The Black Prince: Part I Read online

  He soothed her with soft words. Encouraged her to breathe, slow and deep. Bathed her fevered forehead with a cool cloth.

  Held her, at night, while the storm raged.

  Snow fell. And fell. Outside was a wind-stripped world of white.

  And then…something…had happened.

  The pressure mounted, and mounted, and mounted until—she gave up. The force raging inside of her was simply too strong to fight. And in that moment, she fell. Into a void. Of black, of white, she didn’t know. Her fever spiked and she thought for a time that her nose was pressed to the ceiling, spans above. She thought herself outside, in the snow.

  She woke the next morning, feeling calm and collected and much like herself.

  And ravenously hungry.

  And in need of a bath.

  The hunger hadn’t left, although several of her dresses had since had to be taken in. She was eating for two, in a sense. Her life force supporting Tristan’s. He needed to feed, to survive. A revenant, he created no life force of his own. She’d learned the truth of what this meant, the night he’d feasted on Alice in the glade—or thought she had.

  In truth, she’d known nothing.

  His existence intertwined with Isla’s, he could go longer without feeding. A keen tactical advantage, and one that allowed him to move more easily among men. To rule them. That he wasn’t a slave to hunger made her a slave to hers; she’d never eaten so much in her life. An entire chicken. A loaf of bread, each piece slathered in honey. An onion tart. And that for one breakfast.

  She’d never known the hunger with which he wrestled. But now she understood. Now, she understood so much.

  She came to understand, too, that her fighting it was what had made her transition so bad. A transition begun and completed within a single movement of the sun but that needed time to fully come to fruition. Like a sprout was really only the after-effect of planting. The changes she’d undergone in those two nights needed time to work through her system.

  There were so many things, now, that she just knew.

  She knew what Tristan knew. Comprehended the workings of things she’d never before knew existed, with no one having to explain them. Because she remembered learning them, even though she’d—Tristan had—learned them decades before she was born.

  Within Tristan was a hunger and a…cold. Such terrible cold. The ice storm raging inside of him was ten times worse than any, which could batter the walls of her new home. She didn’t know how he stood the forces, forces strong enough to crack glaciers, constantly opposing each other. Forces raging just beneath the surface of his ice calm exterior.

  She felt the cold, too. And knifing pains through her gut, when she’d tried to push it out. Tried to keep him out. She’d felt like she’d be smothered. Obliterated into a thousand motes of snow, never to come back together. To lose all consciousness of herself.

  Instead, when she’d finally broken, the opposite had happened.

  She’d breathed deeply. She’d felt no constriction. She’d felt free.

  There was still so much to learn. To work through. There were still moments when she felt like steel gauntleted fingers were digging into her windpipe, squeezing her heart. In those moments, she found herself stumbling. Sometimes falling. Pressed against the wall, or the floor, the chill cold of the tiles comforting as the world spun around her.

  Tristan helped her then: to breathe, to focus. To subjugate her will to his own. It was in those times when she fully opened herself to him that she felt most herself. Most at peace.

  It was when she fought him that she once again grew ill.

  She’d adapted, and she was adapting still.

  She returned the sponge to the water, bending over to wash her leg.

  Even a noblewoman’s bathtub was no great affair. Where communal baths featured deep pools, like miniature indoor ponds, even the most expensive personal bathtub was essentially a half barrel in which one could sit half covered. Not lounge, in water up to one’s neck, like Hart.

  Isla had dismissed her new maidservant, Greta, who under normal circumstances helped her to bathe: by massaging cleanser into her scalp, and then using ewers of hot water to wash it clean. By massaging a conditioning agent in next, entertaining Isla with the gossip of the castle as she did so. By passing Isla her bathrobe and then, once she’d dried herself off, applying sugar paste to remove her mistress’ unwanted hair. All useful services. All, usually, welcomed.

  But this afternoon, Isla wanted to be alone.

