The Black Prince: Part I (27 page)

“Yes,” Isla agreed.

“Morin, my brother, had no such excuse.” Tristan’s eyes were back on the trees before them. An artificial grove, but still wild; every puff of wind laden with the promise of magic. “His bride was named Alice, too.” Like the Alice he’d eaten. Isla’s onetime friend. “She hated him, and with good reason.”

“He was unkind?”

“Her screams echoed through the castle on their wedding night.”

Isla shivered.

“Your father is not capable of love, Isla, any more than I.”

“But you made a choice.”

“And so did he. I could have remained the person I was, keeping thralls in the dungeon. I fed on them at times; it amused me. Letting them live. Tasting their fear as I left, that I’d come back and do it again.” He paused, remembering. “It was sweet.”

“Oh.” Isla’s voice was small.

“I chose a different path, against my nature. And not due to the pleas of my victims but the desires of my own—heart, as it were.” He stopped. “I was the man you married before we met and I will be that man tomorrow, not because of you but because of me.”

“I…think I understand.”

“Our desires might be beyond our control but our character is a choice.”

In other words that her father, whatever his failings, was still responsible for who he was. In the darkness and in the light. He could have fought against the needs that drove him, instead of accepting their presence as some sort of proof of Divine acceptance. He’d no doubt believed that he had the Gods’ stamp of approval when he’d thrown Jasmine down the stairs, just as he seemed to still believe now. She had, after all, only been a whore.

And Hart only the son of a whore.

“The adoption continues as planned?” The following afternoon. A date that had been chosen before her family had made its reappearance.

Tristan nodded.

“Good. I was afraid….”

“I intend to suffer no man’s interference in my plans. Especially not that man’s.”

“And Rowena….” She was so horrible to Asher.

“Your sister and your stepmother are alive by your sufferance.”

“Oh.” That same stupid response again.

She studied Tristan’s face in the gloom. His strong jawline. The bow in his chiseled, almost too firm lips. The high, sculpted cheekbones. His pale skin. The haunted, almost otherworldly expression in that piercing stare. The one that looked right into her. He was, quite simply, the most handsome man that she had ever seen. And the fact that she’d tasted him, and felt him inside her, did nothing to diminish his allure. Each time he touched her, she felt like she’d never been touched before.

He…captivated her. There was no other word. She could gaze up at him like this forever.

“My prince of ice and snow,” she whispered, repeating words she’d used before.

“Your prince who will guard you, and care for you, from now until the end of time.”

“I’m scared.” The words were barely audible. She was scared of pain, of change, of conflict. Of the war that was sure to come. The occasional whisper from the South had grown into a low, pressing susurrus. That Piers wasn’t long for the throne. That Maeve was raising troops. That it was only a matter of time before Maeve reclaimed what was rightfully hers. With or without her son.

“Trust me.”

She opened her mouth to tell him she did and his lips were on hers, forcing them wider, exploring her mouth with his tongue. His hand slid up her back, along her neck, and tangled in her hair. He pulled her head back, making her gasp as she sank into him. His other hand, on the small of her back, supported her weight. She felt herself melting into him, the world falling away until there was nothing left but his drugging caress.

She felt the warmth rising in her as her answering kiss became more urgent. Her hands explored him. Being apart from him was like physical pain; like part of her had been cut off. She only felt truly whole when she was like this, subsumed totally in this, her other half. She couldn’t control herself, couldn’t control the things she wanted him to do to her. She wanted him to bite her; wanted to feel his lips, not just on her but inside her. Feel her blood flowing into him, scalding hot and delicious. The only thing he truly craved.

He tasted of malt liquor and tobacco and smelled of fire and the woods. And of another scent, too, lingering beneath those things: decaying leaves on marble and moss and the mineral drip, drip of water and all the things that made up the cold of the grave. He was as dead as the winter white world around them only, with him, there would be no springtime return to life. He should have died before her grandparents were born.

That time hadn’t denied her a soul mate was the purest form of magic.

She wanted to be dead beside him.

“Darling,” came his soft murmur, his lips barely leaving hers. “Darling.”

As all around them, the snow began to fall.

T
ristan regarded the skull on his desk.

Osito
, he’d called the intelligence inside. The pet name his lover had used for the repulsive, sweating man.
Little bear
. Tristan doubted it was any more of a compliment in his lover’s native Ispagna than it was in Morven; but that now-missing child undoubtedly thought equally as little of the man as Tristan.

If there was one creature who deserved the human vision of hell—any version of it—that creature was Father Justin. The late and unlamented Father Justin, who’d died at his host’s table. By Tristan’s hand. Strychnine, made from the nux vomica, was the most painful of poisons.

“Osito.”

“What.” The presence inside the skull had to answer, of course.

“Always so sour.”

“Fuck you.”

“Language.” Tristan tapped the desk. “Language.”

“What can you do to me now?”

His expression flickered. “Oh. You’d be surprised.”

The light behind the skull’s eyes flickered and dimmed.

“Don’t think that because you’re free from a physical form, you’re free from pain. The lion’s share of pain is in the mind, after all.”

To which Father Justin had no response.

Tristan went back to contemplating his situation in silence.

Today was an important day. First and foremost, in short order, he would formally adopt his son. Asher was young yet, on the cusp of those years that would lead him into adulthood, but already showed so much promise. He would make a fine successor. To Tristan’s title and to the throne, if Piers didn’t produce an heir. Tristan hoped he did; he wouldn’t wish rulership of this kingdom on his worst enemy, let alone the child of his heart.

