Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe #1)(13)

“Then my lord husband is an expert?” The words snapped out of me before I knew what I was doing, which was all wrong because I was supposed to be pleasing him, beguiling him.

He’ll like it if he thinks you’re helpless, Aunt Telomache had said.

“Your lord husband has had eight wives before.” He leaned forward, and I could feel his gaze traveling up the length of my body. “But none of them quite”—his hands slid up my skirt in an instant—“so”—I clenched my teeth, ready to endure—“prepared.”

And he had pulled the knife out of its sheath. He twirled it once, then threw it up at the wall. It sank in almost to the hilt, lodged in the wall at least twelve feet up.

Then he looked back at me.

This was where I should beg for mercy.

“But just one knife?” he said. “A prudent warrior would carry two. Or did I miss one?” He leaned forward. “Will my lady wife let me check?”

I smashed my fist into his face.

The blow was hard enough that he fell over backward. I caught my breath; even facing the Gentle Lord, my first impulse was to apologize. Then I sprang to my feet, heart pounding, only to realize that the doors were still locked, my knife was beyond reach, and I had probably just doomed myself and my mission.

As he sat back up, I dropped to my knees. There was only one thing to do. I started to undo the top button of my dress, then simply ripped it open.

“I’m sorry,” I said, staring at the floor. “I just, my father made me promise to bring a knife, and—and—” I stuttered, acutely aware that I was half-naked in front of him. “I’m your wife! I burn for your touch! I thirst for your love!” I didn’t know where the terrible words were coming from, but I couldn’t stop them. “I’ll do anything, I’ll—”

I realized he was laughing.

“You don’t do anything by halves, do you?” he said.

“I didn’t even get halfway with killing you, but give me the knife and I’ll fix that.” I crossed my arms and remembered that I was still half-naked, but I was not about to show embarrassment in front of him.

“Tempting, but no. If you did that, I’d have to kill you, and I want a wife that lives past dinnertime.” He briskly pulled my bodice back up, so that I was at least half-covered, then grasped my arm and pulled me to my feet. “Time to show you to your room.”

He raised a hand. The gesture looked like a summons, but there was no one to see it.

Something was wrong; I felt it like the half-heard buzzing of a fly in the next room over. Was he summoning his demons? Were they already here? I glanced around the room—

And my gaze fell on his shadow. It was a tall silhouette against the wall, and despite the diffuse light, it was crisp as the shadow cast by a Hermetic lamp.

He had raised his hand. But the shadow’s hand remained at its side.

Demons are made of shadow.

My throat closed up in horror as the shadow lengthened and strode away from him—if that was the word for something whose paces made it slide across the wall—then its long fingers slithered over my wrist. The touch felt like a cool breath of air, but when I tried to jerk free, it held my arm in place like iron.

Don’t look at the shadows too long, or a demon might look back.

“Shade will take you to your room.” He reached inside his dark coat, pulled out a silver key, and tossed it to the shadow—Shade—who caught it out of the air. “Show her to the bridal suite,” he said as Shade unlocked the door carved with roses and pomegranates. “Bring her back to me for dinner.” The door swung open to reveal a long, wood-paneled hallway lined with doors, and Shade pulled me through.

“And make sure she gets a new dress!” he called after us. The door slammed shut.


At first, as Shade dragged me quickly down the hallway, I barely noticed anything but the hammering of my own heart. Every step took me away from the outside world, deeper into the Gentle Lord’s domain; it was like being buried alive. I couldn’t stop staring at Shade’s grip on my arm—it looked like a chance shadow, felt like a breath of air, but pulled me forward as if I weighed no more than a leaf. My stomach curdled at the unnatural horror of the creature.

Deliver us from the eyes of demons. That was the first prayer anyone ever learnt, no matter who you were and which god you prayed it to. Because anyone, duke or peasant, could be attacked.

It didn’t happen often. Not one person in a hundred ever met a demon. But it happened enough.

I remembered the people brought into Father’s study: the girl who huddled in a silent heap of bony limbs; the man who never stopped writhing, silent only because he had long ago screamed away his voice. Sometimes Father could make them a little better; sometimes he could only tell their families to keep them drugged with laudanum. None of them were ever sane again. And those were the lucky ones—or perhaps they should be counted unlucky—who actually survived meeting the demons.

Most did not.

Now I was in the hands of a demon myself. But with each step I took, my heart kept beating. My mind remained. I didn’t want to claw my eyes out of my head, to chew the nails off my fingers. The scream shuddering inside me was easy to suppress. I could think, He said he wants me alive till dinner, and the words made sense to me.

I watched Shade’s profile slide down the wall, rippling when it passed over a door frame. It looked exactly like the shadow that would be cast by a man walking one step in front of me, dragging me forward. But no hand grasped my wrist, only a band of shadow; and no one walked in front of me.