Bride by Midnight Read online

  Perhaps a trip there would wipe the nightmare—and the memories—from her mind.

  She couldn’t help but remember the words Vellance had spoken to her almost eight years earlier. At that time Lyssa had been certain she would be a wife long before the age of twenty-three. But on her first wedding day, not much more than two years after that meeting, Atman Rybar had run off with another woman; his father’s insanely beautiful housemaid. Lyssa’s heart had been broken, for she had convinced herself that she loved the handsome Atman, and her feelings had been horribly hurt. It was embarrassing to be left for another woman. And a housemaid, at that! Her pride had been wounded; her young heart had been broken.

  At the very least, Atman should have made his decision before she had made her way to the chapel in her best dress. Being left at the altar had been humiliating; afterward she hadn’t left the house for weeks.

  Of course, she’d been young, and her heart had mended soon enough. Within a year she’d set another wedding date, this time with the duller and less handsome yet infinitely more stable Tanni Onund, a suitable and unexciting fellow who had managed to get himself trampled by a runaway horse on his way to the chapel.

  The third potential groom, the barely adequate Neron Lew, had caught a fever a few days before their wedding date and had died while dragging himself to the chapel, where Lyssa had been waiting anxiously even though marriage would change her name to the entirely unacceptable Lyssa Lew. After losing three grooms, in one manner or another, even her sunny nature couldn’t stand the steady barrage of calamity. The nightmares had started. She’d tried to remain optimistic, but she too often felt anxious. Desperate.

  After Neron’s death, she had not been particularly sought after. In truth, she had not been sought after at all. Even those she had initially dismissed as unsuitable prospective husbands avoided her. She knew there were those who called her Bad Luck Lyssa, or Terrible Tempest. Some men actually looked the other way in fear when she caught their eye, as if her very glance might strike them dead.

  And all the while she remembered that dreadful witch’s words. She refused to give much credence to the talk of magic and darkness and light, because if she did she might lose all hope. If she possessed magic, if there was an unnatural power within her, wouldn’t she be aware of it? The one word that she could never shake from her too-vivid memory of that day was alone.

  She would have liked to think that the man she was to marry today was braver than most, but the truth of the matter was, he was simply as desperate to marry as she was. Kyran Verrel was handsome enough, not particularly smart nor particularly dull. He was average, ordinary. Just what she wanted from life. He came from a poor family who worked a farm not far from Arthes, and he wished for the easier life of a merchant. Marrying a merchant’s only child must have seemed like a dream come true to him, even though there were times when Lyssa was almost certain he didn’t like her very much. He would learn to like her. She was almost certain he didn’t dislike her, but now and then she noted an awkwardness between them, an uneasy feeling she could not identify.

  But never mind that. She could be very pleasant, when pleasantness was required. She would be a good wife, and Kyran would be glad to claim her as his bride. And she would be married before her twenty-third birthday.

  Barely.

  They weren’t going to bother with the chapel this time around. The priest who’d attempted to preside over her previous three weddings, the thin and often sour Father Kiril, was coming to the house this afternoon. In front of a very small gathering of family and perhaps a friend or two, Lyssa would become a wife. And just in time.

  Tomorrow was her twenty-third birthday.

  ***

  After nearly four years, Blade was finally so close he could smell and taste the culmination of the need for revenge that had driven him to this place. He looked up, taking in the tall palace with its stone walls, solid defenses of impenetrable rock, and its armed sentinels. Somewhere inside that palace was the man who had killed Runa.

  Standing on the street, he tried to blend in, to remain unnoticed. His only weapon, a dagger seated in a sheath at his side, was covered by a well worn dark cloak. His boots were dusty, his black beard and hair needed trimming. To anyone who bothered to look, he probably appeared to be a traveler, a new visitor to Arthes who was in awe of the palace before him.

  Miron Volker—once a rancher, once a thief, once a soldier, once a murderer—had somehow gotten himself named Minister of Foreign Affairs. Volker was almost as protected as the emperor himself, though he deserved no man’s protection. He deserved a dagger through the heart, strong hands choking the last breath out of him or the pain of a poison that would rip apart his insides. The method of death wasn’t important. All that mattered was that Volker take his last breath. Soon.

  Some might say that Blade should take his complaint to Emperor Jahn, who was, by all accounts, a fair ruler who surely knew nothing of Volker’s true past and murderous nature. But Blade didn’t trust others to do what had to be done. He didn’t trust anyone, not anymore. The emperor was too fair, perhaps, and Blade had no proof of his allegations to present. All others who knew for a fact that Volker had killed the young Runa Renshaw were already dead. Blade knew this to be true, because he’d been the one to kill them.

  Murderers. Thieves. Unworthy, greedy men. They should all rot in a hellish afterlife, eternally burning, suffering as Runa had suffered. She had been so afraid....

  No, the emperor would not take the word of the thief and murderer that Blade had become over that of his own minister. Taking his claim to the authorities, hoping for someone else to deliver justice, was a chance Blade could not, would not, take.

  Blade realized—had accepted long ago—that in his pursuit of vengeance he had become too much like the men he’d hunted down. He had blood on his hands, and he was not yet done. The end was near, though. So very near.

