Bride by Midnight

by WINSTEAD JONES, LINDA

  She’d always loved the sea, but his connection to sailing and ships was in the past. Now he was a drifter, a beggar who stole clothes—and yet he managed to have enough coin to buy a bottle of whisky, which meant it was likely he’d stolen more than a uniform.

  And he was her last chance.

  A thief or a nunnery? A complete stranger or a life lived alone? What did it say about her that the thief seemed a better choice? “We must hurry,” she said, tugging on his stolen uniform and leading the way to the church at the center of town. It had already been a while since the newly installed palace clock had pealed, announcing the eleventh hour. She wasn’t certain how much time she had left to wake Father Kiril and convince him to perform an untraditional wedding ceremony before that clock struck midnight. “By the way, what’s your name?” she asked as she turned into a narrow lane.

  “Blade Renshaw,” her prospective groom said.

  Blade. Unusual name. For a brief moment, Lyssa pictured the sword from her latest dream. The dangerous, sharp, gleaming blade had swung so close...

  “My name is Lyssa,” she said, pushing the memory of the dream to the back of her mind. “Lyssa Tempest. Soon to be Lyssa Renshaw, I suppose.”

  Considering her unfortunate history with prospective grooms, she wondered if she could keep Blade Renshaw alive and willing until they reached the priest and the marriage could be done.

  Chapter Four

  Blade willingly followed Lyssa down wide streets and narrow alleyways, past closed shops and stone houses where residents slept. Even though they passed through many dark shadows untouched by moonlight or the infrequent street lamps, she did not falter. She knew the way, as one who’d lived in Arthes all her life should.

  It didn’t take long for the cool night air to sober him. The mental fog he’d found in the whisky faded, and he was left clear-headed and impatient. The woman who guided him through the city had not been in his plans even a few minutes ago, and now she was his best chance of achieving his goal.

  He shouldn’t be curious about Lyssa Tempest and her need for a husband by a certain hour, but he was. A little. For the life of him, he could not figure out why a pretty woman—one of a class that allowed her to walk into and out of the palace—had to go to such lengths to get a husband, or why she felt that the deed had to be done before midnight. He could not deny his curiosity, but in truth her motivations didn’t matter.

  She could get him into the palace. Perhaps not tomorrow, or even next week, but eventually he would walk through the main entrance, and once he was inside he would find Volker and take his revenge. He would almost certainly make Lyssa a widow in the process, but she would already have gotten what she wanted out of the bargain, too; a husband before the last strike of the clock on this particular day.

  Perhaps before he went to die he would ask her what had led her to this point, but the truth of the matter was, it didn’t matter. She served his purpose, just as he served hers.

  Lyssa rounded the church, and along the side wall she found and knocked on a small door. She had to knock several times before a sleep-rumpled priest answered. He wore a nightshirt and a cap, both thin with wear, and carried a single candle.

  “What’s wrong?” the priest asked, sounding more alert than he looked. “Is your father ill? Sinmora?” he continued without giving her a chance to respond. “Wait while I dress.” He started to turn away, but Lyssa stopped him with her words.

  “Marry us, Father Kiril. Right here, and quickly. Now.”

  The priest stopped, turned slowly, lifted his eyes to look at Blade with curiosity. “Just this afternoon—”

  “I know very well what happened this afternoon,” Lyssa interrupted sharply.

  “I cannot....”

  “You can,” she insisted.

  Father Kiril turned his full attention to the insistent woman. “Lyssa, dear, this is highly unusual and totally unacceptable. I cannot—I will not—marry you to a stranger in the middle of the night. We’ll meet tomorrow, I’ll get to know your...” The priest cleared his throat. Twice. “. . . most recent betrothed, and—”

  “That will not do, I’m afraid. How can I make you understand?” She sighed, once. “Fine, here’s the truth,” she snapped. “Years ago a witch told me that if I didn’t become a wife before I turned twenty-three I would never marry.” Her words were clipped and fast. “Actually, she said I would be alone forever. Forever, Father Kiril. I don’t like to be alone. Who does? I would not believe her. I tried not to believe her. But you know very well what my history in that matter has been like. And I have dreams of the terrible darkness and loneliness that will come to me if I don’t marry. Now.”

