My dear Lady Sutcliffe, if you want to find out how to free yourself, let me speak to you.
Octavia whipped around, crouched behind the battlements. Lottie was pressed to her shoulder, whimpering, smacking Octavia with her small fists. There was no one else up here. Yet she’d heard Mrs. Darkwell’s voice, quietly, as if the woman had whispered in her ear.
But who was she to doubt magic?
You can hear my voice in your head, my lady. You caused me quite a bit of bother. When you ran away that night, my house burned to the ground.
“Did I hurt anyone?” she whispered in horror at the thought of what she’d done. “Did the girls escape the fire?”
They did. But your magic started that fire because of your strong emotions. As you are learning, you cannot yet control your magic. Let me help you. We need to set you free from these assassins. We can do that by destroying the woman who wants to use you to enslave the world. Help me to do this, and I’ll help you. You need to learn how to live in the world, not hide from it. Lord Sutcliffe is not the right gentleman for you.
“He is my husband, and I love him!” she cried to the dying light. The wind whisked her words away, throwing them over the trees. Below, the army of beasts and warlocks were grouped at the edge of the dry moat, in the shadow of the forest. Some were leaping over the moat. Vampires changed into bats and began to circle. They were staying in the shadow. As soon as the sun dropped and darkness fell, they would attack.
But my husband is gone,
she added, in her head. Saying it aloud would make it too real—she might lose control over her emotions.
He left you now, when you are danger,
Mrs. Darkwell accused.
“He went to the Royal Society,” she whispered. “He hasn’t come back.”
He won’t. He cannot. Even if he were alive, he would never make it in time. He had to know that. He deserted you. Abandoned you.
“He didn’t. I don’t believe it!”
If he put himself at risk of destruction, if he is dead now, he abandoned you. Even if he had lived, and you were not hunted, do you truly think he would not make you a captive here? He would do it for your own good—that’s what he would tell you. Even if he did not keep you a prisoner, what would you have done when he went away for months or years on his travels and adventures? You would be alone.
“None of that matters if he’s dead.” Octavia sobbed each word out.
I will take you, and you will fall in love with another.
“I won’t! I have to escape, but I have to protect my child and the servants. And Matthew . . . What if he is alive and is coming back? He will need my magic.” She didn’t care about love. All she wanted was Matthew safe.
Look in your heart. Do you really believe he is coming back? Or does your heart know he is gone?
“I—” That was the worst. When she searched her feelings, all she found was emptiness. She didn’t have hope.
Without love, you will die. You must listen to me. Your husband is cursed. I have learned this, and I must tell you what this means. He is cursed to die unless he wins a woman’s love. Your love. He doesn’t love you; he hasn’t changed. He is still arrogant, and he would still keep you as a prisoner. But he will die in days if he does not lie to you and make you believe he loves you.
“That—that can’t be true.”
The wind suddenly swirled in a maelstrom in the center of the roof. It threw up dust and dirt and small stones. Then the funnel of debris fell, and Mrs. Darkwell stood there.
The last golden light disappeared from the sky.
Mrs. Darkwell held out her hand. It was bare, pale, elegant. “Take my hand. Come. You must come with me. Your magic won’t work. The warlocks are combating it.”
Without magic, she could do nothing against dozens of vampires, warlocks, shape-shifters. “But what of the people in the castle? They will all be killed.”
Mrs. Darkwell grasped her by the wrist. “Close your eyes. It is like falling into a dream.”
“No—” Octavia began. But then darkness swallowed her up. She clung to Lottie, and then she was falling through space.
Hours earlier in London
“We have hunted all over England for the vampiress Esmeralda. We have not been able to find her.”
Matthew growled in frustration as Lord Eastworth, a member of the Royal Society, explained why they had failed. He was stunned that a society of vampire slayers would welcome vampires, but he’d learned that not only was Sebastien de Wynter a vampire, so was Yannick De Wynter, Sebastien’s brother and the Earl of Brookshire.
“All six women are needed.” Matthew paced. “That is what Guidon told me.”
De Wynter perched on the corner of the large meeting table in the private office. His brother, the Earl of Brookshire, sat at the head of the table, presiding over this reporting of what the Society had accomplished.
Which was nothing.
“How can she be hiding so well from us?” Brookshire leaned back, scrubbed his jaw.
“What about the London house?”
“She abandoned it after you escaped, Sutcliffe. The six demonesses were also gone.”
Matthew slammed his foot into the wall. Then he staggered back, realizing he had drilled a round, deep hole through plaster and lath. “I need to find her. If we destroy Esmeralda, then Octavia will be free.”
“She won’t.” De Wynter spoke in grim tones. “Another vampiress will step into Esmeralda’s place, because she will then be the strongest female vampire. She will absorb Esmeralda’s power and become stronger.”
Matthew’s heart sank. “If there were some way to set Octavia free from being a succubus, the way I can escape the curse. If she were no longer a succubus, she couldn’t use her power to rule the world. She couldn’t turn males into slaves, so there would be no reason to kill her.”
Silence greeted his words.
Finally Brookshire said, “It is a brilliant idea, but—”
“Go to the devil,” De Wynter interrupted.
Matthew jerked to face the vampire, his hands fisted. “What the hell—?”
“I meant it literally, not as an insult,” De Wynter said, grinning. “If your wife serves the devil, you need to go to him to have her set free.”
It was damned hard to accept that Octavia served Satan, but as a succubus that was what she did. “All right. So how do I get to the devil?”
“What we have to do is find someone who did it before—and survived.”
