Page 19 of Bride to the Fiend Prince
Eight.
My stomach revolted, nausea building as the pain surged. I swallowed back the bile and braced myself—
Nine.
I hung by my arms, sagging limp, scarcely able to see through the blur of tears.
Ten.
Pain, incandescent, all-consuming.
Hands found my wrists, unfastening the shackles. Helping me up, wrapping me in some sort of cloth, and I screamed again, trembling at the contact of the cloth against my raw wounds.
“Have her hold it against her chest,” muttered the guard Betta. The cloth left my back, and I clutched it to my breasts while the two guards hustled me back to the Fiend Prince’s suite, nearly carrying me up the steps. Dizzily I collapsed on my stomach across the Prince’s bed.
“Call one of the sorcerers to heal her,” Betta ordered.
“We have no such orders from the Dreadlord,” responded the other guard.
“If she’s not healed, these will scar, and the Fiend Prince will be displeased,” Betta snapped. “Do you want to endure his wrath? I don’t.”
“I’ll ask about it.” Footsteps receded, and Betta directed a couple of the servants to attend me. They dragged me upright again while I squealed with pain, and they stripped me down and wiped the sweat and blood from my body. I was put back to bed without a stitch of clothing, and my wounds were smeared with a cooling ointment.
This was the lowest point in my life. Whipped and thrown naked onto the bed of the man I’d been forced to marry. I had never felt so truly, terribly helpless. Consciousness receded and resurfaced until I wasn’t sure how long I had dozed. No one came to heal me. Maybe the Dreadlord had forbidden it. My reality blurred and sharpened, synchronized with the agony of my flayed skin.
In the swirl of a dark dream I realized that someone was in the room—I could feel a presence. A servant, probably, checking on the Fiend Prince’s tattered bride. Groggily I blinked awake, and found an expanse of glossy, rippling abdominal muscles at my eye level, along with a twisted scar that I recognized. Slowly I lifted my gaze higher, up to mounded pectorals, swelling biceps, massive shoulders, a thick neck corded with muscle. And at the top, a leering demon mask.
I’d seen that mask before. The mask of the Fiend Prince.
My pain-addled mind raced frantically. Did he have a double? A duplicate who fought his battles for him? No, that made no sense. Maybe others in the palace wore similar masks? Maybe—
“I’ve sent for a healer,” he said, and there was no mistaking that youthful male voice, despite the fact that it was a bit deeper and darker than usual, colored with pity and rage. “My father refuses to let you use one of the palace sorcerers, but I know of other options.”
I tried to scoot away from him and ended up whimpering pitifully instead. Closing my eyes, I tightened my lips until the pain lessened, and then I spoke. “What’s going on? Are you the Fiend Prince’s well-muscled twin?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“How are you back so quickly? And how did you turn into a glorious hulking god-warrior?”
A breathy laugh echoed behind the mask. “High praise, Princess. I’m back because when you have a sorcerer who can transport you anywhere by magic, getting to and from the battlefront is a moment’s work. I returned a few minutes ago—I took a little time for a wash because I didn’t want to drip blood everywhere.”
“Blood?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Not mine.”
“Oh.” I winced. “You didn’t answer my other question. How did you change from what you were, intothis?”
The gust of a sigh issued from the mask’s sneering grin. “My father wouldn’t want me to explain, but after what he’s done to you in my absence, I’m feeling rebellious. So I’ll tell you part of the story.”
He knelt beside the bed, laying those sinewy arms across the edge of the mattress, looking into my eyes. “Back in your kingdom, you knew me as the Fiend Prince, yes? A powerful warrior who wielded great magic?”
“Yes,” I replied. “My father’s soldiers tell stories of how you charge their ranks, bearing an enormous scarlet sword that drinks souls. They say you wield bolts and whips of fire.”
“All true. At least, it was. I was born with extraordinary natural magic. And I was as powerful a warrior as I was a sorcerer. Until I lost it all, through a terrible accident. The accident is something I can’t tell you about—not yet. Let’s just say that it left me without my magic, and sucked away my strength. I was devastated, but a little relieved, I suppose. I thought my condition might be an excuse, that I might be able to avoid killing for my father anymore. But the Dreadlord wanted his sorcerer and his warrior back, so he insisted I use something else to restore my abilities.”
Shock and dread coiled in my gut. “What substance could give someone muscles and magic?” I whispered.
“I can’t tell you that either.”
