My Demon's Kiss

by Lucy Blue

  “She was a kind and lovely girl,” Father Colin said, patting her hand. “She dwells in golden castles now.”

  “Yes.” She laid the last wreath on the stone. “I know she does.”

  “Forgive me, my lady,” said Phillip, coming toward her. One of the new royal garrison, he was barely twenty, with ears the size of oak leaves that turned bright pink whenever he spoke to her. “But we should be going. The sun will be going down soon.”

  “Will it?” She looked up at the darkening sky and smiled. “Then yes, we should go.”

  Simon and Orlando rode into a tiny village halfway between Charmot and the Scottish border, Simon on Malachi and Orlando on his little pony, and found a raucous festival raging in the street. “You, sirrah,” Simon called to a young man with a tankard in each hand. “It’s too soon for All Hallow’s. What’s the occasion?”

  “The sheriff, my lord,” he answered with a grin.

  “Married?” Orlando asked.

  “Nay, lad—dead as a doornail.” The fellow was so merry with ale, he seemed to have taken the wizard for a child, gray beard and all. “Ten years of abusing our women and stealing our crops, and now the bastard’s dead.”

  “Did someone murder him?” Simon asked.

  “Nay, my lord, you mustn’t think that,” the drunkard promised. “He went to bed last night wicked as ever and hale as a bull in April and woke up this morning stone dead. Or didn’t wake up, I should say. As near as we can tell, an adder got him in the night—there’s two nasty marks on his neck, but that’s all.”

  “Bad luck for him,” Simon answered.

  “Aye, but good for us.” Raising one of his tankards in salute, he staggered back into the throng.

  “So,” Orlando said with a sigh when he had gone.

  “So,” Simon agreed. “I’d say we were on the right track.”

  POCKET BOOKS

  PROUDLY PRESENTS

  The second book in the

  Bound in Darkness series

  THE DEVIL’S KNIGHT

  LUCY BLUE

  Coming soon in paperback

  from Pocket Books

  Turn the page for a preview of

  The Devil’s Knight….

  Siobhan climbed the winding staircase, desperate to escape the prying eyes and questions of her brother’s men. She had thought they were her men as well, that she and Sean were partners in a single quest for freedom, not only for themselves but for their people. But now she knew better. Sean was the knight with a quest. She was nothing better than a pawn.

  The room at the top of the druid’s tower was dark but for the glow of a full moon outside the window. Someone had leaned a spotted mirror against the wall opposite the door, and she gazed at her shadowy reflection. This was the prize Sean thought could win a manor? She could almost laugh. Her handed-down tunic was worn as a rag, frayed at the neck and split up one sleeve, and her leather breeches were worn soft as linen, she had kept them so long. Even for a boy, she was a disgrace. Her face was clean, but one cheek was smudged with a familiar fading bruise from her bowstring’s recoil.

  And she bore other bruises as well. On her neck were five distinct round marks, made by the grip of her dead Norman husband. Four had faded to a dull yellow-green, but the one over her pulse was still almost black. He could have killed me, she thought as she touched it, remembering the fury in his green-gold eyes. “Tristan Dumaine,” she whispered, barely making a sound as her lips formed the shape of his name. The devil’s knight, her enemy; the Norman they had murdered. He had called her beautiful.

  She untied her braid and loosened the waves of her hair on her shoulders, blue-black in the tender light. Like silk, he had said when she had let him touch it. She drew her own hands through it just as he had done, letting it fall through her fingers. He had been desperate to escape. He had known they meant to kill him; she had never let him think anything else. She had only touched him to humiliate him, to prove she was a brigand like the rest. He would have told her any lie to gain the upper hand; she had known he was lying when he said it. But how might it have felt to think he told the truth?

  She caught her own gaze in the mirror and scoffed, disgusted at her foolishness. She was a warrior, not a woman, whatever Sean might think.

  A sudden movement in the mirror made her start, her hand going by instinct to her sword, though she knew it must be Sean or one of his men, come to fetch her back to the fire. “Go away,” she ordered, turning toward the door. “Leave me in peace.”

