The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1)

by P. J. Fox

  If she denied him, the person she’d really be denying was herself. Isla wasn’t the child her parents had wanted; she wouldn’t ever fit in with the Morvish ideal of what a woman should be. The only person who wanted her—truly, for herself, as she was—was standing right here. And if she wanted to be with him, tonight or ever, if she wanted to have any kind of real connection with him, she had to accept him for what he was. Just as he accepted her. They had to trust each other. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life with this wall between them, purposefully closing her eyes rather than acknowledging his true nature.

  She either loved him, or she didn’t.

  Moreover, she knew that Alice was going to die regardless. Tristan was a demon; his nature wouldn’t change, simply because Isla denied it. His needs wouldn’t change, if she abandoned him here. He’d marked Alice, and he wouldn’t let her go now. If nothing else, he couldn’t afford to. Regardless of what she said, she would tell. And Tristan might be the king’s brother, and people might be willing to overlook a great deal, but they’d only do so as long as Tristan made doing so possible.

  Isla didn’t doubt that there were rumors about his true nature, but so far they were just that: rumors. Tristan, as odd as he was, didn’t force their faces into the truth. He let them gossip and speculate and, if they chose to do so, ignore. After all, the rumors about him couldn’t possibly be true. But if a young girl came forth and said that the Duke of Darkling Reach, a man with enemies and no friend of the church, had both identified himself as a demon and tried to eat her….

  Isla swallowed again. Alice’s gaze was still fixed on hers. She’d seen the same dumb appeal before, in the slaughter pens. Cows, sheep…women who thought they’d agreed to nothing more than a little loose sex. They were all the same. Isla had helped to slaughter a number of animals and then, later, sat down to eat them at dinner. This, as painful as it was for her to admit, was no different. She turned a blind eye to the suffering of a cow, because a cow was a different species. Just as Alice was a different species, to Tristan.

  Men killed each other in battle, and for far less valid reasons. Was it so wrong, to kill for food? As other beasts did? Beasts…and men?

  All this flashed through her mind in seconds. She felt like she’d been standing in this clearing for years but in truth, she hadn’t been there for more than a minute or so. It had all happened so quickly, the earth rocking beneath her feet and her worldview being turned upside down. She held Alice’s gaze and, with the barest of movements, shook her head.

  Alice moaned. She sagged further, her weight now mostly supported by Tristan. She’d stopped fighting, the way animals sometimes did when cornered. Isla didn’t doubt that if he loosened his grip for a minute, she’d run. Sometimes, out of instinct, animals played dead; predators only wanted live prey.

  Isla thought she might be sick.

  A heavy sense of unreality had come over her, as though she were watching herself from someplace far overhead. As though this were a dream. Her hands, clutching each other, didn’t feel like her own. Her limbs felt heavy, like she’d been encased in cement. Even the smallest movement took effort, and she felt nothing so much as an overwhelming compulsion to close her eyes and crumple into a heap on the ground. She felt light-headed, and like her skull was filling with bees. Loudly, endlessly buzzing….

  She’d brought this on herself. Isla spoke the words in her mind over and over, as if the acknowledgment of her own penance might give her strength. The strength she needed, to see this through. She’d brought this on herself. She had to face the truth; she had to. She was as complicit in Alice’s death as if she’d stabbed the girl between the ribs with a knife.

  Tristan moved with a strange grace as he fastened his jaws on Alice’s throat. He bent her over backwards, almost as if they were dancing. Her arms shot up, clawing at nothing as her cries were cut off. He’d very briskly, and very efficiently, bitten through her wind pipe. There was a horrible, hollow whistling sound as she struggled for breath. He held her against him, keeping his mouth fastened on her throat.

  The moment stretched. Alice’s feet drummed against the ground, kicking up piles of leaves. She kept moving with real effort for far too long. Isla didn’t understand how she could still be alive.

