The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1)

by P. J. Fox

  She’d wrenched herself back to the present moment only with great difficulty, but as much as she wanted to crawl back into bed and lose herself in the oblivion of sleep she couldn’t let Tristan see her dirty. She hadn’t looked at herself, but she doubted that she presented much of a vision in her current state of dishabille. “And I don’t like that dress,” she added. The dun color washed her out; she was pale enough as it was.

  “Why?” Rose tossed her the thin flax chemise that she wore under her gowns. It was difficult to wash most gowns, with their delicate fabrics and embroidery; water fresh enough to clean rather than stain and the right kind of detergent were both precious commodities, as well as the time to spend on something so frivolous as freshening a garment that but for sweat stains was otherwise wearable. So most women wore some sort of undergarment under their clothes and washed that instead. The undyed flax could be soaked and then scrubbed with lye, without getting ruined.

  “Well….” Isla bit her lip.

  “It’s not like there’s anyone to impress.”

  “What?”

  Rose stopped mid-movement. “His Grace, your lover, left at first light. Rode out of here on that demon beast of his as fast as lightning. I saw him, myself. He left most of his men behind, though. They’re outside, banging sticks in the practice yard or some such nonsense. And I’ll never hear no end of pain about that Chadian well.”

  “He…left?” Isla stared dumbly.

  It took a moment for the words to register and even after they had, she didn’t fully comprehend them. Tristan had left? Without her? How could such a thing be possible? And after—what had happened—last night? An almost unbearably sharp pain stabbed at her heart as she felt her world crumbling in on her. Left. The word kept repeating, over and over, inside her head.

  He’d left. Left her. “Did he leave word?”

  Rose shrugged. “No, not that I’m aware.” She might be a kind woman, but she wasn’t a sensitive one and Isla’s stunned reaction had gone unnoticed. To Rose, love was for storybooks. The realities of marriage weren’t about love, and she’d never so much as suspected that Isla might love Tristan. That there might be some partiality, yes; as she’d pointed out often enough, Tristan was easy on the eyes and she’d tup him, too. To which Isla had said nothing. She supposed it was better than other women finding him ugly. And besides, Rose was harmless. She might harbor her own secret romantic fancies but unlike Alice she had no illusions that she’d wind up “forced” into service in some lord’s bedchamber.

  “Oh.” Isla stared down at the stockings she still clutched.

  “I’m sure it had something to do with that messenger,” Rose continued, still in the same matter of fact tone. “He came downstairs before first light, bolted his breakfast and ran.”

  “Oh.”

  Finally, Rose turned. “What’s got into you?”

  “Nothing I—I’m just surprised, is all.”

  Rose nodded sagely, thinking she understood. “Isn’t it just like a man, to bed and run. Well, you’ll see him at the wedding regardless and I suppose that’s soon enough.” She gestured meaningfully at the stockings. “My advice, and no mistake, is to enjoy your freedom while you have it. You think it’s fun, now, a little slap and tickle, but lying with the same man night after night gets old.” Isla, absorbing this wisdom, began pulling on her stockings: a fine cable knit in the brownish maroon of dried blood that she’d knitted herself.

  “Once you’ve been married a month, you’ll be begging him to leave.”

  Would they be married? Isla didn’t know. He’d said nothing to her about leaving and nothing to her about setting a date. He’d left no word, just…vanished.

  He’d told her that he wanted her often enough but she found his words so hard to believe. He acted so strangely. And maybe, after last night…maybe she’d done something to upset him, or displease him. She tried to banish the thought. Rationally, she knew she hadn’t. He was the king’s brother; he was an important man at court. The most important man at court, after the king himself. He’d been waiting for a message and that message had arrived; his departure, however sudden and whatever its timing, had had nothing to do with her.

  And yet….

  “I think,” she said, forcing herself to stand, “that I need some fresh air.”