  “In peace?” The voice came from the shadows by the window, and it made her blood run cold. “Why should you have peace?” A shape emerged in the darkness, a man built like a mountain, and the voice went on, mocking and familiar. “Murderers belong in hell.”

  “Tristan?” Her tongue felt dry in her mouth. She could barely form the word. He moved into the light at last, and she felt her knees go weak. “No… you are not here.”

  “Where else should I be?” His face, so bruised and bloodied when she’d seen it last, was whole again, the skin pale but perfect. His dark blond hair gleamed like burnished gold in the moonlight, and his green eyes glittered with malice. “Is this not my castle?” His mouth curled in the smile that haunted her memory, cruel and sweet at once. “Are you not my wife?”

  “You are dead.” He held no weapon she could see, but she trembled even so. He towered over her, his shoulders twice as broad as hers—he could cover her fist with his palm. Even now, in terror and shock, she could remember the strange sensation she had felt when his hand closed over hers, a fearful thrill. “They took you away, Bruce and Calum. You were dying.”

  “Are you certain?” Tristan mocked her, moving closer. This was the moment he had dreamed of in a fever for weeks, ever since he had become a vampire. The moment he would finally kill Siobhan. He had meant to let her see his face, to frighten and torment her for a moment before he wrung her neck or bled her dry. But now that he was here at last, a moment just wasn’t enough. “Did your friends ever return?” Her huge blue eyes were wide with fear, but she did not look away. Any other woman faced with the husband she had helped to murder would have had the decency to scream or faint, but not his beautiful monster, Siobhan. She might turn pale and tremble, but her hand was on her sword. “These creatures charged with cleaning up your mess, where are they now?” She drew the sword, her eyes defiant, and he smiled. “Shall I tell you, sweeting?” He took another slow step closer. “Would you care to guess?”

  “You could not kill them,” she insisted.

  “You might be amazed.” She was inching backward toward the door. “I can kill whomever I like.” In a moment, she would make a run for it, he knew. His little warrior could sense she was outmatched.

  “You were dead!” she shouted, her voice rising to a woman’s shrieking pitch to give away her fear. “I saw you.”

  “You saw I was dying.” He should kill her now and let himself be done. But somehow he could not. “You should have made certain, my love.” He raised the dagger he had stolen from her brother’s belt. “Your brother, Sean, should have made certain.”

  “No, I just saw him an hour ago,” she said, shaking her head. “You can’t have killed him—”

  “Can I not?” He wanted her to say what she had done, to hear her say again how she despised him. Then he could let it be over between them. Then he could take his revenge. “I have not killed him yet, Siobhan,” he said, moving closer. “But I swear to you I will.”

  “No!” She struck him with the sword, a blow that should have cleaved his arm in two. But he barely flinched. He grabbed her wrist, wrenching the sword from her grip, and she heard a small sound, like steam on an ember. Looking down, she saw the sleeve of his shirt was ripped open, its edges stained with blood. But the flesh beneath the rip was whole. “Holy Christ,” she whispered, feeling faint.

  “Be careful, love,” he teased her as the tension in her arm went slack in his grip. “You might not want to call Him.” He held the dagger to h
er throat, tracing its tip down her skin. “Blasphemy is mortal sin. But then, why should you care?” Her heart was beating faster; he could hear it. At last she was truly afraid. “What is an oath to you?” He let the dagger scratch her flesh, teasing himself with her blood, and she gasped, a sweetly feminine sound. But in her eyes he saw as much fury as fear. Even now, if he allowed it, she would murder him. “You swore before God’s altar to love me, to obey me, remember?” he taunted. “You laughed as you said it, knowing it was a lie.” He took a step closer, and she struggled again in his grip, tearing at his fist around her wrist. “Or have you forgotten, sweet wife?”