  Slowly, her efforts at escape gave way to spasmodic jerks as her mind ceased to command her movements. Her whole body shuddered and shook, like she’d been struck by lightening. Her eyes, the whole time, were fixed on Isla’s. Isla watched, nauseated, as the light that had shown there slowly went out and Alice’s eyeballs, empty now, began to glaze.

  Tristan didn’t release her for another long minute, not until he was sure she was dead. And then, exhibiting the same grace, he lowered her to the ground and began to eat her. He stripped her garments from her effectively, rending her gown and kirtle down the front and exposing the soft roundness of Alice’s belly. It shone alabaster in the moonlight, unlike her sun-browned face, and it parted easily under claws that Isla now understood served a definite purpose. He used his forefinger like a knife, splitting Alice open like an overripe fruit and peeling her just as effectively. Isla fought back her rising gorge. Alice’s intestines glistened blackly. Her blood, no longer pumping through her veins, pooled sluggishly in the hollow cavity as Tristan began to remove the rope-like organ.

  Isla sank down onto a fallen log that she hadn’t even realized was behind her and was barely aware of even as it took her weight. She didn’t think her legs were capable of holding her even if she’d wanted them to. She stared, unable to wrench her eyes from the spectacle before her. Tristan’s movements weren’t furtive like a criminal’s but beautiful like a mountain lion’s. He bent over her, his muscles bunching and rippling under his clothes. Isla squeezed her eyes shut but she couldn’t block out the awful wet sound that was like ripping cloth.

  She didn’t know how long the nightmare lasted. Hours? Years? Minutes? The noises, the relentless eating seemed to go on forever.

  She didn’t know, in retrospect, if she’d even been fully conscious for most of it. She was brought around some time later by Tristan kneeling before her and touching her on the cheek. She’d laid down on the log and her other cheek was pressed against the bark. The scent of decay was in her nostrils and some kind of weevil was tickling her as it squirmed to get free. She started, brushing it away as she sat up. She had no memory of moving, and was temporarily disoriented.

  She pulled back, putting a hand to her forehead as she fought to regain her bearings. Seeing her reaction, Tristan’s eyes flashed. He said nothing, however, only offered her his hand. After a moment of hesitation, she took it. She had trouble standing, because the world was still spinning around her. She didn’t know how to process what she’d just seen.

  She tried to take a step and stumbled. Tristan reached out and caught her, and she shook her head slightly.

  “I see,” he said. His voice held no emotion.

  “Please,” she protested, “give me a minute.” She braced herself against his arm, willing the ground beneath her to stop moving. She was developing what she recognized as the first symptoms of a blinding headache. “I just saw the man I’m going to marry eat someone. And my maid, at that. I need…time to adjust.”

  “So you’re not leaving.”

  “Well, I mean, I’d like to leave eventually. I’d like to go home and lie down and then….” Isla was babbling. “I’d like to leave this accursed moor. You keep promising me that we’re going to get married but I feel like I’ve been here for a thousand years and I’m slowly losing my mind. It’s not that I’m bored—I can’t say that I’m bored, I’m too busy to be bored—but now that I know I’m leaving I feel like that moment can’t come soon enough and—”

  He crushed her to him. She squeaked in surprised protest and then relaxed against his chest. She could see Alice, over his arm. She wished, very much, that she couldn’t. But, in a sense, the fact that her remains were no longer recognizable as those of a human was a good thin
g. Already, spots of underbrush rustled as creatures came to investigate. By morning, her bones would likely be picked clean. And if they were ever found, whoever did so would likely conclude that she’d been savaged by a wild boar or perhaps a mountain lion. People vanished into the woods all the time, never to return. Some by choice, and some not. The world was a dangerous place. Isla turned her head.

  A long moment passed and then, pushing back slightly, she looked up at Tristan.

