Authors: Zoe Archer

Tags: #Romance

Demon's Bride (30 page)

BOOK: Demon's Bride

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“Goddamn it.” Leo paced, frustrated. “There
must
be a way to get into that vault.” He whirled to face Whit. “How did
you
get inside?”

“
I
didn’t. Zora did.”

“And only then through the use of Valeria Livia Corva’s magic,” added the Gypsy woman.

Anne straightened. “The ghost?”

“A powerful sorceress, as well,” said Whit.

“It was she who gave me this.” Zora held up her hands, and flames suddenly danced along her fingertips. She smiled wickedly. “Very useful when fighting the Devil.”

“She gave me something, as well.” A fast, hard current of cold air gusted from Anne’s raised hands. The flames surrounding Zora’s fingers guttered and dimmed.

Leo and Whit exchanged glances. “Extraordinary women,” Leo murmured.

“The finest that walk this earth.” Whit smiled then, his old gambler’s smile, full of rakish charm, only now he sought only the favor of his woman, not the cards.

Damned strange to see Anne—quiet, studious Anne who loved maps and known truths—the possessor of magic. Yet fitting, somehow, for it showed outwardly the strength he knew she possessed within. Seeing her fight the demons using her power ... if he hadn’t been battling for his life, and hers, he would have found the sight thrilling.

Even now, it made his pulse race faster, his breath catch. He was
awed
by her.

As she lowered her hands and the summoned wind died down, her gaze met his. She had to see the pride in his eyes, the fullness of his heart, for she gave him the smallest of smiles, and he smiled in return. As though they shared a secret pleasure, a gift only
they
could truly appreciate.

A filament of pleasure gleamed within him. All was not lost. She could be his again.

Then she seemed to remember precisely
why
she had been given this power, and her smile faltered.

It was enough. For the moment. He’d capture any hope. What he needed now was a means of reclaiming his soul. The rest he would seize later.

“Then we require the ghost,” he said, turning back to Whit. “Livia. She needs to be here.”

Yet Whit shook his head. “She has not appeared to us, not since yesterday. If she showed herself to you recently, it must have tapped her power.”

“How long does it take for her to regain her strength?” asked Anne.

Zora shrugged. “A day, two days. When it involves magic, rules and time mean nothing.”

Another impediment. Leo took up his pacing. Anne’s smile offered him the slenderest of hopes, and he refused to let anything stand in his way. “If she’s been fighting against the Devil all this time, she alone holds the most information, the most power. Proceeding without her would be a mistake.”

“So, we must wait,” said Anne.

Leo forced down a growl. He did not want to wait. Impatience burned him, hotter than any fire. “I want to summon the bloody
geminus
and get this over with.”

“The moment you do,” warned Whit, “a horde of demons will descend, and
that
”—he nodded toward the pale strips of bandages that showed beneath the shirt Leo wore—“will appear nothing more than kitten scratches in comparison.”

Snarling in frustration, Leo slammed his fist into the wall. Fissures in the plaster spread out in jagged lines, and a satisfying pain radiated up his arm, but it did little to ease his anger. He pulled his arm back, ready to strike again.

A strong hand clasped his wrist, stopping him. Whit’s hand, with its long gamester’s fingers, and the gleaming signet ring that proclaimed him a peer of the realm. Leo wore no such ring, and never would. Yet it did not matter to him anymore. Distinctions such as nobleman and commoner ... what did they mean in the face not only of eternal damnation, but the loss of the only love he had ever known?

He stared at Whit, this man who had once been a close friend, then an enemy and now ... an ally.

“You aren’t alone in your sentiment,” Whit said, empathy in his gaze. “Not long ago, I felt the same way. But battering yourself to jelly solves remarkably little, I have discovered.”

“Not that you didn’t try,” said Zora.

Whit added in a voice low enough to be heard only by Leo, “And such displays can be rather ... unsettling to those who care about us.” He glanced meaningfully toward Anne.

Leo followed Whit’s gaze to Anne. She stood beside the bed, her hands clenched, her mouth drawn into a taut line. Concern darkened her eyes and paled her cheeks as she stared at him.

He had done enough to cause her fear. Slowly, he lowered his fist. Whit released his hold, and a sigh seemed to move through the room.

“A wise investor knows when to bide his time,” Leo said, gathering calm. “Act too soon, and what could’ve been a promising venture becomes far too costly. Disastrous, even.”

“No help for it, then,” said Anne. “Until the ghost, Livia, returns, we’ve got to wait to make our plan.”

Words such as
we
and
our
kindled fresh fires of hope within him. That was all he needed. The slimmest chance, the faintest possibility. He had built empires for himself upon grains of sand. With a few words from his wife’s mouth, he had enough to sustain him for the long battle ahead.

Anne lay atop the covers in only her shift, staring at the low-beamed ceiling. Ashen morning light filtered through worn curtains, cracks in the ceiling and the unmistakable gouges from rats in the timbers. Despite her exhaustion, sleep refused to come, so she counted the fissures in the plaster, hoping to lull herself into, if not slumber, then perhaps a stupor.

Yet her mind would not quiet.

After the conclusion had been reached that they must await the reappearance of the ghost, it had been decided that what Anne and Leo next needed most was rest. She had been swaying on her feet, her eyes hot, her body aching. Zora, a woman she knew not at all, had immediately gone to find her a room of her own. And when the Gypsy returned to lead her away, Leo had stared at her hungrily. But he let her go.

Anne was glad of that. She had boiled away the last of her strength, leaving an empty urn, and though her mind demanded that she keep him at a distance, her heart and body craved him—even now.