  He had to pull his mind from the pains of the past and what he could not do, and concentrate on the task before him. Getting into the palace wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done. He watched people coming and going. He paid attention to who was granted admittance and when.

  A pretty girl and an older man exited the palace, eliciting no attention from the guards at the entrance. Father and daughter, he would guess, though it was not impossible that they were wed. Many an older man took a younger woman to wife, especially if he had money, as this man obviously did. His clothing was not official, and while his suit of clothes was fine, it was not that of a wealthy man. Same for the girl with the brown hair and womanly shape, who wore a dress the color of mud. The man was a successful tradesman, perhaps, making a delivery, perhaps taking an order as well. Blade had watched the pair enter a short while earlier, their arms laden with packages wrapped in linen and tied with string. The man and his daughter—or wife—had no trouble getting into, or out of, the palace.

  A purpose. Blade needed a purpose—one other than justice—to get him past the guards and through those doors. He had waited long enough. To be so close and not be able to finish the job to which he’d devoted the last four years...

  The pretty woman and her old man companion headed his way. She was chattering nervously, urging the man to increase his step. “Come along, Papa,” she said in a bright voice. “I don’t want to be late for my own wedding.” She sounded more anxious than happy, more worried than giddy.

  Blade didn’t move as they came near, even though the woman was so distracted that she wasn’t paying proper attention to those around her. Perhaps she thought if she barreled along without a care in the world anyone who was in her way would clear a path. Blade did not move. He stared at the woman, noting the swell of her breasts and the sway of her hips. The dull color of her clothing made her cheeks seem more pink and her eyes more green.

  Did she... shimmer? Just a bit? He blinked hard. No, the momentary glow was an illusion, a trick of the afternoon sunlight.

  A moment before she was about to run hi
m down, she veered smoothly, instinctively altering her path. Her skirt brushed against his leg. She was so close her sweet scent filled his nose, his head, and more. The flesh of her face and throat was pale and perfect, and would surely be soft to the touch. The soon-to-be bride glanced up, and their eyes met for a brief moment. Hers were wide and, surprisingly, touched with fear. Why would a bride be fearful? Perhaps her groom was not to her liking. Perhaps she feared the night and the initiation to come.

  He knew he should look away to spare the girl the embarrassment of meeting a stranger’s gaze, but he did not. Instead he stared into her eyes for the span of a heartbeat. She was a pretty girl with normal worries who had no idea that there were monsters like Volker so near. She was the one who turned away, increasing her pace once more to make her escape and barrel toward wedded bliss.

  When the girl and her scent were gone, Blade once more turned his full attention to the palace. Volker was in there, alive and ignorant that his past had followed him to Arthes. He dismissed the bride-to-be from his mind. She lived in another world, a sheltered world so unlike his own that he could not imagine how her mind might work. His own world was not at all simple, and if all went well it was about to end.

  ***

  Miron Volker quickly ascended the palace steps. Nearing fifty, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was no longer a young man, but his health was good, and he remained active and fit. He needed to be the picture of health and strength if he were to command respect—and fear—once he took the throne.

  For some years now, official palace activities had been restricted to the lower floors of the palace. No one had been able to restore the mechanical lifts that had been in use during Emperor Sebestyen’s reign; no one had even tried in many years. When he ruled, he would put his best scientists and magicians to work on the issue. He rather liked the idea of living on and ruling from Level One, at the top of the palace. At the top of the world.

  But one battle at a time. First he needed to unseat Emperor Jahn, and the weapons he needed to make that happen were stored on Level Two.

  For all intents and purposes, Level Two was deserted. Or had been, until Volker had taken it over and put it to use. Down the hallway, at the far end where cobwebs and dust gathered, his right hand man waited.

  Stasio was unnaturally still. His black robes did not flow when he moved; they were like stone. His hood fell forward, hiding his face. Even from a short distance away, it appeared there was only a vacuum where his face should have been. The wizard was unnatural, disturbing even to Volker. But he was also possessed of great magic, and he was as intent on seeing Jahn ousted as Volker himself was.

  “You’re certain?” Volker asked as he drew close enough to see the shadow of a chin beyond the hood.

  “Fairly certain.” Stasio’s voice was smooth as silk, without excitement or happiness or a hint of emotion of any kind. “The test will tell.”

  Stasio walked past Volker, his robes still, his head down. He withdrew a key from his pocket and unlocked the door to a room that had once, long ago, been a fine bedchamber for an empress or a concubine. A woman—no, a girl—sat upon the bed there. She did not appear to be afraid, or even curious about her new circumstances.

  She lifted her head and looked directly at Volker. “Hello,” she said, and her voice... her voice was like honey; it called to him, drew him forward. She had the look of a Ksana demon, fair and blue-eyed and uncommonly beautiful. It had been years since he’d captured a new one; he’d begun to think his collection was done.

  “Wait here,” Stasio said. “I would suggest you not move any closer.”

  Stasio glided down the hall, but Volker didn’t watch to see where he went or what he did. The girl on the bed—the deadliest of demons, if Stasio was correct—held his full attention.

