Chapter 5 Watch Your Wife Bloom
(into a Beautiful, Bloodthirsty Monster)
Kazimir
The sky was still black when we reached the low hill overlooking the outpost. I dismounted and turned to Thorne. “After the battle, I need you to organize collection teams.”
His brow furrowed. “Supplies? Weapons?”
“Bones.” I kept my voice casual. “From the fallen Solandrians. I want them gathered, cataloged, and transported back to the citadel. Intact specimens preferred, but fragments will do.”
Thorne’s expression didn’t change, but I caught the slight pause before he nodded. “Understood, my lord. Any specific bones?”
“All of them.” I turned back to survey the outpost below. “Well, as many as you can reasonably collect without spending all night playing gravedigger.”
“Right.” Another pause. “Should I ask?”
“You could.” I smiled. “But I won’t tell you.”
It wasn’t the strangest request I’d made in his years of employment—that honor probably went to the time I’d needed seventeen gallons of rendered pig fat and a condemned priest—but it ranked in the top ten. Still, Thorne simply pulled out a small notebook and made a notation.
“Bone collection teams,” he muttered, writing. “I’ll have them standing by.”
“Excellent.” I gestured to the valley below. “Now, shall we discuss the outpost?”
The walls were high enough to discourage bandits, not high enough to stop me. Torches guttered along the ramparts, and I could make out the silhouettes of guards walking their rounds.
They had no idea death waited just beyond their sight.
“Two hundred men,” Thorne rumbled. “Give or take.”
“And the wards?” Arabella asked as she led her horse up beside mine.
I waved a dismissive hand. “Standard defensive enchantments. Nothing sophisticated—just basic alarm spells and a few protective barriers. They’ll have a mage or two stationed here, maybe three given how close we are to the border.
” I smiled into the darkness. “But here’s the beautiful irony: Solandris’s natural resistance to me has made them complacent.
Their mages are trained to reinforce that resistance, not to actually defend against a proper assault. ”
“And that resistance no longer works on you.” The smile in Arabella’s voice was unmistakable.
“Thanks to you.” I glanced at her, letting my appreciation show. After we’d activated the Heirloom, her bloodline magic neutralized Solandris’s effect on my power.
Thorne grunted. “The mages?”
“Will be too busy trying to figure out why their defensive spells aren’t stopping me to mount any real counterattack. By the time they realize something’s wrong, it’ll be too late.”
After all these years of being held at bay by their damned Golden Roses and sanctimonious king, I was finally here. Finally ready to carve my name into their precious kingdom.
Arabella shifted beside me. Even dressed for war, she was devastating.
She’d braided her hair back for battle, wearing light armor from the armory.
She’d grumbled about it again this morning, but I’d insisted.
My wife wasn’t yet battle-hardened and going into a conflict without protection was folly.
Behind us, our forces waited in perfect silence.
Not the massive army I’d eventually need to take the capital of Sunspire, but more than enough for this.
Shadow warriors crouched between my human soldiers, their forms fully opaque.
The fighters I’d brought were veterans, handpicked for this first strike, with the bulk remaining at the pass, awaiting orders to march.
My runes sang for violence. It had been too long since I’d let loose and painted a battlefield with terror.
“Watch and learn,” I repeated to Arabella, though I knew she’d do more than watch. My wife was no passive observer—she’d want her own taste of conquest before the sun rose.
I closed my eyes and drew in a breath of predawn air. The outpost below had three main defensive positions: the gate, the eastern tower, and the barracks. Traditional siege tactics would have us bombard the walls, maybe attempt to scale them under cover of archer fire.
Boring. Predictable. Not my style.
I whispered into the wind, letting my dominion magic seep into the words and send them toward the main gate. The spell was delicate—not a hammer blow but a needle. Their minds were soft, pliable things, full of homesickness and boredom.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the screaming started.
A guard stumbled back from his post, sword drawn, eyes wide with terror.
He had just seen his companion’s face melt and re-form into something from his deepest nightmares.
He swung his sword in a wild arc, catching his fellow soldier across the throat.
Blood sprayed in the torchlight as more guards rushed to help, only to fall victim to the same illusions.
“What did you—” Arabella started.
“Watch.”
More screams erupted along the wall as my illusions took hold.
Guards turned on one another with savage desperation, seeing demons where their brothers stood.
One man threw himself from the ramparts rather than face whatever horror my magic showed him.
Another curled into a ball, sobbing for his mother while his comrades tore one another apart around him.
Beside me, Arabella was gaping.
I smirked. “Learn.”
The infection spread. My dominion magic jumped from mind to mind like a plague, each guard’s terror feeding the next. Within minutes, the eastern wall was a charnel house of self-inflicted carnage.
With the gate guards busy murdering one another, I turned my attention to the rest of the outpost. “Now,” I commanded.
