon, but she was too soft, too uncertain about who and what she was. And Princess was almost certain that Runa sometimes hid her thoughts. That should be impossible. The Ksana demons should be unable to hide anything—thoughts, emotions, power—from each other. But Runa held back, somehow.

She might have to die before the war began. It was possible she could not be trusted.

“No, it’s not a good thing,” Princess snapped. “Together they will both grow stronger. If either one were to die the other would wither, but if they’re out of reach there’s nothing to be done.”

“Perhaps our Father will allow us to go free so we can hunt them down ourselves,” Divya suggested. She clapped her hands in glee at the thought. “It will be a great adventure.”

Princess realized—too late, of course—that she should have escaped when she’d had the chance, that night she’d fed from the sentinel outside their prison door. At that time she’d still believed that the man who called himself Father wanted and needed her. She’d still believed that he was a part of the plan to bring to her all the power she desired.

Now she was not so sure. “I doubt that he will release us for any reason. He does not trust us. Not entirely.” More than that, Volker was afraid of the girls he called his daughters. He was afraid that one day they would suck the life force from his body.

He was not necessarily wrong.

The longer Princess remained in this room, the stronger she grew. With every passing day knowledge came to her, truths of the world beyond these walls were revealed. There were other demon daughters—Ksana and not Ksana—here and elsewhere. Strong and weak, near and far, dark and... darker. Their powers were varied, and yet they did share a bond. A few, a mere handful, had been ruined by white magic, by love and light. They were rare, these infected demon daughters, and of no concern to Princess. They would die soon enough.

Some of them, again just a few, also called Miron Volker
Father
. There were even those he loved more than her. A few days ago she had thought that to be impossible, but... as knowledge came to her, as the truth was revealed in dreams as well as in waking hours, she came to understand that he was using her, using her and her sisters as he used mortal men and those who possessed a more ordinary magic than her own. Some Volker bound to him with love; others wanted gold or power, or both.

What did
she
want? The answer to that question was easy. She wanted everything.

There was great power in the knowledge she had acquired just tonight, knowledge that had come to her as she looked out upon the world. She should have realized sooner, should have known...

Volker needed her and her sisters much more than they needed him.

Chapter Thirteen

Blade accepted without question that he would be dead by now if not for Lyssa. It was what he’d planned, what he’d
wanted
. Maybe he would have finished Volker before he’d died, and maybe he would have died before accomplishing his mission, but he
would
be dead.

But tonight, he was alive, and since it was too dark for them to try to travel he’d collected edible nuts and berries for a simple supper, and then they’d walked to a nearby stream to drink hands full of cool water. Fed, they’d settled down by the tree where he’d found Lyssa. They had both run from Arthes unprepared, with no food, no blankets, not even an empty tin cup. Thank goodness he always wore his dagger; he’d feel helpless without it. It wasn’t much, but if they were going to spend several days walking toward the sea, he was glad not to be traveling unarmed.

Lyssa soon slept, exhausted by both physical and emotional strain. For a long while Blade lay awake, but eventually he fell into a restless sleep disturbed by dreams that seemed more real than not.

Hagan was there, in his dream, and so was Volker. Blade’s blood ran cold when he confronted Volker in his nightmare. He felt intense pain when Volker thrust a sword into his heart. It was a rusty sword, Blade thought as he died, and then he realized that it wasn’t rusted but was stained with the blood of another. Runa’s blood. No, he realized in a panic, his mind spinning, that was Lyssa’s blood. Her vision of him killing Volker had been wrong, very wrong.

And then the dream shifted and Lyssa was there. Alive, warm, touching him and whispering in his ear. She told him that she loved him, and he believed her, and then she told him that she wanted him. He believed
that
, too. His wife was almost impossible to resist in the waking world, but here, in his dreams, why should he turn his back on what he wanted?

She smelled and felt real and good, even in a dream. They kissed and touched, and held onto one another tightly in the darkness, as if together they could create their own light and fight the dark.

Gradually Blade realized that this was no dream. It was real, warm, everything he wanted and everything he did not. Lyssa freed his erection, caressed it with gentle fingers, and then she pushed him onto his back and straddled him. Wet and tight and hot, she lowered herself onto his length and rode him. She gasped, and made those little noises deep in her throat, noises that drove him mad, that made him want her more.

She moved slowly at first, easily, then faster. Harder. Because he was unable to see, their joining was pure physical sensation, powerful and pleasurable. He felt her everywhere, around him, inside him in a way different from the way he was inside her.

In the same way she had healed Edine’s hand and an old woman’s knee, she was healing him. His pain was not as simple as a cut or a rusty joint, so the healing had taken some time. But the result was the same. Every time he touched her, every time he held or kissed or laid with her, she healed a piece of his heart. His soul. She took away the hate that had driven him for so long, and he could not allow that to happen, because that hate was all he had left. That hate was who he had become. He fought the healing, fought
her
. Why could he not keep his pleasure
and
his pain? Why could he not have Lyssa
and
his revenge?

She cried out, quivered around him, and he climaxed with her. For a moment he thought that maybe, real as she felt, this was a dream after all. Real life could not be so perfect.