  That was a part of her power, or so he had been told.

  “Come closer,” she said, cocking her head to one side.

  “I cannot,” Volker said.

  The girl pouted, then lifted one hand to brush her golden hair back. She seemed not to even be aware of the manacle on her wrist, even though the chains rattled and the manacle itself had to be heavy and painful. A bloody, raw strip of skin marred her delicate wrist.

  “Have you come to feed me?” she asked. “I’m very hungry.”

  “I will have food delivered to you shortly,” he said, fighting the urge to free her, rescue her, be her hero... touch her. If she was what Stasio believed her to be, he would do well to remember the instruction to keep his distance. He hadn’t been so cautious all these years only to fall victim to the charms of a child like this one.

  Volker didn’t respect or crave anything the way he respected and craved power. Even from this distance, he saw and felt the power in the girl before him. There was power in great beauty, yes, but she possessed so much more. And he possessed her.

  Stasio returned with a young man in tow. The boy was likely no older than the beauty on the bed. Sixteen, perhaps. Not a man yet not a child. Volker didn’t know what Stasio had promised the boy in return for his assistance, but judging by the ragged condition of his clothing, it was probably nothing more than a loaf of bread.

  The girl on the bed turned her attention to the newcomer, and her smile grew wide. “Hello,” she said, her voice and her face deceptively sweet.

  The boy moved toward the bed. He glanced back at Stasio, who waved him forward with an impatient flick of one pale hand. “She needs a companion,” Stasio said sharply. “Someone to talk to. Someone to entertain her.”

  The boy neared the bed and said, in a wavering voice, “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Princess.”

  “Princess?” she responded.

  “Lord Stasio... he said your presence here is a secret for now, that the Emperor is protecting you. I thought you’d have an accent, coming from so far away, but from what little I have heard... you sound just like anyone else from Columbyana.”

  “Will you sit with me?” the demon-child asked, patting the bed. Her chains were covered by the long, flowing sleeves of her gown. Not that the boy had eyes for anything other than her face.

  The boy sat. Volker held his breath as Princess—the designation suited her, given her regal power—lifted her hand to touch his cheek. He was fascinated by her and still did not seem to notice the bonds.

  “What I most want is a kiss,” Princess said. “Would you oblige me?”

  The boy literally lost his words as he mumbled what sounded like a positive response and leaned forward. Princess leaned forward, too. Slowly. Deliberately. And in the moment right before her lips met those of the anxious boy, her skin seemed to glow, shimmering green and gold.

  For a second or two, the kiss looked like any normal meeting of mouths between two innocent and curious young people who had forgotten that they had an audience. But then the boy bucked, every muscle in his body convulsing in protest. He tried to pull away, but could not. His body stiffened and jerked, and he clutched at the bedcover with desperate fists.

  Princess continued on as if they were sharing an increasingly passionate and loving kiss. Eyes closed, gold and green shimmer at a level so low it was almost imperceptible, she moved her mouth over the boy’s with relish. Her tongue flicked into and out of his mouth, and as his skin turned gray she sighed in great contentment.

  By the time she was done with him, the boy was nothing more than a husk of what he’d once been. Skin gray and wrinkled, face that of an ancient man who had been frightened to death, eyes sunken and sightless, he collapsed onto Princess’s lap, dead.

  Well, Volker certainly hoped the boy was dead.

  Princess licked her lips. “Thank you. I feel much better, now that I have been fed.”

  Before him sat a Ksana, a half-demon, half-human woman child. The most deadly, the rarest, of the demon daughters.

  And he now had three of them in his collection.

  Since she was sated and he knew to stay out of her reach, Volker stepped into the room. “I don’t k
now what you were called before you came here, but from here on out you shall be called Princess.” She was indeed a Princess, or soon would be.

  “As you wish,” she said pleasantly. She lifted a hand to brush back a long strand of hair, and he noticed that the bloody scrapes on her wrist had healed completely.

  “You will like being mine,” he promised. “I will take care of you, and I will love you the way a father should love a daughter.” That was what they all craved, according to Stasio. Their human halves craved a father; they longed for love. “You may call me Father, if you’d like.”

  “Yes, Father.” She smiled, ignoring the corpse in her lap. “When will I meet my sisters?”

  He was silent for a moment. Princess had a touch of precognition or else she was reading his mind. Either—or both—was possible. The powers of the demons, even the Ksanas, varied. It didn’t matter. He would find a way to use all her gifts to his advantage.

  “This very afternoon, my dear Princess.”

  Chapter Two

  Lyssa sighed in relief when her groom arrived, a little late but in one piece, and not appearing to be ill or injured. Kyran was well-dressed, his long dark blond hair was nicely styled, but he looked... not at all happy. She wondered what had delayed him. She’d been so worried that assisting her father with the delivery to Empress Morgana would make her late, but still she’d had to wait for Kyran. Did he not realize how anxious she would become when he didn’t arrive on time? He knew of her sad past where weddings were concerned, so he should realize how his tardiness would worry her. It was a terrible way to start their new life together.