Wrath and Ruin

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Wrath and Ruin Page 23

by Ripley Proserpina


  He walked over to the bear.

  It was a risk, but the result would be so delightfully entertaining. So wonderfully painful and complicated.

  He touched the bear, letting his power flow through his fingertips, exposing the soldier beneath the bear’s skin.

  He’d give Polya what she wanted, and he’d get what he wanted in return. Every wish had a consequence. Every gift, a sacrifice.

  Horses thundered across the land. He heard the cry of the king as Pytor aimed his weapon at his head and pulled the trigger. He felt the gates of hell open and embrace its new citizen. He felt the country change, felt it fall a little more into chaos. And he smiled.

  Yes. Coming to Konstantin had been a good idea. The devil left the priest on the ground and grinned at the rousing soldier on the snow.

  Konstantin needed one more push, and he knew just the princess to give it.

  The Story of Konstantin Continues in Revolution and Rising. Here’s an sample of book two

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  Prologue

  Over the millennia, the devil had many names: Demon, Lucifer, Serpent. But none had he enjoyed so thoroughly (at least in recent memory) as Father Stepan. The time came, like it always did, for him to take a new form, and he reluctantly bid adieu to the mystic.

  He flitted over Konstantin, taking a moment to appreciate the ruin left in the wake of King Aleksandr’s disastrous Hunt.

  But he felt strangely dissatisfied with it all. Yes, there was revolution. Yes, the masses were rising up and murdering, pillaging, but it didn’t feel like his mission was yet complete. There was still the matter of King Aleksandr’s newly abandoned throne.

  And the princess, Polya.

  There was still the princess.

  The devil reached out and found her, alone and shrouded in pain. He’d found a way into her heart, and nothing tempted him so much as a human heart. With one last look of longing toward the wrecked princess and a promise to himself that he’d return as soon as he could, he flew to the Stovnya Mountains.

  The princes were where he’d left them. In the camp that served as base for the final challenge of the Hunt. Prince Pytor and his brother, Prince Evgeny, argued with each other. Pytor wanted to find his daughter, to track her through the woods. Evgeny wanted to hurry back to St. Svetleva where the royal family resided. There was a government to run, decisions to make, a revolution to thwart.

  No.

  That would not do.

  His decision was made. It was time the devil took a new name.

  Prince it is. Roughly, he shoved aside Evgeny’s soul, and seated himself firmly inside the body. He looked out through new eyes, smiling with pleasure, and settled in comfortably. So much to do.

  Alone

  Polya heard Dara whispering to the other men, but she couldn’t bring herself to listen. She shivered in her borrowed clothes and wrapped the woolen blanket more firmly around her shoulders. She focused on the bare branches swaying in the winter storm. Her tail twitched on her lap, slapping her knees. She dropped the blanket to grasp it, lifting the end to her mouth and running the tip across her lips.

  Dara said her name, but she didn’t turn. They could talk and plan as much as they wanted, but it meant nothing to her. She would leave them. As soon as they stopped paying attention to her, she would walk out the door and make her way to Bishmyza.

  Anatoliy would not be there. It would be nothing like they had planned. Still, she would finish out her days at the home promised to her at the end of the Hunt.

  The ice around her heart cracked, a tiny shard leaving the organ exposed. She could hear the tinkling sound it made as it shattered, so she quickly went about freezing the exposed patch. Thinking of Anatoliy made her feel, and that was the last thing Polya wanted.

  She hurt. She hurt everywhere. Her body ached. Her soul ached. She was a throbbing exposed wound. Thoughts of Anatoliy were just a breeze across her skin, but they left her screaming in agony. It was too much. Too much for her flayed being.

  Polya gripped her tail again, stroking down the fur. She watched her hands and stopped, holding them up to the pale light. They’d washed Anatoliy’s blood off of her, but she imagined it was still there, that it had soaked into her pores, leaving something of him with her. Dark as it might be, she almost wished it still covered her.

  She smelled her hands. For a while, she’d retained his scent—his wild animal, open-forest smell. But it was long gone. Now she smelled like wet wool and weak tea.

  The wind picked up, tossing the trees against each other. A long branch broke, cracking loudly and making those around her gasp in surprise. The light snow falling whipped around like tiny white cyclones. Polya wished the door would open and the wind tunnels would streak inside the house. She wished they would swirl around her and drag her out into the forest. She wished they’d bring her home, where she could curl up alone, in peace.

  Also Alone

  “Anatoliy, please.”

  There was nothing.

  Then there were eyes and bright hair like a sunrise. A face. Blue eyes flashing and filled with tears. A long, furred tail wrapped around his flank. He felt her hands on his face, stroking the wiry fur. He saw a girl, running ahead of him, leaping over branches, her orange tail streaking through the woods.

  Polya.

  “Anatoliy, please.” The words rolled through his mind, and his eyes opened.

  “Polya!” Anatoliy awoke. He spoke the name, his lips and tongue formed the sounds and his throat pushed them out of his mouth.

  He made another sound, not a roar, not a growl. A groan. The groan of a man.

  He was a man.

  He looked from side to side, his head turning stiffly. He blinked, and blinked again. Everything was bright, too bright. He looked down at his lap, at his legs clad in the uniform of His Majesty’s Army.

  The past rushed at him, bowling him over like a team of horses.

  A wish.

  A bear.

  A girl.

  A Hunt.

  But he was a man now. Polya. Anatoliy stood on shaky legs, falling to one knee, and then pushed against the ground with weak hands. One step followed another, each as wobbly as a calf’s. His body remembered this form, even if it had been years since his soul resided there.

  The wind blew, icy and strong, and he shivered. He was a man, with all of a man’s weaknesses, but he was a man. He looked closely at the ground. It was disturbed. Footprints trampled over other footprints until they disappeared under the new snow.

  Anatoliy rubbed his hand over his heart, over the new ache that had taken up residence there. He needed Polya.

  That girl. He laughed before he caught the sound in his throat. What had she done?

  Father Stepan, the Devil, or whatever it called itself; he was at the root of this. He struck at Polya in Anatoliy’s last moments. “Stay with me, please.”

  The Devil heard her, too, and now here he was. Sucked from whatever came after, and left here, in Konstantin, right where he died. If Polya made a wish, then it followed the Devil managed to find a foothold in her soul.

  He opened his mouth, and the first time of his own volition spoke, “Polya!” His voice was loud and commanding, just like it was when he ordered his soldiers, and it faded into the dark forest. He called her again, this time louder, this time more demanding. She would answer him. “Polya!”

  There was nothing, only the scrape of branches against branches. He had to find her. He had to get to her before the demon, or King Aleksandr, found her and used her for whatever amusement they thought up.

  As a man, he could not sniff the air and find her scent, but he could look at the sun and determine which direction was west. To the west was St. Svetleva and Bishmyza. In that direction was his best chance of finding Polya, and so in that direction he would walk. However long it took, he would find her again.

  About the Author

  Ripley Proserpina spends her days huddled near a fire in the frozen northern wilds of Vermont. She li
ves with her family, two magnificent cats, and one dog who aspires to cat-hood. She is the author of The Searchers series. Follow her on Facebook or sign up for her newsletter at www.ripleyproserpina.com. Follow her on twitter @RipleyProserpin

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  Twitter: @RipleyProserpin

  Note from the Publisher

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