  “Lyssa, dear...” The priest shook his head.

  “If I don’t marry I will be a burden to my father always, or else I will be forced to join a nunnery.”

  “The Sisters of Orianan do good work,” the priest argued.

  Midnight was coming, and it was clear to Blade that if he and Lyssa weren’t wed by then it would not be done at all. If he let her slip away, his best chance at gaining entrance to the palace would be gone.

  “Father Kiril,” Blade said, calling upon his most dignified voice, the voice of the man he had once been. “Lyssa’s reasoning aside, I pledge to be a good husband to her. And in order to thank you for your service in this hour, I also pledge to make a generous donation to the church.”

  The priest’s spine straightened. “Why is it that I do not know you, son?”

  Blade looked the priest in the eye, as if he had nothing to hide. Lying to a man of God was not his most egregious sin, not by a long shot. It was not even his most egregious sin committed on this long day. “I have only recently arrived in Arthes. The moment I saw Lyssa, I knew she was the only woman for me. If she has had misfortunes when it comes to marriage, then it is only because the fates were saving her for me.” Perhaps fate was not the proper argument, considering who was on the receiving end of this discussion. “God has brought us together. If it makes her happy to say our vows at this late hour and in such an unusual way, I will not deny her. I will be a good husband. I will give her everything she wants of me.” No need to reveal that all she wanted from him was a marriage ceremony and a bedding.

  Lyssa stared at him, wide-eyed. He had managed to surprise her.

  “Well, then,” the priest said, “since you swear that you will be a good husband to this child I have known all her life, and as you pledge a much needed donation to this church, how can I refuse?”

  They were shown in through the rear door and led down a small hallway to the chapel proper. Father Kiril held his candle high, lighting their path a few steps at a time. The walls were a dark polished wood, plain, without any adornment, but also fine and well constructed. The air was sweet; it smelled of incense and candle wax and the oil that was used to polish the walls and furnishings.

  Lyssa was in such a hurry to have the marriage done, she insisted that the priest perform the ceremony in his sleep clothes. The priest sighed in dismay but he quickly consented. He did have to leave them for a moment to wake the maid, so there would be a proper witness. Before Father Kiril left the chapel he lit three fat candles so Lyssa and her midnight groom would not be left in the dark while they waited.

  It was a fine chapel, Blade noted, lit by those three candles. The flames danced, stirred by an unseen draft from one door or another. As in the hallway, the walls were constructed of fine dark wood, polished with oil and gleaming. The altar was constructed of a paler wood, but it, too, shone in the candlelight. The benches provided for worshippers were more roughhewn, but hardly the worst he had seen. They looked sturdy, well-built and well worn. When he tried to get Lyssa to sit on one of those benches while they waited for the priest, she refused, unable or unwilling to be still even for a moment.

  She fidgeted as they waited, no doubt worried about the rapid approach of her twenty-third birthday.

  Blade wanted to tell her that witches were often wrong, that they s
ometimes lied for their own amusement or simply did not know all they claimed to know. He wanted to tell her that the witch who’d predicted for him a happy life, marriage and sons and daughters, had been far off the mark, and it was more than likely that her frightening prediction was also false.

  But if he reasoned with her and won, he would lose this opportunity. He’d sacrificed much to get this close to Volker, and he had no qualms about using a woman he barely knew.

  Father Kiril returned with a sleep-rumpled housekeeper. The priest had grabbed a heavy robe along the way, so his appearance was a bit more dignified than it had been when he’d opened the door to Lyssa’s unusual request. The ceremony was simple and quick. Blade and his bride exchanged vows, promising eternal commitment; a prayer was said. When it was done and the priest declared them man and wife, Lyssa released a long sigh of relief. And still the bells announcing midnight did not ring.