  She finished dressing hurriedly and left without touching her breakfast. Rose, in her usual direct fashion, took Isla’s place and began helping herself. Isla didn’t care; she didn’t care about anything. She wanted to be outside, to escape, to run until she ran out of breath and collapsed in some field. She’d never felt so confined, so suffocated by this place in her life. She could literally feel the iron bands tightening around her lungs, forcing the air out.

  She stopped under the tree in the chapel’s small enclosure, leaning her forehead against its rough bark and wondering how she’d gotten there. She hadn’t intended to go there, hadn’t intended to go anywhere. Sweat beaded along her hairline, despite the chill air. Her heart thudded painfully in a chest still constricted by anxiety. She had so many pent up emotions, so many conflicting wants and beliefs and ideas, that she felt like she might explode. And, over and over again…what was she doing?

  Gradually, her breathing returned to normal and the iron bands began to ease. As she calmed down, she became aware of the world around her: of that same damned crow croaking, of children laughing somewhere off to the left. Of the world continuing on as if nothing was wrong. And maybe nothing was—for everyone else. But she was alone and had never felt so alone in her life. Someone was burning a pile of leaves and the sharp, acrid scent assailed her nostrils. She heard crackling as they burned. She wanted the small, ill-formed pile to be a pyre and she wanted to throw herself on it and end this.

  “What,” Hart asked, “did that poor tree ever do to you?”

  Isla hadn’t even heard Hart come up behind her. She turned. “Oh, I’m just…”

  “Just nothing.” Hart handed her an apple. He produced a second apple from an inside pocket and began polishing it on his jerkin. “You women are all alike. All strong one minute and all fragile the next. It’s confusing, to a man; offer to take care of you and you’re offended. Let you be independent, which is what you all claim to want, and you weep about how he’s not treating you like the delicate flower you are.” He bit into his apple, the juice welling out at the corners of his mouth. “Well?” he asked, chewing. “Are you knights in shining armor or delicate flowers?” He wiped his mouth casually on a coat sleeve.

  Isla crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re both.”

  Hart clapped her on the shoulder. “There you go, there’s some spirit.”

  Isla glared, chagrined at being talked to like a child. Hart was acting like nothing was wrong. He grinned cheerfully, exposing square white teeth. She wanted to knock them back down his throat. “You don’t understand,” she said. And he didn’t. He was an idiot and she hated him. Except not really. She just wanted to cut his cock off and feed it to him.

  “Then explain it to me.” He refused to be put off; he was the same affable oaf as always, waiting patiently for her to get a hold of herself. Like she was two, and having a tantrum. “Walk over to the orchard with me and stop molesting that tree. You can tell me about it on the way.” He turned, just assuming that she’d follow him. “There’s been a, well, John explained it as a spot of bother about some new fertilization technique the overseer wants us to try. I’m sure they’ll all have killed each other by the time we arrive but I think it’s worth a shot all the same. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll arrive in time to swab up the mess.”

  He gestured impatiently, already on the path. “Come on!”

  Reluctantly, Isla followed him. He slowed, to let her catch up.

  Wet, marsh-tasting wind buffeted her face. She brushed her hair back from her face, trying to return her braided bun to some semblance of order, and then resumed her cross-armed stance. While walking, it lost some of its effectiveness. She felt
and looked ridiculous.

  “You don’t understand,” she said again, but more quietly.

  “No, of course I don’t.” Hart took his last bite of apple and pitched the core into the verge. “I’m a man,” he said, as though that statement alone were self-explanatory. “I don’t have feelings.” Which sounded entirely too much like what Tristan had said. Isla’s lower lip began to tremble. Seeing this, Hart rolled his eyes. “Oh, hell, don’t go getting all upset on me. I just meant that men don’t, you know, over-think things.”

  “They don’t think about them at all!” Isla exploded.

