My Demon's Kiss

by Lucy Blue

  “Hannah is older,” she answered. “Susannah is her niece. Her husband, Kevin, works in the stables with Tom, their son—Hannah’s husband and son, not Susannah’s. Susannah isn’t married.” She sat down on one of the chests. “Then there’s Mary and Margaret and Glynnis—they’re all in the kitchen. Glynnis is Kevin’s mother, and her husband, Wat, used to be the blacksmith in my father’s day. But he’s too old now to do much more than sharpen plows and such.” Simon yawned, sitting on the edge of the bed, and she laughed. “But I’m boring you straight to sleep.”

  “No, in faith, you’re not,” he promised. “I want to hear.” If he could only tell her just how glad he was to listen, how long it had been since he had heard anyone talk about plain, simple life. As sleepy as he was, he drank in her words like water in a desert. “So are Kevin and his son the only men in their prime in the castle?”

  “Nearly,” she admitted. For a moment, she thought about Brautus’s warning—could Simon be questioning her to learn about Charmot’s defenses, planning an attack? But she dismissed the idea as quickly as it came. “But you saw them last night in the courtyard, remember? Raymond and the second Tom help in the fields, such as they are, but they don’t live inside the castle proper. Raymond’s wife, Mary, used to live here before they were married, but since the baby, she keeps mostly to the cottage in the woods.” He was smiling again, obviously amused, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “You can’t really want to hear all this.”

  “You’d be surprised.” In truth, he didn’t care what she said so long as she kept talking. The night before in her fancy white gown, she had seemed like some captured princess in a fairy tale, fluctuating in her manner between chilly restraint and the edge of tears. Today in her plain green jumper, she was relaxed and fun, the sort of girl he would have courted to distraction back when he was able. “You have to remember, I’ve had no one to talk with but Orlando in quite some time.”

  “Orlando seems quite entertaining to me,” she said with another laugh. “Where is he, by the way?”

  “Still reading in your father’s study.” He didn’t want to talk about Orlando or even think of him. Orlando was reality, the world of darkness where he was a monster. He was enjoying this dream. “What of your father’s knights-at-arms? Surely he must have had guardsmen when this castle was built.”

  “He did,” she answered, sobering a bit. She must be more cautious, or she’d be telling him everything, Brautus’s ruse included. She found it so easy to talk to Simon somehow, even after less than a single day’s acquaintance, much easier than any other young man she had ever known. Not that she’d known many—the king’s herald, and the occasional peddler. The only strange noblemen she’d seen since her father died had stayed safely on the other side of the wall. But she had often imagined what it might be like to talk with one of them, and it had never seemed possible it could be as simple as this. Unlike the knights who had come to fight for Charmot, Simon wasn’t grand or pompous or even particularly solemn, cursed as he believed he was; he was fun. “There used to be a whole regiment here,” she admitted. “But when Papa died, they all left to find a new lord.” She stood up, suddenly self-conscious. “It’s very quiet at Charmot, you know, and not very profitable. We don’t even have a proper village.” She took her father’s key out of her pocket. “But I should let you rest.”

  “Wait,” he said without thinking, getting up and crossing the room in two long strides to reach her. Stay here with me, he wanted to say. Talk to me, and laugh, and let me look at you. Just don’t leave me alone.

  “What is it?” she asked, gazing up into his eyes. In a single moment, everything had changed. His smile was gone, replaced by a look so sad and lost it made her want to cry. Who are you? she wanted to ask him. What is this curse that binds you? What has hurt you so? But of course she could not.

  He wanted to touch her, he realized; the hunger he had thought was gone was not; it had only changed to something more subtle and dangerous. He could already feel her soft, warm cheek against his palm as he imagined cradling it there. But he did not dare. “I must thank you, cousin,” he said aloud, forcing back a tremor from his voice. She was an innocent; that must be why she affected him so strongly. He had no experience in resisting the lure of noble maidens in his vampire state. Any other beauty of her class would surely have made him feel the same—he must believe this. Orlando was right; he could not let himself be distracted. “Thank you,” he repeated, embracing her as a kinswoman, the same way she had embraced him the night before.

