Demon's Bride

Chapter 14

He heard her footsteps racing down the hallway and the front door open. She ran from him. Leo tried to stand, to force his legs to follow, but dizziness overwhelmed him. He felt the twin pain of being thrown not just against the bookcase, but the hurt of the geminus as it was flung against the desk. The creature lay on the floor, unmoving.

He could not believe the power that had come from her, sudden and unknown. She threw me and the geminus across the room. His surprise knew no limits.

Blackness swam in his vision. He tried to push it aside, as he pushed all obstacles out of his path. In this, though, his body overruled his will, and he slumped to the floor.

“Sir? Sir?” Munslow gently shook him. Leo opened his eyes to see a pair of polished but well-worn buckled shoes. “Shall I fetch a physician, sir?”

Leo sat up, groaning. Munslow stood close by, gazing down at him with a worried frown, whilst more servants gathered in the doorway of the study, peering in like curious birds.

Turning his throbbing head to look at his desk, Leo saw that the geminus was gone. He tried to focus on the clock on the mantel, but his head spun.

“My wife,” he rasped.

The head footman shot an anxious glance over his shoulder, toward the other servants. A girl Leo recognized as Anne’s maid shook her head.

“Gone, sir.”

“How long?” Leo forced himself to standing, his whole body aflame, his head aching.

Munslow could only offer a shrug.

Leo pushed past him and the gathered servants as he staggered from the study. He barely heard Munslow’s calls to him, the nervous offers of bringing in a physician. As he lurched up the stairs, he shouted, “Have my horse saddled and ready to ride.”

“Sir?”

“Do it.” Leo gained the top of the stairs. His head still pounded, but the floor became steadier, and he ran into the bedchamber.

He would not allow himself to look at the bed, to think about the life shared between him and Anne that now lay in ruins. He had an aim, a purpose; he would not falter.

Her clothespress. He strode to it and threw open the doors. Gowns of every color and fabric lay in neat arrangement. They carried the sweet fragrance of her body, the echo of her shape. Plunging his hand between the gowns, his fingers brushed against smooth cotton, the pleats of ribbons.

The room around him vanished. He found himself in a darkened pavilion, though the night could not fully disguise the brightly painted arches and columns. And there, on the ground, curled into a ball—Anne.

The vision dissolved. Once more, he stood in his own bedchamber, and Anne was gone.

If ever he had been glad of his Devil-begotten power, nothing compared to his appreciation for it now. For without it, he would never know where to find his wife, and this was his lone aim. Without her ...

No. He refused to think of it. Instead, he ran back downstairs to the study. There, he loaded his brace of pistols, then slipped them into shoulder-belt holsters and slung the whole of it across his chest. His primed hunting musket hung across his back. Into the top of his boot, he sheathed a knife. Damn that he could not carry a sword. Any means of attack or defense, he would use—he would never use them against Anne, but London after dark was not safe, now worse than ever. The riot at the theater remained lodged in his brain like a thorn.

He started to stride from the room, but froze in his tracks when he saw the geminus. Not the geminus, he realized, but his own reflection in a glass. The man who stared back at him bore no resemblance to the wealthy businessman he had fashioned for himself. His hair undone, his expression wild and fierce, heavily armed, he looked every inch the brute the aristocrats claimed him to be. Good. Now was not the time for aping the manners of the gentry. Now was for survival, for reclaiming what he had foolishly lost.

He left the study. His saddled bay gelding waited for him outside his house. Leo snatched the reins from the groom and, without a word, kicked the horse into a gallop.

Tearing through the streets of Bloomsbury, bent low over the horse’s neck, he saw nothing but the roads ahead. Each beat of his mount’s hooves was the pound of his heart. Fear and anger and need clawed at him. Nothing in his mind made sense, only the single directive: Find her, find her.

It took too long, but eventually the vast shadowed expanse of Kew Gardens rose up before him. He’d come here before on a rare daylight expedition with the other Hellraisers, yet they had not tarried, for artificial ruins and ornamental follies held no interest for men such as they. Far better were the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall and Ranelagh. Now Leo sent up a fervent prayer of thanks that he had come to Kew, for he knew precisely where to find his fleeing wife.

