6. Chapter 6
Logan
It had not even been a full week since she’d stepped onto Mortdale soil before she’d started to look for ways to die.
The ink wasn’t even dry on our marriage certificate, which I’d had to hand deliver to the damn king who was adamant I’d found a way to trick him and hadn’t actually brought back a witch.
See if you can keep this one alive until you can get her to give you a kid or two, was all he’d said after inspecting the certificate, thinking it was a fake.
She’d not paused to survey her surroundings once. Hundreds of people had passed her on the streets in the past ten minutes, and she’d not raised her eyes to even identify one of them. An elephant could have done a cartwheel right in front of her and she would have missed it.
“Clumsy witch,” I muttered to myself when she damn near tripped into the canal, and that idiot Liam nearly let her.
Henry whistled low as he followed after me. “I thought we’d be inspecting the west border? This is not the west border.”
“Changed my mind.”
“Scared someone might claw your witch’s eyes out?”
I walked along the canal, parallel to her. “She’s not my witch.”
The streets of Mortdale had not been safe for a witch since the Madness started spreading at large.
Everyone was pointing fingers at everything they could.
Witches, humans, fae, lycans, anything they could blame.
But I trusted there were very few who would think of hurting a Duncan in broad daylight, and most were already dead.
Truly, I didn’t know why I was here.
Henry turned to raise a brow at me when she hit a pole. “You’re telling me that’s one of Agnes’s finest red maidens? The one opportunity she had to marry a witch of her own into the Duncan family, and this is how she spends it? Don’t get me wrong, she’s—”
“Don’t fucking say it.”
I’d seen how he looked at her. And if his death wouldn’t deeply sadden me, I would have been holding his mother’s hand by now, telling her how sorry I was for her loss.
“Impressive,” he said, smirking. “But not in the way Agnes’s red maidens are. Any other maiden would have found their way into your bed by now. And she can’t seem to run far away enough from you when she sees you.”
We’ve been aware of Agnes’s game for years.
She rivalled all her predecessors in wiles by far.
Agnes knew how to pull strings, and knew how to do it very well.
It had become obvious she’d started training the red maidens like soldiers, each one of them planted carefully into vampire households with purpose—mostly to influence their spouse's decisions and gain access to other influential families. Within ten years into her reign, half of the parliament had introduced so much leniency when it came to our Meridian neighbours that it was hard to miss her touch on the whole matter. Which, consequently, had put the clergy in a nonsensical battle with the parliament. At some point, there’d been talk of a civil strife—discord and rises within smaller communities being encouraged by the clergy to drain parliamentary power.
Lightly squashed when the matter of the Madness had started to grow prevalent.
And all focus had then turned to the threat of our extinction.
But what my men didn’t know was that Willow was not a red maiden.
The most terrifying part about it was that it didn’t make her any less dangerous.
She was one of Agnes’s closest advisers, an occult pathologist whose name was known well beyond the borders of Meridian.
My wife was formidable, just not when she was on her feet.
She kept animatedly talking to herself, not paying attention to the road or the fact that she missed hitting a second pole by an inch or so.
The other part my men didn’t know was that Agnes had not picked Willow to marry me.
It was Arthur’s turn to throw all his doubt at me. “I don’t understand how you even let the king walk you into this whole trap.”
I had to admit, when he’d thrown the order in front of the whole parliament, I’d thought he’d lost his mind.
But since the Madness had started replicating at an overwhelming speed, most nobles had become unwilling to house a witch.
And if I’d refused it, he and the parliament would have blamed me for the crumbling of the Blood Pact.
A blame he knew I couldn’t afford to bear when the entire guard relied on me to track this raging infection and cut it at its roots.
“He didn’t exactly give me a choice. He’s dying, and Princess Luella is too sick.
The parliament doesn’t want her on the seat with how our affairs are looking with Morngate.
They fear humans might take her succession as an opportunity to seize a kingdom under a weak siege.
