Demon's Bride (26 page)

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Authors: Zoe Archer

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BOOK: Demon's Bride
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Leo stalked to the door and threw it open. “Send the bastard away, whoever he is. And if you disrupt me and my wife again, I will throw you out of my damned house.”
“Yes, sir.” The servant gulped. “Only ... he said I was to give you this.” He held out his hand. A ribbon encrusted with dried mud lay curled in his palm.
Anne’s ribbon. From the riverbank earlier that day.
Leo stared at it for a moment. “Where is he?” he asked tightly, pocketing the ribbon.
“He told me he’d wait in your study, sir.”
Leo drew a breath. He could not leave Anne now, but this had to be attended to. “Tell him I’ll be down presently.”
The footman nodded, looking relieved that his job was not at risk, and hurried away.
Turning back to face the darkness of the bedchamber, Leo looked for Anne. She was pressed into the corner of the room, preserving the distance between them.
“I’ll return,” he said. “A few minutes only.”
“You cannot leave.” Her voice was thin, strained. “Not
now.
”
“This is important.”
She made a disbelieving laugh. “So is this.”
He was racked between necessity and longing, wanting to stay, yet knowing that he could not. “I have to go.”
“Leo—”
Before she could convince him otherwise, he turned and strode from the bedchamber. He hastened down the stairs, then along the corridor, until he reached his study. Leo opened the door.
Waiting for him was not Whit, as he had expected. The man who stood before the fire, glowering at him, was
him
. Save for the clothing he wore, the man was identical to Leo in every way, from his size, face, hair and eye color, to the way he stood, balanced lightly on the balls of his feet as if readying for an attack. Leo’s double.
“My master is extremely displeased,” the man snapped.
He wasn’t a man at all. It was his
geminus
.
Everything made a terrible sense now. Everything became clear. He understood what he must do.
Leo stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
 
 
“The situation is intolerable.” The
geminus
strode toward him, its face contorted with anger.
But its face was Leo’s face, and he knew in that moment how it must feel to be on the receiving end of his rage. Torn between fascination and horror, he stood his ground as the creature who was his exact likeness paced nearer. No wonder so few ever opposed him—in the full of his anger, he appeared utterly merciless.
And so he had been. In almost all aspects of his life. Anne remained the lone exception.
Thoughts of her spurred him on now.
“The situation isn’t intolerable,” he said, his voice cutting. “It’s ending.”
The
geminus
halted its advance. Its mouth twisted. “You made a bargain, and you will honor that bargain.”
“Honor? Poor choice of words, coming from you.”
The
geminus
glowered. “And a word of which
you
are unfamiliar. Have you not profited, and well, from the advantage my master bestowed upon you? Is not all of this”—it waved its hands at the study, the shelves of books, the expensive carpets, the heavy desk of imported wood—“the culmination of your power?”
“I don’t need the Devil’s magic to succeed.” Nearly everything in the house, and the house itself, had been purchased before Leo had received his gift.
“Mark me well,
mortal
,” the
geminus
spat, “it is a small matter to my master to take all of this away from you.
Everything
can be taken away.”
Leo tensed. “What the hell are you threatening?”
“Precisely. Hell.” Seeing that it had Leo’s complete attention, the creature smirked. “My master does not tolerate sedition within his ranks. Sever ties with Lord Whitney. Should you see him again, kill him. And bring your wife to heel. You are her lord and master. Bend her to your will.”
Leo hated having anyone tell him what to do. Yet fury warred with fear. “If I don’t?”
The
geminus
moved to the fire, then reached into the flames. Leo hissed as searing pain blazed up his left hand and arm, and as he stared at his hand, the skin reddened and blistered. Turning back to face him, the
geminus
held a tongue of flame in its palm.
Leo stared as the flame grew larger, hovering above the
geminus
’s hand. The flames shifted, forming shapes out of fire. Figures emerged. His house appeared, only to tumble down into a smoking ruin. Yet he did not truly feel terror until Anne’s likeness appeared in the flames. A host of demonic creatures attacked, and he could do nothing but watch as the beasts dragged her away toward a ravenous abyss.
“Goddamn you.” He snarled, striding nearer.
The flame and images vanished from the
geminus
’s grasp. Pain receded by bare degrees from Leo’s hand, but rage and horror sank talons into him.
“Damn
you
,” the
geminus
corrected. “That is a given. Yet you shall damn
her
, as well, if my master’s will is disobeyed.”
Fury poured through Leo, white-hot. Most of it directed at himself.
He’d been stubbornly heedless, convinced of his own supremacy. A bloody thick-headed fool. To think that
his
gain outweighed any consequence, that nothing mattered but
his
advancement and the destruction of those he saw as his enemies.
And to drag Anne down with him ...
It was insupportable. He clenched his hands into fists. “Do not threaten her.”
The
geminus
gave an ugly laugh. “What leverage have you? My master’s power is vast, and yours a trifle by comparison.”
“But your power is not so great.” Leo stalked to the
geminus
and wrapped his hand around its throat. He squeezed tightly.
And felt himself choking.
His fingers uncurled from the creature’s throat. The moment he released it, his own breath returned.
Both he and the
geminus
panted and coughed, and the creature wheezed, “No business investment ... is undertaken without ... insurance.” Regaining more breath, it chuckled. “I am made from you. The other side of your coin. Hurt me in any way, and you hurt yourself.”
Black swam in Leo’s vision. He despised being backed into a corner, but the one who had put him in this position was himself. The architect of his own plight.
The
geminus
became all solicitousness. “Come, it needn’t be antagonistic between us. If you but heed my master’s command, your rewards will increase tenfold. You may enjoy a life superior to a king or emperor. And your wife shall be your empress. No harm shall come to her. Nay, she will thrive, and bear you fine, healthy sons—each of them destined for greatness unparalleled. Is that not a fair bargain? To gain so much, and for such a small cost.”
“Bring Anne under my control,” Leo recited, “and cut ties with Whit.”
“Your rewards would be handsome, if you were to eliminate Lord Whitney. Say, lure him into your confidence, and so dispatch him.”
“Let’s speak plainly. You want me to kill him.”
The
geminus
smiled at Leo, and the uncanniness of being smiled at by himself made his gut clench. “Ah, my master always did enjoy your directness. So, have we reached an accord?”
“I—”
The door to the study banged open, and the fire sputtered. Anne stood at the threshold.
“Leo, send your visitor away. We must talk—” Her words died as she looked past him to the
geminus
. Color leached from her face. “Oh, my God.”
“Hello, my dear,” murmured the
geminus
. “At last I have the pleasure of meeting you.”
 