He galloped up to the Alhambra and flung himself down from the saddle. With long strides, he sped into the building, terror thick in his throat, shortening his breath. He found Anne still curled on the ground, eyes closed. Another spike of fear stabbed him. Was she hurt? Worse?

But he saw her shudder, and her own breathing came in a low, frantic rhythm. Trembling movement flickered behind her eyelids. She slept. Only then did he gain the ability to draw air into himself again. Relief poured through him, sending his head spinning once more. He thought he might black out again, but he forced himself to remain standing.

His boots echoed sharply beneath the vaulted ceiling as he took a step toward Anne.

She came instantly awake. And when she saw him, saw his face and the weapons he carried, she sat up and scrambled backward on her hands.

He thought he understood pain of every variety. Physical, he had felt many times in his life, in brawls and fights. Whit’s rapier in his shoulder. The body-jarring agony of being slammed into a bookcase. And burying his father had reduced him to spending weeks at the bottom of a decanter, as he fought to think of life without the massive presence of Adam Bailey.

Yet none of those moments of pain could ever match what he felt as Anne now looked at him with fear and despair. The misery of betrayal shone in her eyes like poison in a fresh mountain lake. And the poison burned him from the inside out.

“Anne—” He took a step toward her.

“Don’t come near me.” She flung up her hands, and a gust of cold air buffeted him.

They both stared at her hands as she lowered them. She, with wide-eyed shock, and him warily.

“That is ... new,” he said, cautious.

She continued to gaze at her upturned hands. “The Roman woman. She gave me this somehow.”

“Tonight.”

“Weeks ago. I never understood, never truly knew. Until this night.” Her tortured gaze rose to meet his. “So many impossibilities I learned tonight. Things I did not want to believe.”

A beam of moonlight silvered her face, the tracks of dried tears on her cheeks, and his heart wrenched. Seamless, this pain, stretching from her to him in an unbroken band.

“I’ve come to learn this world is far more treacherous than I ever understood.” His mouth twisted. “And this world has ever been my enemy.”

“Is that why you did it? Why you made that bargain? Because you see everyone as an enemy?” Her eyes were gleaming and fierce.

Leo clenched his jaw. “He offered me what I wanted most. Power.”

“He being the Devil.” A rasping laugh broke from her. “I cannot believe I am saying these things. And that they are true.”

“What would you do?” Leo threw back. “When presented with everything you ever desired?” He stepped closer, hot anger and fear pulsing through him. “None of us are pure and virtuous. If someone appears before you and offers you your heart’s deepest want, you take it. Just as the Hellraisers did. Just as I did.”

She pushed herself up to standing, and it was all he could do to keep himself from helping her to her feet. “But the cost, Leo. A businessman knows you cannot get something for nothing. You taught me that.”

Heat spread along his back. He felt a burn also climb up his calf. “We didn’t consider the cost.”

“Your soul.”

“And more.” He continued to close the distance between them. As he neared, he saw the dirty hem of her gown, and the tips of her tattered slippers. She had run far from him, fragile as a moth wing. Yet she still stood before him, her chin tilted up, shoulders back. The delicate girl he wed had transformed into this storm-tossed but defiant woman. If he could claim even a dram of her strength as his doing, he might congratulate himself. He was in no humor for congratulations. Not when seeing the betrayal in her eyes left him bleeding and raw.

“You.” His gaze pinned her in place. “It cost me you.”

She swallowed hard. “Everything between us is lies. From the beginning, nothing but deception.”

“Both of us were strangers to each other. But yes,” he acknowledged, “I played you false. Not with another woman, but with my secrets.”

“And made me part of them,” she fired back. “The coins.”

Shame burned him, bitter and acidic. “Yes.”

“You knew how much I wanted to please you, and you used that. Used me.”

Only barely did he keep his head from dropping in remorse. “I did. Whatever advantage I could seize, I did so gladly.”

“I was your advantage. Your aristo wife.” Her words were knives, cutting him to pieces as he stood. It surprised him that his blood did not splash upon the gaudily painted columns, bright red against the blue.

“So you were. But not anymore.”

She stared at him. The anger tightening her face warred with the sorrow in her eyes, the profound agony of betrayal. “What am I now? An inconvenience. An obstacle on your determined path.”