Somewhere, deep inside of him, a long dead part stirred. He felt…the closest he could come to describing the sensation in his own mind was the echo of a memory. His host had wanted children and, sensing that the moment was upon them, was pleased.

Tristan felt, sometimes, that he was a consciousness held together by force of will. Not a whole man but a fractured collection of men, each with his own purpose and needs and agenda. The only thing that bound them all together was the will to survive.

And Isla.

He’d taken her there, in the snow, wrapping her in his cloak to keep her warm. She, frail as she still was, had come alive in his arms. Her need was palpable and it drove him. Sometimes it was all he could do not to taste her blood as he tasted her other, secret places. To plumb that last secret; to absorb fully into himself her spirit, her soul.

He had, the night of their union. And had almost killed her. Part of him had been exalted and part of him had been—the word his host would have used was terrified. Although Tristan didn’t know that such a concept applied to him. But he wanted, needed her to live.

Needed her. Simply needed her. She was his humanity.

He was…touched that she still wished to have children. He’d…worried, for lack of a better term, that he’d take that from her. That she wouldn’t want to raise the children of a monster.

Isla was upstairs in their rooms, chatting with Greta as Greta braided her hair into a hundred different plaits and piled them high atop her head, holding them in place with jeweled pins. She would dress in a manor that befitted his station and hers for this most formal and serious of occasions. Tristan privately found the conventions of women’s dress rather stupid, but he did enjoy the results of their labors. How they, beautiful to begin with, were transformed into ethereal creations. Not to be touched, only admired, like the jeweled and lace-draped statues of goddesses that were worshipped in the East. Which made disarming them all the more appealing, as a sport.

And he always told Isla that she looked beautiful.

Sensing her feelings was…useful. She helped him to understand certain situations, from a human perspective. That she felt distress over her father, though, was inexplicable to him. The man was a pointless waste of life, pure and simple. Tristan would eat him, but for the fact that to do so would insult the natural order. He avoided Peregrine Cavendish as wolves in the wild avoided beaver and hares with the water fearing sickness.

And Cavendish, even in his extremis—or perhaps especially then—was equally as dangerous.

He found himself considering Asher. And considering the information that, some time ago now, Cariad had revealed to him. After some rather brutal…persuasion. Cariad had been part of the plan to remove an inconvenient child from an ambitious political picture, that afternoon in the woods. On the hunt, where he’d left Asher with Isla.

As his page, Asher was meant to accompany him. To serve his master as well as to learn the art of the hunt. He’d had a guardsman ride Asher’s horse and that horse had thrown him, injuring him badly enough but not fatally. Many men were none the worse for a broken collar bone. But for a child…? Later, something had been found under the saddle. And with it, too: a strap had been near cut through. Just intact enough to look normal, but not near strong enough to withstand the buck of a full grown gelding.

Who had been responsible?

Any one of a dozen people had had access to that horse, after it was saddled.

Part of the reason Tristan hated these pointless so-called
hunts
. Parties they were, parties and nothing more. Even the best hunter couldn’t hope to catch an animal with half the kingdom tramping through the woods behind him.

He’d pressed Cariad but Cariad hadn’t known. Apparently there was some sort of system in place to protect Maeve’s supporters from each other, in the case of just such a breach. They communicated through code name and signal. Cariad had received word that she was, in turn, to leave word. For someone. Which meant, Tristan well enough understood, that the order to murder his son had come from her own hand.

A woman who had shared his bed. And had hoped, for a time, to share his heart. The knowledge revolted him. He’d let her live, in the end, because a known quantity was best. And he knew that Cariad herself was far too power hungry to reveal that she’d been compromised. Doing so might lose her access to sensitive information. And an inflated belief in her own importance was all that motivated Cariad to continue.

He planned to use her, and to keep using her, until either he was wiped from the earth or the kingdom was secure.

He was secure, too, in the knowledge that this was the right choice. A traitor was just one head on the mythical hydra; were he to cut it off, another would grow in his place. Another, that he did
not
know where to find. So yes. A known quantity. What he was less certain of, though, was his decision not to share this information with Isla.

Isla still thought of Cariad as a friend. Not as a conniving cunt who’d befriended her in the hopes of access to power. Isla might be only a woman, to Cariad’s mind, but some day she’d marry. And if anyone had heard the rumors, Cariad had.

George the Weak might have been useless, as useless or more as his descendant. But the onetime earl of Enzie had had a brother. An older brother. An older brother cast out from his home for witchcraft, after the not so mysterious disappearance of a third sibling.

A sister.

There were rumors that magic ran in Isla’s blood. Rumors, which Tristan knew to be true. Because he’d seen the events that spurred them unfold with his own eyes. His still-human eyes. George the Weak was earl before his transformation; his son, also named George, had been his friend’s page. A miserable suckling pig of a child who’d sniffed wetly every few seconds and cried if one so much as looked at him.

But Tristan’s true connection to the House of Enzie had been through its long lost scion. The man who should have inherited. Simon, son of Anwin.

Isla had it in her to become a powerful sorceress in her own right. Far more powerful than Cariad. Unless, of course, Cariad could manipulate her into plotting at the same schemes. The same petty, useless schemes: to revenge herself on Tristan. To gain back the power and prestige she believed she was due.

Isla didn’t know.

Any of it.

She’d discover her powers, for herself, in her own time. Or, perhaps, not at all. Tristan would give her that choice. The choice that had been denied him. He would not force her hand to aid him, as so many masters over the years had forced his. He hadn’t been a demon familiar in a long time, and none of his former masters would recognize him as such now. But still, the scars remained.