  His face was all shadows and planes, in the moonlight. He looked mysterious, and he looked dangerous. He was dangerous. She gazed into his eyes, searching. Despite what he’d done, he was as immaculate as ever. His clothing showed no sign of a struggle, and not one single strand of his short hair was in disarray. He should be drenched in blood and gore and who knew what else. He must have used magic, she realized with a shiver, to clean himself or at least give the appearance that he had. And then, she’d never thought about it before, but she had no inkling of his true appearance: how much of it was truthful and how much was illusion. The body he inhabited was, after all, over a hundred years old.

  Or indeed, what he, the spirit inside the host, was made of.

  A single drop of blood glistened at the corner of his mouth, as full and round as an unshed tear. In the moonlight, it appeared black. She reached up and, with the ball of her thumb, wiped it away. He parted his lips slightly as she pressed her thumb against his mouth. His tongue slid against her skin. The moment was at once intimate, erotic and, at the same time, strangely terrifying. Isla’s heart hammered in her chest. Slowly, she withdrew her hand.

  “That was your chance,” he told her quietly. “I was only ever going to give you one.” And maybe not even one, was the unspoken thought. She could see the possession in his eyes. “But you’re never going to escape me now.” His words were half promise, half threat.

  “Yes,” was all she said.

  “A long time ago,” he said slowly, “something happened. With someone else. A woman.” He made a slight, dismissive gesture, the barest movement. “She is, of course, unimportant now. But her example was…instructive to me. I never intended to involve myself with another woman—”

  “But you’ve been married,” Isla protested. She couldn’t fathom why, now of all times, she’d brought the subject up. She was still in shock, still reeling from what she’d seen. He acknowledged the point with a nod, but made no move to explain what he’d meant. He didn’t have to. His marriages had been marriages of convenience, as Isla well knew. The women in his life, and there had been many over the years, had meant nothing. They’d meant a few moments of pleasure, a distraction, nothing more. The women he’d married, he’d done so for either political or financial gain. Or both.

  “But if I did,” he finished softly, “I promised myself that I’d give her the chance…I never gave her predecessor.”

  “If she didn’t accept you,” Isla said firmly, “then she didn’t deserve you.”

  “And you?” he asked.

  Isla thought the answer to that question was self-evident; she was still there. But she considered it, regardless. What could she tell Tristan, that he would understand? Theirs wasn’t a typical relationship, based on shared feelings. There was attraction and, she thought, something stronger than mere feelings. There was an acknowledgment of their need for one another. Love might fade but friendship, and need, were forever.

  And she did love him, of course. She loved him, she told herself, enough for both of them. In her most hopeful moments, like this one, she almost believed that he felt something, too. She’d seen his internal struggle, between doing the right thing and giving himself what he wanted. A man who felt nothing couldn’t have done that…could he?

  That was her need: to believe that he felt something. That he wanted her, too, as much as she wanted him. That, and to know that he’d take care of her, and keep her safe. She’d been the strong one for too long, and she wasn’t naturally suited to the role. It was a lonely one, and alienating. No one asked the strong one if she needed anything, or if she was alright. They just demanded, throwing their own needs in her face until she finally collapsed under a pile of their accumulated weight. Life with Tristan promised…. She didn’t know. Something else. She’d never had someone to love, someone to rely on, and she loved him more than words could express. Even if he felt nothing, that he was here was enough. She’d learn…she’d learn to deal with the rest. Somehow.

  What was his need? What could a demon possibly want with a human being? She’d put a great deal of thought into this question. He was old, and possessed of extraordinary wisdom, and powerful beyond her ability to fathom. He could force people to his will, without them even knowing what was happening. He was different…and in that, he was alone. Alone in a way that only she, perhaps, could hope to understand.

  To be alone for so long, to relate to no one had to be…grueling. Was it really so strange that he might want a partner? Someone who accepted him for who and what he truly was? Because, while he wasn’t human, he’d chosen to live a human man’s life. He’d been interested enough in human beings to possess one’s body and he’d insinuated himself into Piers’ life. He could have simply vanished, pursuing his pleasures all over the world. But he hadn’t. He’d traveled, yes. But he’d come home, and stayed.