” Vampires only married once in their lifetimes—breaking a blood bond made with another was considered sacrilegious.
Any legitimate heir had to come through that marriage.
King Ulric had married for love, or at least so they used to say.
Two vampires were not compatible in many ways, especially when it came to having children.
Princess Luella had been a consequence of that.
That was why we’d lived harmoniously with humans for so long.
Until some years ago now when King Ignatius of Morngate had decided to lift a border of cold iron between us, killing humans who dared trespass into Mortdale as traitors.
All because of a lie our king wasn’t willing to admit.
Almost thirty years ago, Ulric took responsibility for the death of King Ignatius’s daughter.
Pridefully boasting about murdering his only heir to the Morngate throne.
Over this one ridiculous fib, Mortdale had been thrown into battle after battle with Morngate; hundreds and thousands dead.
If anyone had a motive to spread this Madness, it had to be Morngate.
But despite the joy the success of the disease had probably given them, they’d not come forth to claim it.
Maybe it was on purpose to mislead us. Maybe not.
Arthur ran a hand through his thick beard. “Fuck. That would mean—”
My nails dug hard into my palm until I felt blood fill my fist. “As his bastard, he’ll force me to take the throne.
Choosing me to be the next host for the Blood Pact was his way of pushing his legacy on the throne.
He knows I planned to make sure his bloodline died with me.
He’s aware that he can’t force me to marry anyone otherwise or have children.
And he desperately needs me to. The moment Willow is pregnant with my heir, he’ll be free to get rid of me.
He’ll force and groom someone willing on the throne. Someone legitimate, too.”
Ulric had tried his best to legitimise my existence for a few years now.
Something I’d refused to accept, fought it at every opportunity.
I was born Edward Duncan’s son, and I would die Edward Duncan’s son.
If he died, and Luella were to succeed him, his bloodline would be dethroned for certain.
The parliament would take over. Even three hundred years into his reign, he still refused to let go.
“You think Agnes knows you’re Ulric’s son?”
My eyes found my wife in the distance. “Probably.”
It could be why she’d let me have her.
Henry watched me with a pair of amused, narrowed eyes. “I thought you quit smoking.”
Licking the back of my teeth, I set a cigarette between my lips. It didn’t exactly help with the blood cravings, but it helped mask it well enough. Following Willow with my eyes, I inhaled the smoke until my lungs burned. “Old habits die hard.”
I heard him snort under his breath, and mutter, “Someone’s dying hard, and it’s not the old habits.”
Arthur, confused as ever, glanced between the two of us. “Thinking of killing yer witch?”
Fucking Saints. “She’s not my witch.”
Liam was waiting for me when I got to the estate. Something he usually avoided doing, considering he despised filling me in on everything he did.
“I think she talks to the dead,” he said in a hushed voice, glancing around the foyer as if my ghost-talking wife would appear out of thin air.
“I’m sure of it!” he hissed, pacing back and forth.
“The first day, I thought she was just playing around, but it’s not even funny anymore.
She’s having full conversations out of thin air. ”
“I am aware,” I said, shedding my coat.
Liam paced back and forth rapidly, seeming shaken by the thought. “When we sat at the coffee house, she even ordered the ghost a cup of tea—” He stopped and gave me a wide-eyed stare. “You knew?”
I nodded, handing my coat to Christof. “Has she been eating?”
The old man blinked once. “Not very well, but she has.”
“Have Theodora talk to her and see if she can cook something that fits her appetite.”
Christof hesitated for a moment, something he rarely did. “She’s been spending her afternoons in the kitchens with Theodora. Mostly talking, but she did help with preparing the meals, too. According to what was said, the lady was very satisfied with the cooking. She must have a weak appetite.”
The vein in my temple throbbed, and I could feel the migraine coming alive. “This headache of a woman,” I muttered, loosening my tie. “You were under orders not to let her in the kitchen.” Near flames, knives, and Saints knew what.