  Behind her, the fire crackled. She always took her bath in the same place, directing Greta and her assistants to place the tub as near to the hearth as was practicable. The air was chill enough when one wasn’t wet. And these days, Isla was cold all the time.

  She slid the sponge up over her knee, toward the inside of her thigh. The church preached that touching one’s own body, even like this, led to damnation. The flesh, she mused, was that alluring. Even one’s own hand, in sensitive and secret places, led one to thinking of…other things. Of other hands in those places. Of lips, parted just slightly. Of tongues.

  She let her eyes drift closed and leaned back, luxuriating in the twin sensations of the bath and her hands on herself. She slid the sponge up, water trickling down over her erect nipple. The ring that was now part of her pulsed on her finger, like a living thing.

  She still wore her other ring, the blood-red stone winking in the firelight.

  She could feel Tristan stirring inside her. Sometimes, she didn’t know which thoughts were his and which were hers. Sometimes, she didn’t care. But sometimes, she did know. And this time, she’d decided to tease him. Taunt him. He was in the small reception hall, listening to a presentation from two of Barghast’s burghers about the necessity of stricter licensing for colliers. Those souls who made and sold charcoal. Isla didn’t know how she knew this; she just knew. The same as she just knew that Tristan was both bored and irritated. The burgher leading the charge was, himself, a seller of fuels.

  And there had been endless meetings and councils before that, Tristan ignoring Isla as he went about his business. He was present in her mind but not, his own mind on other matters. As was hers, at times, although she could never quite escape the feeling of invasion. She’d grown used to it, forcing herself to accept it, to breathe and to relax as the sensation flowed through her rather than fight it. Fight it, and grow sick again. Tristan told her that true acceptance would come in time; that eventually, there would be no division between them at all.

  An idea that both terrified and enticed her.

  Now she was enticing him. She opened her legs ever so slightly, one hand toying with her nipple. Pinching it, twisting it back and forth. She thought about his lips on her, about him inside her. Stretching her open. Claiming her.

  Her own arousal mixed with his was heady. Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips. Her arousal fed his and his fed hers, to the point where it was all she could do to keep from bursting. She knew that he felt her hands on herself as if they were on him, as if these were his hands exploring her most secret folds. She thought about taking him into her mouth, smiling at the thought of how pleasant it would be to torment him.

  The door banged open.

  TEN

  Tristan lifted her bodily out of the bath, heedless of her surprised screech and heedless too of the mess he created. Water flew everywhere as, turning on his heel, he marched her across the room to the bed. He dropped her unceremoniously on the covers.

  His eyes, gazing down at her wet body, were hard.

  “I was in a meeting.”

  There was scarce need to verbalize the thought, connected as they were.

  “An important meeting.”

  She licked her lips, this time in trepidation. Those jet orbs seemed to bore into her, to claim her even more thoroughly than he already had. She had no notion, now, of what he was thinking. He could do that: shut her out. She couldn’t do the same, of course; she remained as open to him, at all times, as if he�
�d sliced her open from gullet to groin.

  “Yet even so,” his tone turned speculative, “I find myself distracted. By a naughty, needy little vixen. Too needy to wait her proper turn. And so,” he added, “she shall pay the price.”

  There was the merest hint of—something—in his voice.

  Her husband might not feel proper emotions, but he did have a sense of humor. That he found the situation amusing came clear through their bond. She relaxed slightly. He turned on his heel, walked over to the sideboard, and poured himself a drink. A drink he didn’t need, but he enjoyed the taste of wine. And he’d learned, over the course of his span, the importance of aping his contemporaries. There were enough rumors about him as it was.

  He took a sip from his cup, and stared out the window. The snow had started up again. Isla waited.

  “I’m missing an appointment right now. With the head of the furriers’ guild.” He paused, reflecting. “He’ll wait.”