  She’d long suspected that there was some intermingling between his essence and that of his host. He’d made comments before, about what Tristan would have done. And he seemed to genuinely care for Piers, and for his family’s wellbeing as a whole. Living as long as he had, too, it seemed natural that he’d develop at least some of the feelings of his fellow beings. Or learned to mimic them so well as made no difference.

  “I love you,” she said. “For who and what you are.”

  “Do you.” He brushed an errant strand of hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.

  “Lions hunt,” she said in a small voice. “And wolves. And I eat meat.” And then she laughed. “And besides, I never liked Alice!” She couldn’t believe her own ears, that she’d say such a terrible thing. She was an evil, unfeeling woman. But it was true. “She had designs on you.”

  He laughed out loud. “And you disapprove?” He sounded half charmed, and half surprised.

  “I do!” she protested. With this unexpectedly lighthearted interchange, something of normality crept back into the night. He’d just eaten a woman, whose corpse lay mere feet from them in the leaves, and here they were laughing.

  There was a smile in his eyes, if not on his face. She knew him well enough to know that he was pleased. And that whatever bond had existed between them, as strong as it might have been, after tonight would be much stronger. They’d made it through an ordeal together, him as much as her. And having faced the fact that, after her own fashion, she was just as much a murderer as he, she felt more tied to him than ever. She truly, truly had no place in the world except at his side. Who else would accept her now?

  She didn’t care, of course. She loved him. She and he, they were alike.

  He kissed her.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Her lips sought his, hungrily, as her fingers worked the laces of his tunic. The fine cotton strings, weighted at the ends with small wooden beads, were slippery under her fevered touch. He’d unlaced the front of her gown and she sat on his lap, her legs astride him as his hand slid over her naked breast. His other hand rested on the swell of her hip, just below her slender waist. Behind her, the fire crackled. Its heat warmed her exposed back.

  They were in his room, the room he’d appropriated for his own when he’d come to visit. These were Enzie Hall’s finest guest chambers, tastefully if sparsely appointed and seldom used. Enzie Hall received few visitors, these days. But Tristan had made it his own, his servants unpacking the things he’d brought with him from Darkling Reach and arranging them about the room. A fine eastern rug graced the room’s sole table, its blues and reds woven into a fantastical geometric design. Heavily embroidered curtains framed the
bed and Isla had no doubt that, behind them, equally fine linens made a warm nest. She shivered slightly, wondering if she was about to see them.

  He pulled her to him, roughly, his hand between her shoulder blades as he kissed her. His other hand slid up the back of her neck, his fingers twisting in her hair. She’d never let a man see this much of her before, and wasn’t even entirely sure how she’d done so tonight.

  Her breast rubbed against the material of his shirt, causing her nipple to harden painfully. She gasped, the sound swallowed by his mouth on hers. He’d kissed her in the woods and she’d kissed him back and then somehow they’d been here, in this room, with no thought for either her reputation or his. He’d poured her a cup of wine and himself one, too. It had been different wine than her father served, one more luxury brought from Darkling Reach. She’d drunk it, a full textured ruby liquid that had tasted vaguely of dirt. Neither of them had spoken. And then he’d just been there, holding her. Kissing her. Possessing her. She’d yielded easily, wanting him as much as he wanted her.

  In truth she’d needed the distraction and, at the same time, needed the affirmation that she’d done the right thing. That what she’d given up that night—her conscience, her very humanity—had been a worthy sacrifice and worth the gain. That she wasn’t lost. In Tristan, in pressing her body to his and giving herself to him, there was the promise of a different morality. Of a world that welcomed her, and wanted her, for who and what she was. Of an escape from the void that, she realized now, had possessed her far longer than even she had known. So she was losing herself in a different void: of his needs and hers, of his touch.

  If there was no return from this night, if she was lost, then it was alright: so long as she was with him. She didn’t want or need her humanity if her humanity was what had made her so miserable for so long. She’d been used, and abused, by almost everyone she’d trusted; all in the name of humanity.