  “This is obviously about Tristan.” At Isla’s startled expression, Hart made a face. “Oh, come on, I might not be the world’s most brilliant man but how stupid do you think I am? I’ve seen girls mooning over men before and the entire household knows that he left this morning. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. He’s left—and on important business, I’m sure—and you’re mooning about like a motherless calf because you’re taking it personally.” At Isla’s outraged protest, he held up a hand. “And all I’m saying is that men are…straightforward. If a man tells you he likes you, he does. And by that same token, if a man tells you he hates you, hide.” He shook his head. They walked on in silence and it was another minute or two before he spoke. Around them, life went on as usual. The manor was preparing for winter, and winter was hard.

  There would be no food but what they preserved, no fuel but what they gathered. If the food spoiled, people would starve. If the fuel ran out, they’d freeze. Life in the Highlands, and everywhere else Isla supposed, marched to the seasons. Spring was about preparing the ground for the crops that would see them through the winter, and shearing the wool. Summer was about growing the crops that would see them through the winter, and combing and carding and weaving the wool. Fall was about harvesting the crops that would see them through the winter, and slaughtering the animals that would feed them, and selling the wool in exchange for what they couldn’t produce themselves: the salt they needed to preserve the food that would see them through the winter.

  And winter was about survival.

  Everything in life was about winter. Everything.

  “Listen, Isla,” Hart said in a softer tone, “I’m a fighter. Not a thinker. But even a brilliant man like Tristan is still a man and at heart, all men are the same.” Except Tristan wasn’t a man and had no heart. But Isla said nothing. “He cares for you, that much is obvious. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t spend so much time with you—or any at all, for that matter. He doesn’t have to. It’s not like he has to woo you.”

  “Hart!”

  Hart, who hadn’t meant anything by the remark other than the obvious statement that Isla and Tristan were already betrothed, stopped. Slowly, he turned. “Oh,” he said, a knowing grin spreading over his face. “It’s like that, is it. Are you with child?” he asked interestedly.

  “Certainly not!” Isla struggled to form her thoughts. How could she explain what she felt? What she’d gone through? And how much? “I…ah…last night….”

  Hart laughed. “Ah, the old fuck and run. Good for him!”

  It was all Isla could do not to launch herself at him.

  The hateful boor leered back, pleased with himself for having made a deduction. The first of his life, probably. He was right; he wasn’t bright. He was the stupidest, worst man on the face of the earth and he was her brother. That they shared the same blood, right now, seemed impossible. But as she attempted to execute him with her glare, slowly Isla’s anger gave way to something else: the germinating kernel of an idea. Hart thought, obviously, that Tristan had taken her maidenhead and then departed without so much as a by-your-leave. Which, in one sense, he had. He’d certainly taken her innocence.

  The one method of innocence-taking was rather more plausible than the other, it occurred to her now. He cajoled me into his bed and then left sounded a great deal less fantastical—or simply crazed—than I’m having a hard time with the fact that he feasts on human flesh. If she let Hart believe what he wanted to believe, then at least she’d have some outlet. The circumstances might require a slightly different presentation, but the resultant confusion and shame—she guessed—probably more or less the same. And she needed to share those feelings with someone or she’d explode. Moreover, after so much time, ah, alone with Tristan Isla was embarrassed to admit that she was still a virgin.

  “Think what you want,” she told Hart, perfectly honestly.

  They resumed their walk.

  “Every girl,” Hart said, a trace of humor still in his voice, “acts like her first time is such a grand event. Apparently even my sister.”

  “Hah! It wouldn’t be such a grand event,” Isla replied tartly, “if men weren’t all convinced that a woman’s worth rested between her legs. And, moreover, weren’t all just as convinced that each woman is a one shot deal. Once she’s been touched, her value is about as high as a fruitcake that’s been shat on by a horse.”

  Hart held up his hands in a gesture of mock defense. “Mercy!” he said.

  “Each man wants to be the first to dip his wick, and the last!” Isla felt brave for using Rose’s coarse phrase. Like a real adult, for once. “Probably,” she added, “because he’s under the mistaken impression that if she’s got nothing to compare it to she won’t know it’s bad.”