  Unspoken came the thought that a wait—and preferably a long one—would do the man good. Isla had never met him, couldn’t have picked him out on the street, but knew in that moment that he was a pompous and overblown ass. Tristan occasionally toyed with the idea of eating him. What held him back was the fact that the man’s second was even worse.

  Isla found herself smiling slightly.

  With quick, businesslike movements, Tristan removed his tunic and then went to work on the fastenings of his shirt. First at his wrists, then at his neck. He still hadn’t turned from the window.

  When he did, he was naked.

  Isla’s heart turned over in her chest. Her breath caught. There was no denying the fact that he was simply the most magnificent specimen she’d ever seen. And while she’d never seen a man in a full state of undress until her wedding night, she’d seen many shirtless. Toiling in the practice yard, or in the fields. Their rippling, sweat-slicked muscles had quickened her heart then. But Tristan…there were no words to properly describe Tristan.

  He had the broad, sculpted shoulders of a true bowman and arms just as strong, the muscles rippling as he moved. His chest, too, was broad, tapering to a waist that was not so much narrow as without spare flesh of any kind. His stomach was like smooth river rock. His was the physique, from head to toe, of a man who’d spent hour after punishing hour in the practice yard and on the field and in the hunt. Whose every square finger was made, morning after morning, to justify its purpose.

  She’d watched him in the practice yard, too, with the other men. As he stripped off his own shirt, tossing it aside as though the expensive linen were nothing. The regime of a true soldier was no light training, to be undertaken in full dress. Men emerged overheated and sweat-soaked from the practice yard even now, surrounded by drifts of snow.

  She’d chewed her lower lip slightly as he twisted and turned, thrusting with a quarterstaff or a practice sword. Admiring the suggestive demarcation between torso and leg, that she liked to run her fingers down. His breeches hung low on his hips, the wool stretched tightly over the bulge of his manhood.

  “I appreciate,” he said mildly, “that I’m able to put on such a show.”

  She blushed crimson. All these weeks—moons, now—and she still wasn’t used to their connection. To the fact that he knew everything. Knew, of course, when she felt herself grow warm thinking of him. The fullness of which revelation had somehow not dawned on her until that moment.

  She dropped her gaze.

  She felt his finger on her chin, raising it. His eyes studied hers, black to green. “I can think of no more wonderful thing,” he told her. His voice was quiet. The merest rustling of leaves. And then, through the bond, you are mine.

  Those lips, with their perfect bow. Their almost-femininity emphasizing just how masculine he was. That chiseled jaw. That stare. Piercing. So cold. And yet with a heat she could neither define nor explain. A heat that intimidated men and captivated women.

  That captivated her.

  He kissed her, his lips cool. Her mouth opened under his as he eased her back on the bed. His hands, too, were cool. His fingers sure as he explored her. She shivered, half in cold and half in anticipation. She twisted her fingers in his hair, holding him to her. She wanted him. And feeling his lust boiling inside, as though it were her own, fueled her own even more. They were one in that moment, each feeding the other as they fed.

  He dominated her, as he had that first night. As he had since then. She was helpless before him, helpless before the need he’d awakened. She submitted to him willingly, craving his touch. Craving, even more, the confirmation that she was his. That he wanted her. Needed her.

  She loved the feel of him. The scent of him: cologne mixed with wood smoke and wool and horse. The weight of him pressing down on her as he kissed the hollow behind her ear, her neck. She’d grown accustomed to their lovemaking, as varied as it was. To sharing such intimate space with another person. To being so vulnerable, and before one so terrifying. Because, even now, he terrified her.

  Her dark prince of ice and snow, with a heart as cold as that of any corpse beneath the frozen ground.

  He slid his hand under her, lifting her, impaling her on him. She gasped, ready but not for the assault. Her fingernails dug into his back. She knew him as well as she knew herself, knew his touch. But he was still so strange, so new. As were the sensations he awoke inside her. The cravings. A need was building deep within her center, radiating out even to her toes as she responded, not to logic but by instinct.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  ELEVEN

  “Breathe.”