Our forces surged forward like a black tide. Shadow warriors flowed over the walls while my human soldiers charged the gates—gates now conveniently undefended, their guards too busy dying at their own hands.
I vaulted onto my horse and rode toward the carnage, Arabella beside me. Through our bond, I felt her excitement spike, tinged with something darker. She was learning to love this—the power, the chaos, the absolute dominion over life and death.
And I had never been more in awe of her.
The gates hung open, one guard still twitching in a pool of his own blood while another cowered in the corner, whimpering about the eyes in the walls.
I rode past without a second glance. The courtyard beyond was pure chaos—soldiers half-dressed, stumbling over one another, swinging at shadows and friends alike.
A robed figure stumbled from the tower, hands weaving defensive wards. The mage’s face was pale with confusion and fear. “The barriers! How—”
I didn’t let him finish. A tendril of shadow lashed out, wrapping around his throat and lifting him off the ground. His hands clawed uselessly at the darkness as I rode closer.
“Surprise,” I said pleasantly, watching his eyes bulge with the realization that everything he’d been taught about Solandris’s protection was a lie.
I released the spell. He dropped like a stone, gasping. Before he could recover, one of my shadow warriors descended on him, blade finding flesh with brutal efficiency.
A captain tried to rally the soldiers. “Form ranks! It’s just illusions, you fools! Form—”
My blade took his head before he could finish. Blood sprayed across my face, hot and metallic. The familiar rush of battle sang through my veins, better than wine, better than anything except being buried inside my wife.
I spun, catching a desperate sword thrust on my blade. The soldier’s eyes were clear—one of the few who’d resisted my initial spell. I drove my sword through his chest and watched the light fade from his eyes.
Around us, the battle raged. My forces cut through the confused defenders like a scythe through wheat. Some Solandrians tried to mount a defense, forming small pockets of resistance, but they were scattered and terrified.
We dismounted and sent our horses back through the gates.
I kept one eye on Arabella as we fought. A Solandrian soldier charged her, sword raised. I started forward, but she didn’t need me. She sidestepped, graceful as water, and drove her dagger up under his chin. The man dropped, and she was already moving to the next target.
Thorne shadowed her as ordered while her magic flared in controlled bursts. Light and shadow danced around her hands—the duality of her power more pronounced with each passing day.
Pride swelled in my chest. My wife, my Dark Lady, baptized in blood and thriving.
I turned back to my own killing, sword moving in practiced arcs. Each death fed the hunger in my runes, the carved magic pulsing with satisfaction. This was what I was made for—not council meetings or diplomatic dinners, but this. The honest simplicity of conquest.
A crossbow bolt whistled past my ear. I turned, annoyed at the interruption, and found a cluster of archers on the western wall.
With a gesture, I sent phantom flames racing up the stone.
The fire wasn’t real but their minds couldn’t tell the difference.
They fled, screaming about being burned alive, leaving their positions undefended.
“Behind you!” Arabella’s voice cut through the din.
I spun, shadows already coiling around my fist, but she was there first. Her dagger took the attacking soldier in the kidney, dropping him with brutal efficiency. Our eyes met across his falling body, and the heat in her gaze had nothing to do with battle fury.
Well. Almost nothing.
“I had him,” I said.
“I know.” She smiled, fierce and beautiful. Blood was splattered across her face. “But I wanted him more.”
Fuck. We were definitely going to have to discuss this new bloodthirsty streak of hers. Preferably while naked.
More soldiers poured from the barracks, these ones more organized. Someone had managed to rally them—probably a veteran sergeant who’d seen enough battle to recognize illusion from reality. They formed a defensive line, shields locked, spears bristling.
Behind them, three robed mages emerged, hands crackling with defensive magic.
I grinned. Finally, some proper resistance.
“The Dark Lord!” one of them shouted, voice cracking with panic. “Focus the wards on him! Channel the kingdom’s—”
But nothing happened. I watched the confusion ripple across their faces as they realized their advantage had been stripped away.
“Looking for something?” I called across the courtyard.
The lead mage’s face went white. He tried again, pouring more power into the spell, but I could feel his magic sliding off me. No resistance. No weakening. Nothing.
I charged them head-on. At the last second, I opened a portal and reappeared behind their line. My sword opened throats before they could turn. Blood painted the courtyard stones, and still my runes sang for more.
The battle raged on. I fell into the rhythm of it—cast, kill, move, repeat—though not so much that I lost sight of Arabella.
My magic painted nightmares across the outpost. Soldiers saw their dead mothers crawling from the ground.
The walls seemed to breathe and pulse like writhing flesh.
The very air whispered threats and promises of worse to come.
This was what I was made for. This moment, this power, this absolute dominion over lesser minds.
And this was just a drop of blood before the hemorrhage. Soon all of Solandris would know what it meant to stand against the Dark Lord Kazimir Blackrose.