Bride of the Demon King Read online

  Hiding from her demon lord has always seemed pointless, but she learned on the way. Now, she is ready to face him and her destiny.

  She has worn a dozen names in her foster parents’ efforts to hide her from her demon lord. The name she used at the healer academy was Emrie, so that is how she set up her practice.

  Tribute night was the demon lord’s birthday, and it was while she tended patients that she noted the time. She gets caught at a checkpoint and is forced to cover her presence with magic, but in her haste, she forgets one thing, her tribute.

  Demon Lord Harrow has been looking for his mate with increasing urgency as the years have gone by. When he is looking over his tribute from the village of Neemin, he catches a familiar scent. He has caught this scent only once before, but he knows it. She is near. He confirms that the guards at the checkpoint came in contact with his mate, and then, he sets out to do what he has been longing for, claiming his bride.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Bride of the Demon King

  Copyright © 2019 by Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-987969-57-3

  ©Cover art by Angela Waters

  All rights reserved. With the exception of review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the express permission of the publisher.

  Published by Viola Grace

  Look for me online at violagrace.com.

  Smashwords Edition

  Bride of the Demon King

  Destined Enchantment Book 1

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Aliette stood in the shade of the pillars in the stone hall, and she watched what the sisters at the abbey were watching. She watched the sun going down.

  Sister Everett held her hand and patted it. “It is fine, child. He will be here to take you to safety, and you will be out of the demon’s grip.”

  Aliette patted Sister Everett’s hand. She didn’t need to say that she wasn’t afraid. The demon wouldn’t hurt her. He needed her. All the books said so. The sisters were afraid of what would come to pass if the current demon lord rose to king, so they were hiding her. Aliette was the demon lord’s bride and his only path to power.

  She heard the pounding of hooves, and the sisters each kissed her on the forehead before handing her up to the courier that would take her to the next place of shelter.

  The man placed her behind him, and she carefully took a grip on his tunic. She was not allowed to touch men for more than a moment. Bad things happened when she did.

  “It is all right, mistress, I will get you clear of here before the demon arrives.”

  She made a small noise, and he kicked the horse into action. They thundered away from the abbey and up toward the crest of the hill.

  Aliette turned her head toward the abbey, and she sighed. The sisters were burning her clothing. There was a column of smoke with the occasional bright flicker of flame. Her time at the abbey was being erased. Two years of her life were gone in a flash.

  Aliette sighed, and she watched the party of men approach the abbey. It was a small group, and they were still some distance away when the courier crested the hill and took them into the safety of the other side.

  “We are going into the woods and cutting across the southern plains, mistress.”

  Aliette cleared her throat. “I can’t. I can’t pass the barrier of Lord Harrow’s lands. You have to stick to the border.”

  The rider ignored her and pressed onward. They rode through the woods, and when he would have jumped over the stone barrier between Lord Harrow’s land and Lord Meskar’s, she was simply plucked off the back of the horse by a spectral hand and settled in the long grasses.

  Aliette got to her feet and dusted herself off, waiting for him to realize that he had lost his passenger. She had walked five hundred yards along the barrier before she heard the pounding of hooves again.

  He jumped his horse back to her side of the barrier, and he leaned down to help her back into position. “What happened to you?”

  “I cannot cross the barrier. I have to be hidden from Lord Harrow from within his own demesne. It is frustrating, I know, but it is my life.”

  She settled back on the horse and took up her previous position. “Whenever you like, we can proceed.”

  He nodded and nudged the horse back into action, briefing her about her new hiding place while they went. Her education was about to start, so that was something to look forward to.

  * * * *

  They had been looking for his bride for eleven years. Harrow’s father had thrown up a barrier around their lands to keep the bride in, but it was a lot of ground to cover, even for a demon lord.

  Flying would have been a great way to search, but that was a skill that he could only fully activate with age or a bride who was able to bear a child.

  The latest tip had come from a pilgrim who stopped at the abbey and was beguiled by the bright laughter of a young girl playing around the hanging laundry. When the girl had shown herself, her crimson eyes were unmistakable, and the sisters had taken her in the abbey itself the moment she was seen. That had been the best lead they had had in a decade.

  Harrow rode at the head of his small group of warriors, and his lips quirked in a smile when he saw the military formation of the sisters waiting to confront and defy him.

  He pulled up his horse and looked at the blaze in the centre of the courtyard. There were bits of unburned paper and fabric that had yet to surrender to the fire.

  “So, Mother, you have destroyed all trace of her. Even her scent is fading in the cooling air.”

  The mother superior stepped forward, and she inclined her head. “We are not sure of whom you speak, but we are merely burning the possessions of the dead, as is our way.”

  A slight movement of his hand and two of his men bracketed a nervous-looking sister while the other of his men held the group back.