  “You are welcome, cousin.” His arms closed around her, and for a moment she pressed her cheek against his chest, breathing in the warm, masculine scent that had always meant sanctuary in her father’s arms. But something was wrong; something was missing. He didn’t… but before she could form the thought in her mind, he was letting her go. “You’re welcome,” she repeated, making herself smile. “Rest well.”

  “I will,” he promised, smiling as she left.

  She found Orlando still sitting at her father’s desk poring over a scroll, the last of the candles she had left for them burned down to a stub. “Good morning, master,” she said, taking the key from her pocket to signal it was time for him to go. “I fear I have come to disturb you.”

  “Not at all, my lady. The hour is late—or early, I suppose.” He rubbed his eyes. “I forget not everyone has changed their days for nights.”

  “I must admit, I don’t see how you manage it, either of you.” He had removed his cloak, and many of the little pouches and purses she had noticed him carrying before now hung from the shelves. One lay open on the desk, spilling what looked like a fortune-teller’s seeing stones across another scroll. “Or why you’d want to try, for that matter.” Orlando must know the details of Simon’s curse; why else would he be here to help him? “What purpose can it serve to live forever in the dark?”

  He smiled, and his dark brown eyes were warm with what seemed like genuine friendliness for the first time since they’d met. “I cannot tell, my lady.” He rolled up his scroll and neatly tied the binding, his small fingers graceful and quick. “There is much about my master that must seem strange to you, I know.” He got up from the chair with a thump that should have been comical but was not. His manner was so grave and dignified, even with him dressed in motley colors and barely as tall as her shoulder, she could not think of him as foolish. “But you must trust me when I tell you this. Both of you will be much happier if you do not ask too much of him.”

  “Ask too many questions, you mean?” she said with a laugh. “I will try, Master Orlando, if you wish, but it will be against my nature, I’m afraid.” She helped him put the scrolls away—already he seemed to know exactly which order they should go in, while she didn’t have a clue. “My father always said I was far too inquisitive for my own good.”

  “A healthy curiosity is never a bad thing, even in a woman.” He tossed his seer’s stones across the desk, gave them a quick study, then scooped them back into their bag. “You were your father’s only child?”

  “So far as I know,” she answered. “But this time yesterday, I didn’t know I had a cousin.” A rough map had been pinned to the wall, showing Britain and France and a fair percentage of the Mediterranean. “Are these all the places you and Simon have been?”

  “Not nearly,” he answered. “Was your father born at Charmot?”

  “No, in France—Bretagne, actually.” She pointed on the map. “He came here to serve King Henry after the wars. But my mother was born in a village very near here, the daughter of a free farmer.” She turned to him and smiled. “So I’m half peasant and partly pagan besides.”

  “That explains your beautiful red hair,” he said.

  “That explains a lot of things about me.” A ruby-colored flask was sitting on a shelf between two stacks of her father’s books, but she was certain she had never seen it before. “Is this yours, Orlando?”

  “It is.”

  “It’s a pretty t
hing.” She fingered the glass and found it cold to the touch, even colder than she might have expected in this chilly room. “What is inside?”

  “A terrible poison.” He reached past her to take it, whisking it away to one of his pockets so quickly she could not even see which one. “You must be careful, my lady.”

  “That is what everyone tells me.” She watched him gather the rest of his things. “Will you truly tell me nothing about Simon? How was he cursed?”

  “My master has told you far too much already,” he answered with a frown.

  “But he says you are a wizard, and he was just a knight even before he was cursed,” she pointed out. “Can he truly be your master?”

  He paused for a moment, then smiled. “What is a master, my lady?” He took the map down from the wall and looked at it. “Simon is my only hope, my warrior and my salvation. My soul is in his hands.”

  Watching his face, Isabel believed him. “A king should have so beautiful an oath for his retainers,” she said. “Though few could swear it with their hearts as you have.”

  His eyes widened as well as his smile. “Your inquisitive mind has made you wise, Lady Isabel.”