  Father Kiril yawned and bade them good evening, and then Blade and his wife exited the church the way they’d come and once again found themselves alone with the night.

  “It’s done,” Lyssa said as they walked out of the alley and onto the main street, which was all but deserted at this hour. In the distance, a drunkard trying to find his way home stumbled along. “And you are still alive!”

  “That surprises you?”

  “Well, I have had difficulties with potential husbands in the past. A couple of them died on the way to the church.”

  “That would have been nice to know beforehand,” Blade muttered.

  Lyssa laughed nervously. “If I’d told you all of my wedding disaster history, you would have run from me.”

  “That bad?”

  “That bad. But it is done now. I am a wife, and it is not yet midnight.”

  She looked at him and smiled, and in the glow of the moon and a streetlamp straight ahead, she looked even more beautiful than before. His body tightened; he ached.

  “You must fuck me. Now.”

  He was taken aback at her nonchalant use of the crude word he’d thrown at her before. Taken aback and oddly aroused. Clearly she did not know it was a crude word. He hadn’t realized there was such innocence left in the world.

  Her chin came up stubbornly when she saw him hesitating. “It’s nothing to worry about, I suppose. I was rather prepared to endure my wifely duties tonight, before my previous groom left me for a...” She stuttered a bit. “F-for another woman.” She looked very much as if she were about to change her mind. “I barely know you, and you are in desperate need of a bath and a shave. And perhaps a kiss would serve as well as a, well, the other.”

  “It’s up to you,” Blade said gently, as they walked slowly away from the church. His strides were long and slow. Lyssa’s were shorter and quicker as she attempted to match his pace. “As the priest said, the Sisters of Orianan do good work. I hear they minister to the sick and care for a number of orphans, and take in the most indigent. Some of them have taken on the task of educating the daughters of the Isen Demon, those who seem to be capable of redemption.” His heart hitched, a bit, but he felt no guilt. He would do or say whatever was necessary to make this marriage real. Otherwise, he suspected his way into the palace would disappear like fog burned away by a morning sun. “Only a few nuns have died because they were mistaken about the intentions of a demon child or two. They also pray a lot, I imagine, and—”

  “I suppose a kiss to seal the marriage will not do,” she interrupted. “Do you have a room?”

  “I do.”

  “Is it nearby?”

  The first peal announcing midnight rang, and his bride twitched visibly.

  “Not that nearby.” He took her hand and led her quickly toward the closest alleyway.

  As he pulled her into darkness, she asked, on a whispered breath, “Here?”

  The second peal echoed.

  “It’s here or not at all, if you wish the deed done before tomorrow arrives.” And suddenly he was anxious to have it done, to have her. Not only because she was a means to an end, not only because she could lead him into the palace and straight to Volker, but because she called to him as a woman. He wanted her, wanted to be inside her, to make her scream.

  “Fine,” she said again, with a sigh that coincided with the third peal. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Nothing.” Blade lifted her skirt and slipped his hand between her thighs. She was startled, jumping a bit as the fourth bell rang out. Her skin was wonderfully soft, her response untaught and arousing. This woman who had never been touched by a man was ripe and hungry in a way she undoubtedly didn’t understand. The fifth bell rang, and he found the nub at her entrance. She was surprised by her reaction to the touch; her body responded. Her hips rocked gently and she uttered a soft, “Oh.” The sixth bell rang, and he slipped a finger inside her. She was wet, but not wet enough, so he stroked and teased as the seventh and eighth bell rang.

  She gasped and moved against him. He fell into her, breathed in her sweet scent.

  “Shouldn’t you...” she said breathlessly. “This feels strangely nice. I didn’t really expect... oh... but it’s not... There’s no time, Blade, not nearly enough time.”