  They backed her toward the fire until she was wincing and tears were forming in her eyes. Harrow dismounted and walked toward the woman, using the seduction aura that came so easily to him.

  “Well, little one, you have no child here with red eyes?”

  The sister looked to her superior, but the woman was surrounded. “No, my lord.”

  He smiled. He leaned in and whispered softly. “There is no girl-child of about eleven who has touched your heart and soul, who has made you care though you did not want to.”

  The sister stared at him with wide eyes, and while her arousal was building, so was her mental image of the girl in question. Aliette was the name, and the girl was just beginning her voyage into womanhood. Her eyes were bright rubies, and her hair was rich mink. The sound of her laughter lingered in the sister’s mind, and he nodded when he found that she did not know where the child was headed next.

  “Do not worry, sister. She is alive, healthy, and growing in intelligence and beauty. There are things she should be taught, but I will continue my quest to find her. They are not going to harm her, and that is my primary concern. We will keep looking. She is to be mine, and she will be.”

  He stepped back and brought the woman away from the flames that were causing her robes to smoulder.

  The mother superior pushed past his men and reached for her charge. “Let her go.”

  Harrow looked to the older woman with a quirked brow. “I have. Very wise to burn the fabric, by the way. That is how I nearly caught up this time. Her last home kept one of her first sewing projects and the blood called me here.”

 
The mother superior scowled at him and took in his features. “You have only come to your power.”

  “Yes, three months ago. Would you happen to know why?”

  The mother superior and the sisters paled. They knew what had happened three months earlier. That was when their charge began her cycles. He knew why it had happened and acknowledged that as long as his body continued its transformation to full demon lord that his bride was healthy.

  He was going to keep searching, but the frantic look for the connection was not foremost in his mind. It was time to build his city and set his century-long reign up for a solid start. He would have everything in place when his bride came to him.

  As he gathered his men and rode back to the stronghold, he sighed in relief. At least they didn’t kill her. Twenty years earlier, that was the fate of his first bride. This time, she had thankfully been born to those with compassion and hope, not the frenzy of fear that the Demon Lord Feir had fanned when the signs of an impending arrival had flowed in the world around them.

  A weight lifted off his shoulders where his wings were beginning to thicken to full strength. When he met his bride, he would be presentable, strong, and he would have a place worthy of her to rule at his side. Aliette. He savoured the name that he had lifted from the sister’s mind. He would return to his search in earnest in seven years.

  Chapter Two

  Emrie finished mopping the brow of her patient, and she smiled. “You are recovering well, Kroth.”

  He coughed and looked at her with bloodshot eyes. “I feel like hell.”

  She chuckled and knew that he couldn’t see through the veil she wore as a healer. “You will be fine, Kroth. Limmia is already on her feet, and she was nearly dead when your neighbours came to get me.”

  Limmia blushed and slowly stirred the soup that she had been up preparing at dawn. “I wasn’t that bad.”

  Emrie leaned back and sighed. “Dearling, I had to restart your heart.”

  Limmia paused, blinked, and kept stirring. “Oh.”

  Kroth struggled to sit up, but Emrie kept him down with one light hand. “Stay put. You are recovering, you are not healthy.”

  “Yes, Healer.” Kroth lay back.

  Emrie got to her feet and brushed her robes free of the crumbs of herbs that she had been crushing before her final potion had been completed. Limmia had needed a far more aggressive treatment than her husband, but his frail, masculine body had had a secondary infection that she had had to treat to keep Limmia from a relapse.

  Limmia stepped outside to get some garnish for the soup, and Emrie whirled on the man in the bed. “Stop visiting the village whores.”

  Kroth blinked and stared. “What?”

  “You have passed an infection from yourself to Limmia, and it nearly killed her. Do you care for her so little that getting your cock wet is worth her life? Idiot. I have purged it from both of you, and you have a clean start, but I might not be able to reach her the next time, and the results will be on you.”

  He blinked. “Can’t you also cure the whores?”

  She lunged and pinned him to the bed with one hand. “And the hundreds of men who have used their services? I can’t cure them all. You are dipping your wick where every man with spare coin has been before you, and the women are paid to like you. Limmia loves you, and she does it for nothing more than your company in her life.”

  Kroth blinked frantically. “She has given me no children.”

  “She cannot do so while you are spending your seed elsewhere and bringing home disease that would kill your unborn before it starts.”

  The shock on his face made her remember how young he was. Handsome too, for a farmer.

  She straightened while Kroth took in her harsh words. She hadn’t had time to spend. Limmia was on her way back from the gardens.

  He looked up from the bed. “You are serious.”

  “Yes. I have healed the damage of the illness, but I cannot return time to either of you. You must begin again with a woman who loves you.”

