Page 21 of Bride to the Fiend Prince
“Are you going to deny your wife’s request after she’s been whipped half to death?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He straightened to his full height, squaring his newly broadened shoulders. I couldn’t help ogling him—he was magnificent, all curves and cuts of muscle, glowing with apparent health. He turned his palms up and crooked his fingers, and white lightning crackled and snapped, connecting them. Red sparks popped and sizzling along those lines of white. The Prince made a motion as if he were running his hand along a rope, and a whip of dazzling red fire appeared, lashing through the air of the room. When he flicked it, the tip sliced a bit of the bedcurtain, leaving it charred and flaking.
I startled and cringed back. “I’ve seen enough whips today.”
He compacted the whip instantly, smashed it to a red orb in his hands and then ground it out to nothing. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think.”
“It’s all right.” I hauled in air, trying to get control of my panicked breathing. “I did ask for a demonstration.”
“Damned healer, where is he?” snarled the Prince. “I’m ordering you a drink.”
“All right, yes,” I relented, gasping. “Yes, a drink. A very strong drink, please.”
I heard him speaking to someone at the door of the suite, and then he returned, crouching by the bed. His fingers grazed my temple, brushing aside strands of my hair that had worked loose from the braid. The gentle touch was a strange contrast with the hideous, mocking mask.
“Please take the mask off,” I whispered.
“You’ll vomit if I do,” he whispered back.
“It’s that bad?”
“Yes.”
“Why does it only affect your face and not the rest of you?”
“It has to do with energy centers of the body,” he replied. “Different kinds of magic are centered in different areas. My center is in my head, my mind—the center of my forehead, specifically. So the most visible side effects are in that area. Others have to cover their stomach, or heart, or loins—”
“Wait, others?” I exclaimed. “Other people in Terelaus take this substance, too? The one that grants magical and physical power?”
He cursed softly.
Ha. The Fiend Prince let something important slip.
19
My oh-so-secretive husband had accidentally informed me that he was not the only one taking the mystery substance to make himself strong and magical. And my new knowledge had massive implications.
“That’s how your armies are so powerful,” I said eagerly. “That’s why Terelaus has so many more magic wielders than other regions and nations. You’ve found something that gives normal humans magical abilities—temporarily, and at great cost, but still.” I twitched, longing to close my hands around his neck and force the rest of the truth out of him. “I will discover your secrets, Fiend Prince.”
He swore again. “You cannot tell anyone that you figured this out.”
I gave him the prettiest smile I could muster. “Of course not, husband.”
At that word, a low exhale issued from him. My smile melted away. Why should that simple, common term make him sigh like that, and why did I feel as if a newborn star were expanding inside my chest?
Slowly, tentatively, the Fiend Prince reached for my face again, tracing the delicate arch of my browbone, the curve of my cheek down to my chin. Then, with one fingertip, he stroked my lips.
I could barely breathe. His fingers were slightly thicker than they had been—not quite so elegantly breakable. I parted my lips under his touch and took the end of his finger between my teeth. When I closed my lips instinctively, he inhaled, slow and unsteady. He tasted warm, and salty.
What was I doing? I pulled back, letting the digit slip from my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I did that. I—for a moment I forgot about the pain.”
“Did you now,” he said softly.
A door opened, and a servant approached with the drink the Fiend Prince had ordered, along with a narrow metal tube through which I could sip it without lifting my head. When the servant left, the Prince held the cup and the tube for me. “It’s only wine,” he said. “I didn’t want anything that would sear your throat and make you cough.”
I sipped gratefully, the liquid sliding warm along my throat.