  “Wise, master wizard?” she said with a laugh. “Nay, not I, I assure you.” The candle sputtered, about to go out. “But come, before we are left in the dark. Simon was on his way to bed, I think. Will you come upstairs and have breakfast with me?”

  “Aye, my lady,” he nodded. “I believe I will.”

  Simon could hear Isabel talking with Orlando in the study just beyond the thick earthen wall of his room. If he had taxed his demon’s senses, he probably could have understood their words. But the sun was climbing higher by the moment, and before he slept, there was something else he wanted to do.

  He filled a deep pewter basin from the jug of water Isabel’s servants had left for him—the water was still warm. Stripping out of the tattered robe Orlando had stolen for him from Father Colin, he washed quickly, plunging his whole head into the basin and shaking water from his hair like a dog. The good souls who had prepared his room had been kind enough to leave him a razor and a mirror as well. He faced his reflection and grimaced, baring the slight fangs that gave his true nature away even when he was at rest. Some of the texts he had read in his quest had insisted that a vampire’s reflection could not be seen, but that was foolishness. He could see himself only too well.

  He touched the blue-white scar on his throat. He treasured this scar, gotten in a tavern brawl in Damascus, a wound that had barely been healed on the night he had fallen into darkness. A thief had tried to murder him for his purse and would likely have succeeded if Sascha hadn’t been there to save him. Sascha… his first vampire kill.

  He swiped the razor across his wrist, barely wincing at the pain. Borrowed blood welled for a moment in the wound, the blood of the dead Frenchmen from the chapel still filling his veins. But before the first drop could spill completely from the cut, the flesh began to heal itself, the edges folding back together with a tiny hiss like water on hot coals, a sound so faint no mortal could have heard it. The sound of the devil repairing his own.

  He rinsed the razor in the basin and shaved the three day’s beard from his face as he heard Orlando’s voice coming closer, two pairs of footsteps coming toward the stairs. He expected the dwarf to join him, but they continued on together, their voices fading away as they shut the basement door behind them.

  “So I am deserted,” he muttered with a wry smile. He caught sight of his face in the mirror again, the mask of a man that hid his true, cursed self. “I wish I could leave me, too.” Pushing the thought from his mind with an effort, he finished shaving and stripped out of the rest of his clothes. He held the tunic that had been left for him to his face as Isabel had done, the sweetness of her scent still clinging to the fabric. What had she been thinking? he wondered again.

  “What difference does it make?” He laid the tunic aside for later and collapsed onto the bed, letting sleep have him at last.

  Isabel watched Orlando devour the breakfast of a man three times his size, not bothering to hide her smile. “I’m glad to see the food at Charmot meets with your approval, master wizard,” she said, taking a bite of her own. “Even if the company does not.”

  “The company is charming,” he protested, pausing to look at her, apparently aghast. “Why would you say I do not approve it, my lady?”

  “Perhaps I am mistaken.” She nodded to Hannah, who went to fetch another platter. “Both my maid and myself got the impression earlier that you found the presence of young ladies rather irritating.”

  “No, not I,” he demurred with a smile. “Distracting, perhaps, but never irritating.” He refilled his cup. “I fear you will be most offended by me while we are here, Lady Isabel, and by my master as well. We have not lived among civilized folk for quite some time.”

  “So I gathered.” She handed him another slab of bread with butter. “I would ask you where you’ve been, but I know you wouldn’t tell me.”

  “’Tis no great secret. We are scholars, of a sort, in search of ancient writings and wisdom. We have been in many other places like your catacombs.” Hannah had returned with the fresh platter of meat, and at the mention of the catacombs, she let it drop to the table with a muffled crash.

  “Thank you, Hannah,” Isabel said, giving her a smile.

  “My lady,” she muttered, hurrying away.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Orlando asked.

  “You mentioned the catacombs,” Isabel explained. “Most of the people who live at Charmot think they are bad luck, a place of evil.” She refilled his trencher. “The caves were discovered or made by the druids, the ancient folk of this island and the woods around it. The ignorant say they were witches and warlocks who fed on human flesh, and that the scrolls in their catacombs are full of evil magic.” She thought the dwarf would laugh at this, but he didn’t even smile. “They even say my father cursed himself when he built this castle here,” she finished, smiling herself.