  There were tears in his eyes. “I think I can do that.”

  Emrie nodded. “I think you can as well. If you keep to yourself, you will be seeing the signs of new life in six months.”

  Limmia came back in. “The signs of what?”

  Emrie inclined her head, the grey veil that covered her face dipping. “If you two resume marital relations when you are recovered, a child is a likelihood.”

  Limmia bowed her head. “I think I am barren.”

  Emrie put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “You are not. Kroth was ill but did not know it, and now, you are both starting again with clean, if weak, bodies and a new chance.”

  Limmia clutched the herbs in her hands so tightly that the smell of green filled the cottage.

  Emrie turned to both of them. “Give yourselves a week, and when you can resume normal chores, you will be able to have sex again. In the meantime, hold each other every night and bless your partner with kind words and soft touches.”

  Limmia looked at her husband and blushed. “I don’t know how to touch him.”

  Emrie blinked behind her concealment, sat the wife next to the husband, and gave them a lecture on how their bodies belonged to each other alone. Limmia needed to learn what she liked so that she could tell Kroth, and he needed the same. They had a week to figure out what gave them pleasure, if not why, and then, they would be able to share the practice.

  Emrie heard a shimmering sound in the distance, and she blinked. “Is it tribute day?”

  Limmia nodded. “It is. We made our tribute to the main hall before we got sick.”

  Emrie nodded. “Sensible. I have to go. Send someone for me if you need me, but I think I have given you enough to think about. For pities sake, talk to each other. You are in this for life. Make the most of it.”

  Limmia blinked. “Don’t you want some dinner?”

  “No. I have to spend the evening in contemplation.” She swung her bag over her shoulder and nodded to the two. “Take care of yourselves and each other, and summon me if either of you gets worse.”

  They were so stunned by her sudden departure that they both simply waved farewell.

  Emrie went to her horse and saddled it swiftly, kneeing Mithas in the ribs a little more brusquely than he was used to. He sidled and stepped sideways, snorting his displeasure.

  “Sorry, Mithas. I am in a bit of a hurry. It is tribute night, and they are putting posts up on the roads. We have to go.”

  He gave her an understanding look, and she swung up into the saddle, moving rapidly through the village until she could give him his head and he took off, streaking for the woods where she made her home. There was one road out this way, and it led directly past her door.

  In the distance, she could see the tribute ports lighting up on the small roads and byways. A small team manned each magical entry point, and each was set to collect tribute for the demon lord in lieu of high taxation. The guards wanted to record the donation properly, so they would request her veil be lifted. That was problematic.

  Mithas drove himself as fast as he could, but just as they were within a few yards of the border with the city’s lands, a checkpoint flared into life.

  She pulled up on her ride, and she dug through her pack while they approached the checkpoint. If she was careful, and she focused, she could get through this.

  Emrie stopped Mithas when the guards stood in her path.

  “Healer, it is tribute night.”

  Emrie pulled out the potion she had selected, confirming that it was the one she wanted by looking at it. “My tribute for the demon lord, a powerful truth potion. My name is Healer Emrie.”

  One of the guards took the potion, and the other wrote her information down.

  “Healer, may we see your face?”

  She paused, and Mithas shifted slightly before she sighed and nodded. “Of course. I am not on duty, and you are not my patients.”

  She wrapped the reins around the pommel of the
saddle and lifted her veil with both hands. The men looked at her casually and then gasped and stepped back.

  Emrie reached into their minds and removed the memory of her while forcing one of them to scrub out her information as her horse moved past them at a slow and steady pace. Keeping her movements calm and deliberate was how she managed to hold onto the minds of the guards until she was firmly tucked into the woods. When she let them go, she lowered her veil and sighed in relief, taking up the reins again and getting Mithas to take her home.

  When she got back into her cottage, she looked around and muttered under her breath. “I hate moving.”

  She started to wrap everything up and stack them in her well-worn travel containers, but the moon rose high and time passed far more quickly than she counted on. She was forced to her bed, and she would continue in the morning. There was no reason that the demon lord would find her at dawn. He had thousands of gifts to run through. A small potion would hardly cause notice.

  * * * *

  Harrow was looking over the grand ballroom and the thousands of small items that had been donated. He always took a look before the sorting happened and appreciated what his folk chose to gift him with. He was walking through the tribute from the village of Neemin when a familiar scent curled his nostril.

  Harrow focused on the origin of the scent, and he ignored the medicinal undercurrent. There. He leaned down and snatched the bottle from the collection, inhaling deeply at the scent that he had been searching for. He glanced at his secretary and snapped out, “Reemor, get me the records and the guards who were collecting near Neemin last night.”

  Reemor didn’t ask, merely bowed and left to get the men.