He drew still closer, until a distance of a few feet separated them. “You are my wife.” Within his chest, his heart hammered, forging words he must speak. He drew a breath. “I love you.”

Briefly, far too briefly, wonderment blazed in her gaze, but she banked it, and turned away. Her voice was a wintry rasp. “Damn you.”

“I am damned,” he said. “But not from the loss of my soul.”

She gave him her profile. “There’s no profit in plying me with honeyed words, Leo. You have magic. You have wealth and power. Everything you want is yours.”

“I don’t have you.”

“An acquisition.”

“My wife. The woman I love.”

Her hands flew up to cover her ears. “Stop it! I knew you were ruthless, but I never suspected you to be cruel.”

He stepped around her until they faced each other. Gently, he pulled her hands down, and he felt the wild rush of her pulse beneath his fingers, the fact of her body was both a poem and torture—this living woman, this mortal creature who made him love and made him fearful, who made him strong and made him vulnerable.

“Not cruelty,” he said. “The truth.”

“There is nothing you can say that I will believe.” She tugged her hands away. “You made certain of that.”

He winced inwardly. “Hear this. Whether you choose to believe it or not. The power given to me by the Devil, the wealth created by it, everything I’ve gained since I made that bargain ...” He steadied himself. “I renounce the lot.”

For a moment, she only stared at him. “Renounce.”

“All of it.” His words grew bolder as he spoke, as conviction strengthened. “It means nothing to me. Only one thing, one person, I want. You.”

Her eyes widened. “You would give it all up ... for me.”

“Yes,” he said immediately.

Yet she shook her head. “How badly I want to believe you.”

“If it means spending the rest of my life destitute, performing penance, I’ll do it.” A corner of his mouth tilted up. “When there’s something I want, I’m a tenacious bastard.”

She did not return his smile. If anything, she looked more agonized, a woman on the rack. “I wish I did not love you.”

Savage primal pleasure coursed through him, even as he burned. She loved him. In all his life, he never expected it, never thought it could be his. Yet to have her love him, her out of all women ... such wealth he could not fathom. And he would seize it, for he was greedy for her.

“But you do,” he said. “Just as I love you.” He needed her mouth, her taste.

She saw his intent as he stepped closer. Want and fear mingled in her eyes. She tried to dart around him, making for the way out, but he moved quickly. His hand shot out to grip hers.

His fingers brushed against her ring. Images suddenly besieged him—creatures of foul shape, with leathery wings, jagged long teeth, curved claws, and yellow eyes. He could smell the rot of their flesh, hear their shrieks of hatred.

“Stay.” He shook his head to clear away the images.

She pulled hard on her hand, trying to free herself. “Is this how it’s to be? Using force to keep me?”

“Hate me if you have to. But don’t go outside.” He drew one of his pistols.

She froze in place. “Why? What’s out there?”

Then the shrieks sounded, not merely in a vision, but here. And now.

Two creatures darted into the building. For a moment, Anne could only stare, for these were the beasts of a fever dream—grotesque fiends that had vaguely human shapes, with monstrous faces and horns. Serrated teeth crowded their mouths, and instead of hands and feet, they had claw-tipped talons. Ash-colored skin, sticky yellow eyes alive with rage.

Demons. She looked upon actual demons.

And they wanted her and Leo dead.

The demons rushed toward them, their claws scraping at the painted floor. Fear tightened her throat. She looked around wildly for something to use as a weapon.

“Behind me.” Leo roughly shoved her back, putting himself between her and the advancing creatures. Fluidly, he drew his pistols, aimed. Fired. The powder exploded in a flash, filling the pavilion with two loud booms.

One of the beasts immediately crumpled to the ground, a hole in the center of its forehead. The other screamed and stumbled, then lurched to its knees. It clawed at the wound on its shoulder, black blood pouring down its arm.

Leo flipped the pistol in his left hand, holding it by its barrel. He rushed forward. His arm swung out as he clubbed the demon with the heavy butt of the gun. The creature toppled back, lashing out with its talons.