  “You have grown up.” Hart sounded approving.

  “And you haven’t!”

  Hart conceded the point with a nod. “So you’re worried that you’re about to face a lifetime of terrible sex, is that it?” He made a pinching gesture, indicating the projected size of the member. Isla laughed, half amused and half scandalized. She shook her head. “Then what is it then?” Hart sounded genuinely curious. He would.

  “Last night….” Isla trailed off. Hart, sensing the change in mood, waited. “Last night was frightening,” she said. Even if she could have told Hart everything, for once in her life she didn’t have the words. Frightening was both too much and too little, by way of description.

  “Well he can’t have that fearsome of a weapon.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Hart laughed. “Well, good for him!”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to”—see—“do it again.” And she never wanted to.

  “Undoubtedly. I mean, you do realize that married people—”

  “He’s…different.”

  “All men are different, down there. Or didn’t you realize?”

  “He’s different everywhere.”

  “Well you weren’t hoping to marry a woman, were you? Although,” Hart added, “I do realize that some women prefer women. I’m not a total rube.”

  “No, but—he might have expectations. Expectations I’m not prepared to fulfill.”

  Hart produced another apple from somewhere. They were nearing the orchard, or the bramble-tangled lines of trees that passed for one. Daylight had robbed the path of its mystique. Hammers rang out, and voices called. It hardly seemed possible that this was the same place where Isla had first touched Tristan, but there in the distance was the apple cart. Right where it had sat, unmoving, since before her birth. It seemed strangely out of place, like a visitor from another dimension. A pair of children sat, laughing and playing some game with knotted string, right where Tristan had overpowered her.

  Turning, Hart looked at her curiously. “You mean like buggery?”

  “Hart!”

  “What?” A new thought occurred to him. “Or didn’t you realize that—”

  “I realize everything I need to realize,” she said firmly. As close as she and Hart were, she didn’t need the mental image that he was presenting. She and Hart had always talked about things, and she had no particular objection to the idea of discussing intimate details with her brother. But imagining him doing them was quite another thing entirely. She knew that Hart was no virgin, but she preferred her knowledge to be of the vaguest sort possible. Hart, however, like most men, saw nothing
embarrassing at all in revealing even the most revolting details. If he’d had sex with his pet pig, he’d probably have told her about that, too.

  “Well then, there’s no delicate way to say this, Isla….” He paused. “I mean, like you said yourself, most men aren’t looking for their wives to be experienced. Whatever he expects of you, I’m sure he also expects to teach you. Too much, er, knowledge is a bit suggestive of, you know, knowledge.” What Hart had just said made no sense, but Isla understood him all the same. Inside the bedroom and out, Tristan wasn’t expecting a fellow expert.

  “I mean, if he’d wanted to marry someone just like him he could’ve.”

  Hart didn’t realize it, but he’d just made an excellent point. Tristan could, indeed, have married one of the women at court. He could have, for that matter, married another demon. Isla hadn’t heard him mention others, really, except in general terms, but she was sure that there must be some. He could hardly be the only member of his species alive in the world.

  “Well,” she allowed, feeling slightly more hopeful, “that’s true.”

  “And however…strange his proclivities might seem now, I’m sure you’ll get used to them.”

  “I suppose.”

  “He wouldn’t have, er, initiated you if he hadn’t wanted you to.”

  “I didn’t like it, much.”

  “Nobody ever does, at first. But they keep doing it, I mean, so that’s something.” Hart threw away his second apple core. “I think,” he added philosophically, “that people get better at it, because they’re motivated. Because they want to be with the person, and they want the experience to not be terrible. You know? So they practice. Not because it’s so wonderful every time, but because they want it to be. And eventually, you know, it gets better. People get used to each other. You’ll get used to each other. And you’ll remember why you like him. There are bad parts, but it’s not all the bad parts.” Hart paused. “You do like him, right?”

  Isla nodded.

  FIFTY-SEVEN