  She nodded. She was trying. But these moments still came, when it felt like invisible fingers were crushing her windpipe. Slowly. Inexorably.

  “Part of you still fights the change.” Tristan’s tone was calm. “Breathe.”

  He lay beside her in the bed, the coverlet tossed casually over his lower half. He wasn’t cold. He never was. Beside him, Isla struggled to find the calm he described. The acceptance. These moments, unexpected as they were, struck terror into her heart. Which raced now, beating against the prison of her ribcage like a prisoner against the bars of his cell.

  “In. Then hold the air inside.” He waited. “Then out.”

  She something inside begin to ease.

  He studied her, black gaze inscrutable. “It will come. In time.”

  His very lack of emotion was encouraging. She knew he’d never lead her into the path of harm. Would protect her, as she was part of him now. They shared, as he’d once told her, an aura.

  And if they shared more…no one in the castle commented. Isla’s emerald green eyes had attracted more than a few startled glances, as had her skin. Once freckled, now the depthless pale of skimmed milk. But those who made their lives at Caer Addanc knew better than to question the will of their lord. Or, now, of his lady.

  Although Isla was far from Tristan’s first wife she was, at least according to Greta, the first true mistress of this castle. At least within living memory. She’d been accepted, completely and immediately, as no other consort ever had. Accepted, both because Tristan himself seemed to view her differently and because the people loved her. She was warm, and kind. Interested in their problems: from those of the highest burgher, or visiting lord, to those of the lowest char girl. Isla had time, and compassion, for them all.

  Unnatural though she might be, so was their lord.

  “You bring warmth to this place,” Tristan said. But he was now staring off into the distance, his mind on other matters. And then, “Greta pleases you?”

  Greta was the daughter of a minor vassal, east in Darkling Reach. She’d come to the castle at her father’s request. He, quite rightly, saw his daughter’s taking service with Isla as a tremendous coup. Bumpkins like Rose might scoff at servitude as being beneath them, but among the nobility it was recognized as the highest honor. For therein lay advancement. As Isla’s lady in waiting Greta would be exposed to people, places and things that she would never normally have
the chance to encounter. She’d meet more and better men, too, greatly increasing her chances for a good marriage.

  Isla nodded. She did like Greta. And Greta, unlike Rose or even her sister, Rowena, was a relaxing companion. She felt no competition with Isla, only gratitude. A viewpoint no doubt encouraged by her being set apart as Isla’s special companion. Ladies in waiting—and, so far, Isla had only taken the one—had the advantage in almost every area of court life. And while Tristan’s might be a subdued court, a court it still was.

  After awhile, Tristan left the bed and poured himself another drink. This time, he poured a second cup for Isla. Bringing it to her, he still seemed lost in thought.

  She accepted the offering. Tristan had never lost his habit of waiting on her. An oddly sweet thing, such a powerful man being so solicitous. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by others, either. Tales of Tristan’s devotion to his young wife were widespread and even, now, as bards and their supporters alike were snowed in, the subject of songs.

  But, despite his attentions, there was something on his mind.

  “The boy,” he said.

  Asher.

  He settled himself comfortably on the bed. He had no shame in his form, making no attempt to cover it as some men did. And why should he?

  Isla pulled herself into a sitting position, wrapping one of the blankets about her shoulders. She waited, sipping her wine. Mulled with spices and undiluted, it was heady. Rich. Before she’d come north she’d never tasted such a thing, never had more than the cheap swill her father near bathed in. She hadn’t realized that wine could be as rich and smooth as velvet, the cardamom and cloves warming her from the inside out and giving her a renewed sense of wellbeing.

  She didn’t mind the snow piling up outside, when it meant being trapped in such warm and pleasant environs. Cozy in her covers, clean and pleasant from her bath and still luxuriating in the warm glow of repletion, she felt more than capable of tackling whatever it was that Tristan wished to discuss.