***

Lyssa woke with a soft ray of sun in her eyes. It took her a moment to get oriented, to remember where she was. In the forest, on the run, sleeping with her head on Blade’s chest. She lay with her face directly in the path of a narrow strip of morning sun that found its way through the heavy growth above.

They were both as much undressed as dressed, clothing askew, bodies still entangled. She remembered last night with a smile. They had made love. She liked those words much more than the other one. Maybe that love was created by magic, and maybe it wouldn’t last, but for now she would take it. That love was all she had. It was the only love she would ever know.

Blade woke, smiled at her with a strip of morning’s soft sunlight on his own face... but that smile did not last.

“What have you done to me?” he asked.

She drew away from him. They were both rumpled and dirty. Blade had a few dead leaves in his hair, and she supposed she did, too. A few leaves were probably the least of her problems at the moment. Maybe she wasn’t the most beautiful bride in the world, but was she so hideous that she incited pure horror in her husband? “What did I do to you? What did
you
do to
me
?”

“At first I thought it was a dream,” he said softly, as he took in her state of dishevelment.

“I assure you, it was
not
.” What had she been thinking? Simple. She’d awakened in the middle of a dark night, afraid and uncertain, and so relieved not to be alone. Blade had been right
there
, and she had wanted him—as she always wanted him—and it had just happened. No real thinking had been required.

Until Blade had made her his wife, she’d had no idea what a true joining with another could be like. It was the sex and more; it was a feeling of connection she had never imagined, not even when she’d so feared living her life alone. If she had not gone to the tavern that night, if she had decided that a nunnery was the path for her, she never would have known the depths of true pleasure. She never would have known true love, and so she never would have missed it. How could one miss what one did not understand?

Should she thank Blade or curse him? Without him, she never would have realized what truly being alone could be. To have this and lose it... Maybe she’d be better off if she didn’t understand what she was leaving behind.

Blade sat up and straightened his clothing so he was relatively decent. Then he put his head in his hands and just sat there, discouraged and... and... heartbroken, she realized.

“Was making love to your wife so horrible?” she snapped. She tried to push back the tears that gathered in her eyes, tried to hide her pain. “Am I repulsive to you?”

He looked at her, his blue eyes solemn. She had seen him angry and determined and laughing in spite of himself, but she had never really seen him look sad. Not like this. “You are not repulsive, Lyssa. You are beautiful and passionate, and any man would be glad to have you as a wife.”

She refrained from laughing out loud at
that
lie. Bad Luck Lyssa. Terrible Tempest. She did not want their conversation to go there. “Any man but you, apparently.” She stood, brushed off her skirt, and straightened her blouse. “I need to relieve myself, and then I’ll head south. You should not feel obligated to accompany me.” She stalked away from him with her head high, and then, with her back to him so he could not see, she allowed the tears to fall. Silently, of course. She would not sob in his presence.

She’d married a stranger to ensure that she would never be alone, and yet now she
chose
a solitary life. She
chose
to travel on her own. To be alone had seemed so horrible to her, so... well, lonely. And yet there were worse fates than solitude. She knew that now. To love and not be loved in return, to become something she did not understand...

When she returned to the tree, Blade was still there. Standing, spine straight, his clothing had been returned to its proper state. Like her, he was a bit worse for wear, but he was also... beautiful.

“We should go back into the city,” he said, “collect some food and weapons and—”

“No,” she interrupted before he could say more, a shiver walking up her spine. “It isn’t safe for us to go back. Not yet.”

“Why?”

A simple question for which she did not have a simple answer. Just last night she had tried to send him back, but now she knew it was not a safe place for either of them. The red-eyed demon was there, but... was that the only danger? She suspected not, but her magic was new, imperfect... maddening. “I don’t understand why, but it’s truth.”

He did not argue with her. Already he had accepted that she knew things she should not. He accepted that she was a witch. No wonder he’d looked so horrified upon waking!

“You can go anywhere else but Arthes, but it is not safe for you to go there now. She wants to kill you.” She turned and walked away. He followed.

“Who wants to kill me?”

“The same creature who wants to kill me,” she said sharply. “A Ksana demon, as I told you before. That’s all I see. It’s all I know. It’s maddening to see so little, to know bits and pieces and not be able to see the whole picture. Now go.” Without turning to look at him, she waved one hand dismissively and kept walking. He did not leave but remained directly behind her.

“No one will kill you while I’m around,” he said, sounding determined for a man who had been so distressed to face the morning’s truth that he’d made love to her. Again.

“I don’t need you.”

“Yes, you do.” His long strides brought him close to her, closer than she wanted him to be. How was she supposed to cry with him
right there
?

“I do not want you!”

“Liar,” he said without heat.

She wasn’t blind or stupid. Naive on occasion, yes, but not stupid. Blade would prefer to embrace his hate than to love her. She knew him well enough to understand that he was terrified to think that she might take that hate away with her touch. With her love. With her body. Where did that leave them? How could she remain with him and not make love to him?

No, those words were wrong. Edine’s husband’s crude “poke” was more appropriate for what happened between her and her husband. At least, that was what she told herself as she tried to be strong. Admitting that love existed would make her weak, and she could not afford weakness. Not now.