Anne winced as the demon’s claws caught Leo across the thigh, but he made no sound of pain, did not hesitate in his movements. He swung the pistol again. It slammed into the beast’s head, and the demon shrieked in outrage. Claws striking out, it tried to fend off Leo’s attack, but Leo was relentless, wielding the pistol like a brutal club. He bared his teeth, savage, as he struck the demon. Again and again.

She had no love for the creature, but she turned away as its thick blood splattered on the ground and Leo’s clothes and face. Its screams came fainter, wetter, subsiding into a gurgle. Then it fell quiet.

Turning back, she saw Leo standing over the body, his face dark with fury. Blood everywhere. He looked wild and fierce, terrifying and unquestionably male. Her heart seized, partly in fear, partly in amazement. She barely recognized the man she had married. And yet this seemed his truest self, standing over his fallen enemy.

His gaze rose and met hers. She saw it in the savagery of his storm gray eyes: he had just killed for her. This wasn’t the first time, and it would not be the last.

He holstered his pistols, then held out a hand for her. Despite, or perhaps because of, what she had just seen, she hesitated.

“There will be more.” His voice was chipped obsidian. “We must leave.”

“Why have they come?”

His face became a hard mask. “Because I’ve turned my back on the Devil. I’m no longer his bondsman, but his enemy.”

Anne gaped at him. She did not know what to think. Could he be telling the truth? He had woven so many lies, choking them both in the shroud of deceit. Burying them alive.

Instinct forced her to move. If physical safety could be found anywhere, at this moment, nowhere was as safe as being at Leo’s side. She hurried forward and took his hand, knowing full well that she could trust him with the safety of her body but not her heart.

He looked down at their joined hands. His jaw tightened, his expression enigmatic. And then they were hurrying outside.

Inhuman screams sounded in the night, the noise of giant, leathery wings beating the air. Anne pressed back as four winged demons swooped down. She clapped her hands over her mouth to silence her reflexive gasp. Only once had she seen beasts like this—in a medieval painting depicting the terrors of Hell. She had shuddered delicately at the painting, grateful that such monsters were not real.

But they were. And they now dove down to attack.

Leo released her hand. In a blur of movement, he took the musket that hung on his back, and aimed it at one of the demons. He fired. The demon screeched, then fell to earth. It lay still upon the ground as its blood coated the gravel path.

“Three left,” Leo muttered. He glared at his firearms. “No time to reload. Damn me for not being a soldier. If Bram were here ...”

Anne knew a well-trained soldier could prime and load a pistol or rifle in a single minute. She had seen demonstrations of the skill. But adept as Leo was, he did not possess this aptitude.

He slung the musket onto his back once more and looked about for another weapon. There was little time, though. The remaining demons saw their compatriot dead and new fury resounded in their shrieks. They dove down, heading straight for Leo.

She had to do something. Would that she had a weapon of her own ...

Anger, fear—they coalesced within her, both cold and hot. She felt it gathering in the labyrinth of her body. Vivid blue energy. It had burst from her when she had no control, in moments of panic. She had thrown Leo across the room with it. Yet it belonged to her, was part of her. A weapon given to her by Livia. She was not so powerless.

Anne fought to summon this power as the demons flew toward her and Leo. She grasped at it, but it was strange and new, slipping from her hold.

One of the creatures dove down, raking Leo’s chest with its claws. He grunted in pain and staggered back. The other two, scenting blood, swept low to join the fray.

Fury scoured Anne. And suddenly there it was, the power, potent as a storm.

She flung up her hands. Waves of energy poured from her in an arctic blast of air. She muscled for command, her body aching as she fought for control over the magic. It threatened to overwhelm her.

No. She had been powerless before, in so many ways. But no longer.

Gritting her teeth, Anne directed the energy toward the attacking demons. They roared as squalls pushed them back, their wings beating against the ferocious gale. Anne shoved them away from Leo, gaining him distance.

He glanced over at her, brow lifted in surprise. Clearly, he did not expect her to come to his aid.

She could not examine her motivations now. Her heart still bled. But this was a battle they must fight together.

Clenching her teeth, she sent another surge of energy through her body. One of the demons went careening backward into the branches of a nearby tree. Boughs splintered and snapped. A thrill of bloodlust shivered through her. She wanted to hurt these beasts, cause them pain.