If he could free Octavia from being a succubus, the assassins would leave her alone. She would be free. But it was almost dawn. At nightfall, the beasts would be back, and he had to be there to protect her and Lottie.
“Let’s go then,” Matthew said. “We have to find a way to Hell and back.”
Blackness changed to a purple-colored mist that swirled around her. Octavia felt uneven softness beneath her feet, and smelled grass and the perfume of blossoms. In her arms, Lottie bumped her thumb against her lip, then sucked on it, and she didn’t make a sound.
The mists cleared, revealing a beautiful garden. Octavia stood on a grassy path with roses on both sides of her, so tall she couldn’t see beyond them.
“After the London house burned down, my patron, the duke, let us use this cottage on one of his estates.”
The soft voice belonged to Mrs. Darkwell.
Cradling her baby, Octavia turned. Instead of her normal black gown and pelisse, the woman wore a flowing Grecian gown of white. It was a mystical fabric—almost translucent—and the hem floated in the air, dancing on an imaginary breeze around her bare calves. Her hair was loose, pouring in silky waves down her back.
Mrs. Darkwell smiled. “For one moment, I wanted to be as I used to be. That is all I receive: a few seconds of pleasure, before I have to change back into a staid, corseted Englishwoman.”
In the blink of an eye, her white dress was replaced with her ordinary clothes. And the garden and sunshine vanished, replaced by a wintery scene at twilight.
Octavia stared. “How did you bring us here? Are you a witch?”
“Oh no, Lady Sutcliffe, I am not a witch.”
“What are you then?”
“Fallen. What I am is ruined and fallen, but in a different way than what you would understand.”
“What do you mean?” Octavia demanded. “I am tired of cryptic answers. I am tired of feeling—feeling as if there is something I should know, but that I don’t.” She stalked to the nearest now bare rose bush, and she broke off the rose hip, the remainder of a dead flower. A thorn tore into her bare hand, raising a line of blood droplets. “How did we travel from a castle in Scotland to here instantaneously? How could I be a witch without knowing I was? How is my husband cursed?”
Mrs. Darkwell smiled. She patted her pinned hair, ensuring it was in place. “Let us have a cup of tea, and we will talk.”
“This time, I want my questions answered,” Octavia warned. She followed Mrs. Darkwell on a path that wound through the wintery gardens—with evergreen shrubs, skeletal trees, and dead flowers. Eventually the path gave out onto a small lawn dusted with snow. In the center of the stretch of white, a manor house sat upon a raised knoll. Octavia turned. Several hundred yards away, on higher ground, stood an enormous house. Given its grandeur, it must be the duke’s estate house.
Feminine laughter rose—Octavia saw a group of Mrs. Darkwell’s young ladies. They were hurrying inside, and were dressed in cloaks and boots, with hands tucked into fur muffs. She recognized Ophelia’s pale blond curls, sticking out from her bonnet.
Octavia followed Mrs. Darkwell into the house.
They went into a parlor that looked like an iced cake. The colors were all pastel shades; the chairs were white and gilt, and covered in pink, pale blue, and mint green silk cushions. A large, cheery fire blazed, filling the room with warmth.
Mrs. Darkwell rang a bell, and a young maid appeared at once. “Take the baby up to the nursery.”
Octavia shook her head. “I don’t want to let her out of my sight.”
“She will be safe, and there are two nurses there to care for her. Besides, you might find it easier to speak of matters without the baby.”
It was true, even though she was sure Lottie wouldn’t understand anything. She handed Charlotte, who was sleeping, to the maid. The young girl smiled and made cooing sounds and carried her baby away.
Mrs. Darkwell sat down, but Octavia couldn’t. She paced in front of the window with its view of the dark gardens and the large house.
“There are two very important things about your husband that you must know. Firstly, he is a vampire—”
“I know. I discovered it for myself.”
Mrs. Darkwell nodded, with one brow raised in disapproval. “You found out by accident. He wanted to hide the truth. He did not tell you first.”
“Yes, but—”
“Are you willing to forgive him for knowingly putting both you and your baby in danger?
You
were honest with him.”
“Not quite,” Octavia said. Heavens, she sounded mulish and defensive. “I ran away from him. I can understand why he didn’t tell me. He feared I would reject him.” She turned and stalked toward Mrs. Darkwell, hands on her hips. “These are not the answers I want—”
“This might not be what you wish to hear, but it is what you need to know. Lady Sutcliffe, a woman’s soul mate trusts her. Sutcliffe does not—he cannot truly open his heart to anyone, and that will destroy you. I told you that you need love. If he is not destroyed, if he returns to you, can you truly tell me you can survive in a shell of a marriage, without true love or trust?”
Before she could answer, the woman continued. “He carries a curse. As I told you, he is not quite immortal—he will die in days unless he can capture your heart.”
“I do not understand this. How can this be? I know vampires can be destroyed, but they are supposed to be immortal.”
“Lord Sutcliffe is not. Vampires have the power to make an immortal being, but a goddess wields much more powerful magic. A goddess cursed him. To survive, he must woo you and win your love, or he will be destroyed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He has to make you fall in love with him.” Mrs. Darkwell waved her hand dismissively. “That was why he pursued you and found you, and why he brought you back to his castle. His lovemaking, his smiles—they are all false. He is trying to win your heart, but he is only doing so for selfish reasons. He is not in love; he is just desperate to survive.”
“How do you know about this?”
“I know because I am a goddess. I am Aphrodite. I foolishly fell in love with a mortal, and I committed a . . . well, it would be considered a crime in my world. So here I am, banished and captured in the form of an ordinary Englishwoman.”