  “And thus the Black Knight keeps his castle prisoner,” he said with a pointed glance over his cup. “Is that what you believe, my lady?”

  “No, master wizard, I do not.” Tom came into the hall at a trot, giving her an excuse to let the matter drop. “What is it, Tom?”

  “Forgive me, my lady,” the boy said, glancing at Orlando. “I must speak with you.”

  “All right.” Nodding once more to her guest, she followed Tom back out into the courtyard. “What is it?”

  “I rode all the way to the river by the king’s road and back to Charmot through the forest,” Tom said. “But I never saw a sign of that Frenchman and his men. I even went to the tavern where they were seen. The man there said they left at nightfall, headed for the Chapel of Saint Joseph to take lodging for the night.”

  “Did you go to the chapel?”

  “No, my lady. I was afraid they might still be there, so I turned back before I got close to the village.”

  And if they are still there? she wanted to ask. Do you not think I need to know it? But Tom was barely sixteen and a stable boy at that; she could hardly expect him to have the courage of a knight errant. She thought again of Simon, sleeping in her cellar even now, and silently cursed his stupid curse.

  “Very well,” she said aloud. “Keep Master Orlando upstairs for a few minutes—your mother can help you. I need to speak to my cousin alone.” The boy looked doubtful. “And if he won’t help me, I’ll go to the chapel myself.”

  4

  Simon dreamed of Ireland. He was standing on the beach below his master’s castle, the morning sun warm on his back. A nightmare, he thought, tears of relief on his face, real salt tears, not blood. It had all been a dream. A great black horse was galloping through the surf, glad to be free of the ship’s hold at last—his horse. He had come home.

  He turned back toward the castle, smiling, but the cliffs were gone, and suddenly, it was night. A great, black plain spread out before him, its
tall, dead grasses whispering in a freezing wind. Behind him was his village, where everyone was asleep; his mother was sleeping and her kinsmen. All of those who shuddered as he passed them in the daylight and hid from him in the night. Far across the plain, he saw the fires, the lights of the marauding gods. My father, he thought, the killing rage rising inside him. There is my father.

  Isabel slipped into her cousin’s room, embarrassed but determined. She had tried knocking on the door, but he had not answered, and she had to speak to him. “Simon?” she called out softly, blinking in the near-darkness. He had put out the torches, leaving only a single candle burning near the door. She picked it up and closed the door behind her before she approached the bed. “Simon?” She hoped her parents in heaven were otherwise distracted at the moment and not watching her invade the bedchamber of a man she’d barely met. “Are you asleep?”

  He was. He had thrown the pillows off the bed and most of the covers as well and was lying nearly sideways across it on his back, arms and legs sprawled in every direction and his head hanging upside down over the edge. She smiled, amused in spite of her worries and the oddness of her present situation. She’d thought she was the most unquiet sleeper in England, but apparently with Simon back from the Holy Land, she was not.

  “Simon,” she said more loudly, but still he didn’t stir. His long, dark hair had fallen back from his brow, and his face glowed in the candlelight, the face of an angel. She moved closer, fascinated. His lashes were every bit as long as her own and as dark as his hair, contrasting sharply with the moonlight-colored skin of his finely chiseled cheekbones, his high-arched eyebrows black against his delicate brow. His nose was delicate as well, even at this ridiculous angle, and his mouth was a perfect bow, soft and sweet in repose. He had shaved, apparently; the dark shadow of his beard was gone. In truth, he was almost too pretty; if she had only seen his face, she might have mistaken him for a maid. But his body was definitely masculine; his arms and shoulders and chest were bare above the twisted blankets, thickly curved with lethal-looking muscle. He had said he was a knight errant before his curse, that he had killed more men than he could count, and seeing him now, she believed him. Angel he might be, but only the sword and the lance could have sculpted him to such a shape. But even so, the skin on his body was as milky white and smooth as his face, its creamy perfection unbroken by so much as a freckle.