Leo bent to load his musket, but he had only gotten as far as pouring powder into the barrel when a demon attacked. Anne moved to push it back with her power, yet Leo acted faster. He gripped the musket’s barrel and swung out. The stock slammed into the demon’s leg, and the crack of shattering bone echoed over the manicured grass. Whatever foul magic had created these beasts, they still possessed corporeal bodies—muscle and bone. They could still be hurt.

She readied herself to hurl more energy at the demons. Then she fell backward, thrown to the ground by Leo. His body covered hers. A loud crash rang out.

Peering up from beneath the heavy shelter of Leo’s body, she saw a thick, jagged tree branch on the ground behind her. The demon she had pitched back into the tree shrieked in frustration as it hovered nearby. Anne glanced back and forth between the branch and the demon. It had hurled it like a spear, intending to hit her. And would have, had Leo not flung her down and shielded her.

It would not have been a scratch, the damage from the thrown bough. The jagged branch would have pierced her chest. Killed her.

Leo rose up onto his elbows, his body a lean weight atop hers. “Hurt?”

She shook her head.

The outraged demons howled. Anne already knew the sound. It meant they planned to strike again. Leo also seemed to recognize the creatures’ noises. He rolled off Anne, then helped her to stand.

Shoulder to shoulder, they readied themselves for the next attack.

The three beasts dove down. Anne summoned her magic to push them back. Two could not withstand the force of her energy, flapping hard against the tempest but still finding themselves shoved away. The third was bigger, stronger. She could not hold him back. It swooped close, a terrifying winged force of claw and tooth.

Leo swung at it with his musket, but the demon flew out of reach. They were locked in this dance, back and forth, the demon lunging near, Leo pushing it away as he brandished his weapon.

Anne’s glance fell on the gravel path beneath her feet. Her answer.

Swirling her magic, she used the energy’s force to scoop up gravel. Then she flung it with all her strength toward the demon. It shielded itself from the onslaught, throwing up its arms to cover its face. But its wings were spread wide. Unprotected.

Gravel tore through its leathery wings. It gave a scream of pain and anger as membranes perforated. It could no longer keep itself aloft. It spun as it crashed to the ground.

Leo wasted no time. He ran to the creature and clubbed it with his musket stock. Over and over. This time, Anne did watch as Leo turned the demon’s head into a mass of sticky pulp. The creature twitched, then was still.

Infuriated, the final two remaining demons charged. Anne hurled the force of her tempest at them, but the maddened creatures plunged forward. She crouched low as one dipped down, reaching with its taloned feet, and the stink of the thing as it swooped close nearly made her gag. She came out of her crouch to see Leo holding back the other demon, swinging with both his fists and his musket.

The first demon charged her again, and she bit back a hiss of pain as it cut her arm. Leo saw this. His face twisted in fury. He ran toward her, but the other demon held him back, its wings beating at the air, claws slashing.

Terror, exhaustion, and anger all seethed within her. This nightmare world—she wanted nothing more to do with it. Energy coalesced through her limbs, the force of a hundred storms. When the first demon rushed her once more, she let out a primal, furious scream, a battle cry, as she flung out her hands and unleashed the tempest inside.

“I have been lied to, manipulated, betrayed,” she said through clenched teeth. “Made fearful. No more.”

The beast made a frantic, enraged sound as it fought against the gale. But Anne’s wrath could not be contained. She let everything run riot, letting slip any control she might have possessed. The demon struggled, and then, with a shriek, it was caught on the storm she had created. Like a leaf, it spun on the wind backward. Higher. It clawed uselessly at the air to stop its mad flight. She was unrelenting.

Anne continued to blast the creature with the force of her magic, and it tumbled back through the sky. Toward the nearby towering Pagoda that rose ten stories above the ground. The demon tried to stop its ascent by clinging to a gilded dragon on the corner of one of the Pagoda’s roofs. The ornament snapped away, and the demon was flung high, higher. Until it reached the very top of the Pagoda.

It saw Anne’s intent and let out one final scream of outrage. She refused to yield. Manipulating her magic, she brought the demon up, then dropped it—directly onto the Pagoda’s spire. Skewering the demon. The spire stabbed through its chest, and the creature’s dying howl rose up to the dark night sky before trailing away into silence.