  The ninth bell rang on the tail end of her words, and he freed his erection. He lifted her up, guided his length to her wet heat, and slowly, as the tenth bell rang, he pushed the head of his cock inside her. She gasped, and her hands clutched at his shoulders. He pushed a little bit deeper. She was tight, wet, hot, inexperienced, and ignorantly awaiting something she didn’t understand.

  He held her up, so her back rested lightly against the wall behind her, and as the eleventh bell peeled he pushed deeper. She gasped as he thrust, breaking past her maidenhead. One more thrust and he filled her completely. With the final peal of the palace bells, by any law or custom he and Lyssa were man and wife.

  ***

  Princess—that was her name now, and she rather liked it—woke with a start as the bells marking midnight pealed beyond her window. Their new Father did not call either of the others Princess, as he called her. She was his favorite, perhaps because he saw that she was the most powerful of them all. Princess. She liked the sound of her new name, even though it only resonated in her head and not against the stone walls that surrounded her. She remained imprisoned, but she’d been moved to a new room and was no longer alone. She did not like being alone, as she had been for so much of her lifetime.

  She had lived in much worse places than this one in her almost-sixteen years. Even before she’d come into her power, she’d been shunned by those who knew the circumstances of her birth. She’d slept in harder beds, or on the floor or the ground. This was a very nice prison.

  There were three other beds in this large chamber. Two of them were occupied by her sisters, Ksana demons like herself. Each had been fathered by the Isen Demon but they had come into this world by way of different mothers; mothers who had died during childbirth. The babies those chosen women had delivered were deadly poisonous as they came into the world, and not one of those mothers had survived.

  And now, after years of living without a true knowledge of who and what they were—without knowing exactly what they were meant to be and do—the Ksanas were poison once again. As they became women they discovered the true depths of their varied powers. They also came into their own as the most deadly of all the demon daughters. No man could withstand their kiss.

  The fourth bed in this large chamber was empty, awaiting yet another sister, perhaps.

  One of Princess’s sisters, the one called Divya, sat up in her bed. The other slept on. Perhaps her more limited powers did not allow her to see what Princess and Divya had seen.

  “She has been awakened,” Divya whispered.

  Princess looked at her sister, seeing her well even in the dark. Divya was slighter in build than she or their other sister. Her blond hair was almost silver. “It was inevitable.” Princess attempted to sound as if she didn’t care. “She will come for us... in time. That was always
meant to be.” The witch and the blade. Separately they were mere annoyances. Separately they were nothing. Together... together they could ruin it all. One woman, one man. It was so unfair.

  “One witch and one man,” Divya said, sounding more annoyed than frightened. “Columbyana has many witches and more men than I can count, so I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

  “The witch will be hard to kill as long as the blade lives,” Princess said. She was not afraid; not really. “We do not know the extent of her abilities, and he gives her strength. But the blade is just a man. Take him, and she will be just another witch, more easily disposed of if she dares to get in our way.”

  “Now that the witch has been awakened, we will be able to sense her,” Divya said. “Perhaps we can dispose of her before she comes into her full power.”

  “Perhaps.” Princess left her bed and walked to the window, bare feet on a cold floor, and looked down. She felt the moonlight wash over her, as powerful and energizing as sunlight. The night was hers, or soon would be. She still had so much to learn; there was so much to be taken from the world.

  She would not let two pitiful humans get in her way. Joined or not, prophesied or not, witch or not... they were only human and should be easy enough to kill. The witch, the blade... perhaps both of them, just to be safe. She could not allow them to get in the way of what she wanted.

  “Princess” was a start, but one day... one day she would be more than a Princess. Empress? Queen? Goddess? Her life, her rule, had only just begun.

  Chapter Five

  The final peal of the midnight bells faded away. Lyssa held onto Blade, who was moving in and out of her at a slow, steady pace. There had been some pain at first, but she could not say she felt pain any longer. A little discomfort, maybe. Mainly it was just odd to have a part of a man inside her. Odd and strangely compelling. Her hips moved against him, almost without thought or intent, as if she had an itch and he was scratching it gently. Gently. Oh, not always gently.