  “No,” she answered, struggling to make herself be still. She knew now what he wanted; he wanted her to be terrified, to hear her beg for mercy. But she would not. “I have not forgotten.” She made her free arm fall to her side, taking a deep breath. Then she looked up into his eyes.

  “You wanted me dead, but you are a coward, just like your brother,” he said, glaring down at her with such rage, she thought she might die just from his eyes.

  “I wanted this land to be free,” she made herself answer, her voice barely shaking with fear. “I wanted you to leave our people be—”

  “Your people?” he scoffed with a laugh.

  “Aye, my lord,” she retorted, new fury making her feel less afraid. “My father’s people, born to this land as Sean and I were born to it, born to freedom—”

  “Freedom to starve, you mean,” he said, laughing again. Even now, looking death straight in the eyes, the little fool would not give up her cause. “If I should let you live, if I should leave you be, as you say, what then? What will your people say to you this winter, now that their crops are destroyed?”

  “You know nothing of this land.” He sounds like Sean, she thought, almost laughing herself in pure madness. A slave can be contented if his belly is full, her brother had said not an hour before, and she had slapped him for it. “You know nothing—”

  “And what do you know, little monster?” he retorted. “How to fight and to fuck like a man.” His smile cut through her like a knife. “What good will you be to your people?”

  “Bastard!” she screamed, all sense and reason shattered in rage. She lunged for him, grabbing for the hand that held Sean’s dagger, and she felt the blade swipe across her cheek. But he hadn’t been expecting her attack; she had momentum. She forced the dagger back into his shoulder just above his heart.

  His eyes widened for a moment, then he smiled. “Well done.” Still holding her fast by the wrist, he yanked the dagger from his flesh. As she watched in horror, the gash she had made closed over, sealing itself with a hiss. “At least this time, you tried to kill me yourself.” He pressed the dagger’s hilt into her free hand. “Would you care to try again?”

  She slashed him this time, across his throat and down the muscles of his chest, ripping through his shirt. Again the wound opened, but no blood came out. A few scant drops welled at the edges of the wound, then the flesh was healed.

  “What ails you, love?” he teased her. “You look as if you see a ghost.”

  “Demon,” she whispered, looking up into his eyes. “You truly are a demon.” She let the dagger fall.

  “Yes.” She tried to back away a step, and he caught her by the shoulders, his smile melting into a scowl. Now was the moment for revenge, he thought. She was terrified; her heartbeat thundered in his ears. He let his palms slide up her arms, and she shivered, now too frightened to resist his touch. His hands encircled her delicate throat, and she gasped, biting her lip. No brigand mob could save her now. No one would even hear her scream. “I am the devil, come to scourge you for your sins.” She closed her eyes against him, her lashes black against her death-pale cheek. She was his now for the taking, just as he had dreamed. One last, swift movement of his wrist, and her life would be snuffed out forever. “I am your husband.” One tear slid down her delicate cheek, glistening in the moonlight. “Is that not so?” he demanded roughly, hungry for her voice, to hear her speak once more.

  “Yes.” His touch was almost tender, more a caress than a threat. She had dreamed of this moment night after night, the terrible sweetness of his touch if somehow he should return. Lovers she had taken, but no man had ever touched her the way Tristan did; no man had ever dared. But now he did not mean to touch her but to kill her. His hands and voice were cold. “You are my husband,” she said.

  “Then kiss me.” Her eyes flew open, and he smiled, his bitter, devil’s smile. “Kiss me good-bye.”

  He was mocking her, tormenting her before her death as she had tormented him. But she didn’t care. She slid her hands over his shoulders, rising to her toes to reach him. He seemed surprised; his green eyes widened, then she closed her eyes and touched her mouth to his. A thrill raced through her stomach as his arms enfolded her, desire more potent than fear. Holding him with all her might, she gave herself up to his kiss.

  “Siobhan…” He could not murder her, not yet. He could not give her up. He crushed her closer, capturing her in his arms.

  His mouth on hers was brutal, demanding surrender, his tongue pushing inside, darting against her own. Alive, she thought. Her husband was alive.