The last remaining demon looked to where its compatriot lay dead. It turned panicked eyes to Anne, then to Leo. She reveled in seeing the creature’s fear.

With a frightened yelp, it spun around and flew away. Its wings beating against the air, it disappeared into the darkness like the last vestiges of a bad dream.

The dream, however, was quite real. Demons’ bodies lay strewn about, becoming only carrion, their inky blood spread on the ground and splattered on Leo’s clothing, his face and hands.

In the aftermath of violence, the silence became its own war. Anne felt the magic within her recede, its blue energy a quieting storm, and as it ebbed, she was left shuddering and dizzy. The ground rushed to meet her.

Strong arms wrapped around her, holding her steady. She caught the metallic scent of blood, the warmth of Leo’s body, the fierce beat of his heart.

“I have you,” he murmured. “I have you.”

She struggled to push away from him.

“Stop fighting me. You haven’t the strength to stand on your own.”

“Give me time, and I will.”

Yet he did not release her, and of their own volition, her arms came up to wrap around his hard, wide shoulders. She leaned against him, raging at herself for allowing this moment of peace. For letting him comfort her. He was the source of her torment, not her solace. Yet the past few hours and the horror of what she had just witnessed left her shaken and stunned.

My God, the things I have done.

“You fought well,” he said, his lips against the crown of her head.

“I did not know ... I could do any of that.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “Surprised myself.”

“And me.”

Yet she did not like the warm humor in his voice. He had no right to it, to the intimacy of such tone and words. For it felt like a blade of ice through her heart. She pushed away again. This time, he let her go.

Even in the darkness, she saw his wounded, wary gaze. But he did not reach for her as she stepped back.

“There will be more.” He glanced at the demons’ bodies. “This was a test. To know what kind of enemy I am to the Devil.”

“Are you his enemy?”

His hand brushed against the tears in his coat, revealing deep gouges in his flesh, and the wetness that gleamed darkly on his fingers was both the blood of the demons and his own blood. Her heart contracted painfully to see him hurt.

“This proves that I am.” He clenched his hand. “I’ve forsaken the Devil. He has nothing for me, nothing I want.”

“What do you want?”

His gaze was level as it met hers. “You.”

A throb of longing pulsed through her. She saw how he wanted it to be. He wanted her to run to him. To throw her arms around him and declare that all was forgiven, and they could return to how it had been between them, two strangers finding an unexpected bond.

She wanted the same. But it could not happen. Not in the span of a few hours—if ever.

“It’s not so simple.”

“Tell me what I have to do. I’ll do it.” His words were forceful, not a plea but a statement of intent. She almost smiled at this. Leo never saw obstacles—only ways over or around them.

She answered him with the truth. “I do not know.”

His jaw tightened, but he did not press her harder. “Where were you going?” When she hesitated, he added on a growl, “I’ve just killed five demons. That should give you some measure of trust.”

“Four,” she said. “You killed four. I killed the fifth.” She could hardly believe that she, a woman of genteel birth, who’d never known bloodshed beyond an occasional reading of the Newgate Calendar, had not only fought against demons, but actually slew one—and happily.

Leo’s mouth tugged into a small smile. “That you did.”

“To the Black Lion Inn,” she said at last. “In Richmond. Lord Whitney is there. He said ... he could help, when I was ready.”

She waited for Leo’s outburst of anger. It did not come. Instead, he nodded tightly. “Whit severed his tie to the Devil. He’ll have answers.”

“I am glad someone does,” she said, weary, “for I’ve none of my own.”

Glancing around, Leo frowned. “Damn horse got spooked and ran off.” He planted his hands on his hips. “I’ve been to the Black Lion. It’s less than a mile from here. Have you the strength to walk the rest of the journey?”

She had never known such exhaustion, her limbs made of lead, her head thick and shoulders aching. Yet this was nothing compared to the weight in her chest, a heaviness so profound that she felt as though she observed the whole world from beneath miles of granite. She wanted only to run away and hide, to throw her arms over her head and surrender.

Instead, she took in a breath of cold night air. Straightened her shoulders.

“I am strong enough,” she said.