 
What she saw before her was impossible. Leo in the study. Not Leo, singular, but two identical men, both of them not merely
resembling
her husband, but
were
her husband. Save for their difference in dress, the men in the study were mirror images of each other.
He had no twin brother. This she knew.
Then who, or
what
, was this other man?
Her gaze darted back and forth between the men. One was dressed in the same clothing she had seen Leo wearing throughout the day—dark brown coat, waistcoat of green wool, buff breeches tucked into tall, glossy boots—and the other was clad in a gentleman’s bronze velvet ditto suit, the buckles on his shoes clearly not paste. Aside from these surface differences, she could not tell the men apart.
No—that wasn’t true. One looked at her with agony in his storm gray gaze, the other smiled at her, but his eyes revealed a profound, bitter coldness, as if she were no more than a grub found wriggling through the flour.
“What is this?” she rasped.
“A fortuitous encounter,” said the Leo in velvet. God, even his voice was the same, with the barest hint of a rough accent in the hard consonants. He took a step toward her. “If I may—”
The other Leo moved to block his path, his face darkening in fury. “Don’t bloody touch her.”
The cold one smirked. “We have already proven that your threats hold no weight. I was merely going to suggest—”
“Suggest
nothing
.” The rage in this Leo’s face outpaced the vengeful wrath she had seen from him in the riot at the theater. And it terrified her as her mind struggled to understand what she saw before her.
He turned back to her. “Anne,” he said gently, the way one might speak to a frightened horse, “it’s me. Your husband. Leo.”
“Then who is
he
?”
His mouth tightened. “My
geminus
.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You’re a clever girl,” drawled the other Leo, the
geminus
. “Surely you can hazard a guess. Only consider: I came into being one very eventful night three months ago.”
According to Livia, that was when Leo and the other Hellraisers made their pact with the Devil, exchanging tokens for their sinister magic. This
thing
sprang into existence from that exchange. Looking at it now, she saw in its wintry gaze the most malevolent parts of Leo—rage, contempt, hatred. Drawn forth from him, and given flesh.
“It’s you.” She stared at her husband, who stared back with anguish. She could only imagine she looked equally ravaged. “Your dark counterpart.”
“Ah, you
are
clever.” Yet the
geminus
looked far from pleased by this notion.
Anne’s hand rose to her throat. “God, Leo, what have you done?”
“What I thought I must,” he rasped.
The
geminus
clicked its tongue. “Let us not stray from the subject at hand. Now that you are here, we may as well discuss vital matters.” It attempted to move closer to her, and again, Leo lunged into its path, blocking its advance.
“I said,
Don’t. Bloody. Touch. Her.
”
The heat and violence of his words made Anne edge back. She had never seen Leo this angry, and his rage was a terrible thing, savage as a blood-maddened wolf. Everything became a peril, especially the man she knew as husband. What did he want from her? What would he do? Anything was possible, and all of it awful.
She needed safety. She had to run away, to protect herself. As her emotions churned, energy gathered within her, a swirling maelstrom collecting throughout her body, potent and blue.
Leo turned to her, his expression torn between fury and desperation. “Anne, please—” He took a step toward her, one hand outstretched.
“No!”
Anne flung her own hands out, warding off an attack. As she did so, she felt the energy within her release, pouring out of her in a furious gale. Both Leo and the
geminus
flew backward, pushed away on a current of violent air
that came from her hands.
The
geminus
slammed into the desk. Leo careened into the bookcase lining the far wall. Both groaned at the hard impact, then fell to the floor, sprawling on the carpet.
Anne stared down at her hands in horror, then at the two figures lying upon the floor. She had done that. Pushed them both away using a power that came from within her.

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