Rolling onto her side, she watched a fly form obscure shapes in the air as it buzzed across the room. Zora sat on the floor by the window, her legs tucked beneath her. She frowned over what appeared to be a child’s primer, and her lips silently, slowly formed the shapes of words.

Anne looked away. The day crept toward its zenith, and sounds of life penetrated the walls. Voices in the taproom. Horses outside. A carriage, a child’s cry. They seemed near, and yet distant, echoes from dreams of other lives.

What would the men in the taproom say, were she to hurry downstairs and proclaim that the Devil was real, that magic was real, and she herself possessed it? They would call her mad. And if she demonstrated her new power, they would run away in terror, or perhaps revive the custom of burning witches.

Her mouth tugged in a sardonic smile. Let them try and burn her. She would blow out the flames with a wave of her hand.

Unless they bound her hands. Then she might be burned. Already, she thought she could smell her flesh being charred, flaking away from bone to be borne aloft on currents of heat.

Leo would come to her aid. Shoot them all down, or use his fists to knock them senseless, then cut the ropes binding her to the stake and take her far away to safety.

She shifted onto her back.
No indulging in fantasy, in fairy tales. The world is not so kind as to give us heroes and rescues—not without a price.

“Unquiet thoughts make for a poor lullaby.” Zora spoke softly, her voice smoky and subtly accented.

Anne turned her head to look at the Gypsy. Zora set the primer on the floor and crossed her wrists in her lap. Odd that the Gypsy would choose to sit on the floor rather than the nearby chair, yet she looked perfectly comfortable. Her dark gaze moved over Anne, clever and astute, rich with a worldly knowledge Anne could only envy.

“I hated him, too,” Zora murmured.

Anne frowned. “Leo?”

“Whit.” The Gypsy shook her head. “That
gorgio
fascinated me, yes, but I knew what he was, what he had done. He’d taken so much from me—my family, my freedom. I wanted nothing to do with him.”

“But I thought ... you seem so very ... in love.” It hurt Anne’s throat even to say that word,
love
, yet she had seen the way Lord Whitney looked at Zora, the way he touched her, and there could be no other word to describe it. He would do anything for Zora, and she for him.

Zora’s gaze warmed, and her mouth curved into a small, private smile. “Oh, most terribly. Yet he spilled more than a little blood to earn it.”

This conversation was stranger than Zora sitting on the floor. Anne did not know this woman. In truth, she and the Gypsy could not be more different. The rings gleaming on Zora’s fingers and the ropes of shining necklaces draped across her bosom seemed like emblems of distant, exotic lands.

Yet there was a point of convergence for her and the Gypsy: Hellraisers.

“I don’t want Leo’s blood spilled.” Anne shuddered to recall the angry lacerations over his body.

Zora shrugged. “If,
Duvvel
willing, we survive our task, you won’t have to see him again. If that’s what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want.” Anne turned to look back at the ceiling. She lay her forearm across her eyes.

“Hard men to love, these Hellraisers.” Zora’s words were wry, yet tinged with deeper emotion. “Harder still to
not
love them. But I think there is a reason why Livia chose to give magic to you and I.”

“Because we might get close to the Hellraisers.”

A definite smile sounded in Zora’s voice. “Because we’re strong.”

The door opened. Someone entered the room. Anne did not remove her arm from where it lay. Only one person would come inside—and she knew the purposeful sound of his footfall. He never tiptoed anywhere. Certainly not with her.

“The door was locked,” Zora said.

“I had the innkeeper give me another key.”

Of course he did. Leo could make anything happen through force of will.

Untrue—he had not made Anne love him. That, she had done all on her own.

“I want to be alone with my wife,” he said.

“I don’t think she wants to be alone with
you
,” answered Zora.

Before Leo could retort, Anne spoke. “It’s all right. And I’m certain Lord Whitney would rather have you with him than sitting on the floor in here.”

“I left him in the taproom,” said Leo.

Anne thought she could hear reluctance in Zora’s movements as she rose. But the Gypsy walked quietly from the room, shutting the door behind her.

Anne and Leo were alone.

“Here’s some stew and bread.” As he said this, she heard a bowl being set down atop a table, and the rich scent of cooked meat and the yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread drifted through the room.

“I’ve no appetite.”

He expelled a breath. “Think what you will of me, Anne, but don’t starve yourself out of spite.”

Taking her arm away, Anne looked over to where he stood near a small table. Arms crossed, feet braced wide. He had borrowed some of Lord Whitney’s clothing—a serviceable green coat and waistcoat, in addition to the shirt, but no stock, so the collar of his shirt fell open to reveal the strong sinews of his neck, the shadow at the base of his throat. Hair wet, undone, and slicked straight back. Yet he had not shaved. Golden stubble lined his cheeks. He was dangerous as a buccaneer, and blade-handsome.

Yearning and need throbbed through her. And sorrow.

“Spite? Is that what this is? Spite?” She sat up, and the room tilted. Truly, weariness took a toll. And, she admitted to herself, hunger. “How very petty of me. To be out of temper when I discover that my husband is in league with the Devil. And had been lying to me for the whole of our marriage. What a dreadful virago I am.”

His expression hardened. “Don’t,” he growled. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”

“As truth ill becomes
you
.”

Snarling in frustration, he dragged his hands through his hair. Anne watched his every movement with a greedy pain. She wished she could despise him. How simple everything might be.

“It was a mistake,” he ground out. “A goddamned mistake.”

“Putting too much sugar in one’s tea is a
mistake
. Giving one’s soul to the Devil in exchange for dark magic deserves a grander sobriquet.”

BOOK: Demon's Bride

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