“Now what?” I asked the empty room. There was no way I was going to sleep after that. Even before the weird nightmare, my mind had been too jumbled to rest.
Myva, the goddess I had worshiped since birth, was dead. Killed by a demon uprising led by a shadow dragon, his mate, and apparently a few barrels of cinnamon. An uprising Dante was apparently a part of. Not only that, she wasn’t even a goddess. Either way, demons were now free to roam the world unchecked. I bit my lip, trying not to imagine the worst. “Is my family OK?” I wondered. “Gods, is Boohail even still standing?” Without Myva’s protective barrier, Boohail had little in the way of defenses.
I took a deep breath and sat on the bed, trying to gather my thoughts. “OK, let’s not panic. Dante said it’s been about a year since Myva got taken out. Boohail’s at the tail end of Kinnamo, which is about as far away from Volsog as you could get. If demons are spilling into the Southern continent, then there’s a chance that they haven’t reached that far yet.”
Even if they had, was there really anything I could do about it? Aside from scrapping with a few assholes back home, I wasn’t exactly a trained warrior.
Soft music drifted into the bedroom. The low, deep thrum of a cello pulled me from my thoughts, and I open the bedroom door to better hear it. Gentle piano music danced around the dramatic resonance of the cello.
I quickly shut the door and rummaged through the closet to find fresh clothes. One red dress in particular was shorter than the rest. If I had to wager a guess; I’d say it was meant to be knee length on its owner. On me, it fell down to my ankles. But beggars can’t be choosers. I slipped in on, then did my best to wrangle my hair into submission. The tiara Dante had given me sat proudly upon the dresser. After a moment’s deliberation, I put it on.
What can I say? I’m vain and it matches the dress.
Satisfied with my preening, I made my way out of the room and followed the sound of music up a flight of stairs. When I reached the source of the music, the melody changed into something more somber. The piano music faded away, leaving the cello to play a wistful ballad that seemed almost forlorn. I cracked the door open to peek inside.
The space was half-circular in form, and it was decked out with musical instruments. At the far end of the room was a wall of windows through which one could see strange dancing lights in the night sky and a dazzling array of stars. Waves of green, purple and pink rippled through the sky like water.
Dante was playing the cello with his back to me. The sky’s gentle illumination bathed him in a bluish radiance. I sat there, mesmerized, while he kept playing. His hair was perfectly bunched up, so I could see the defined muscles in his broad back, and the way they moved with each note that poured out of the cello.
Flaming flamingos, why did he have to be so damn mouth-watering?
I shut my eyes and propped myself up against the doorframe. Letting myself get lost in the music for a bit. If he noticed my presence, he didn’t let it show. Instead, he kept at his melancholy tune until my chest hurt from the anguish in it.
The words “I’m fucking lonely” were basically woven into the melody. The row of portraits lining the hallway entered my mind. Not one of those people seem to be anywhere in the castle. Nor anyone else for that matter. From what he had mentioned yesterday, Myva’s reign spelled disaster and death for most demons. I knew his sister was off somewhere on her own, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out the rest of the people in the portraits were dead. So how long had he been in this castle alone?
Tears welled up in my eyes. That kind of loneliness was something I understood all too well. The only thing that got me through the years of mind-numbing loneliness was the thought of someday making it back to everyone. I had even planned out my homecoming meal down to the sides. Shrimp and sausage gumbo, an unholy amount of devilled eggs, and pudding with bourbon sauce for dessert. Then we’d all spend the day by the river. Swimming and catching up until the fireflies came out to signal the end of the day. I closed the door and sank down to sit against the wall. Fuck, I missed home. I missed my family and friends and eating meat that wasn’t fish.
Maybe I could give in to his proposal. He said that dragons act as a bodyguard for everyone in their territory. There was no reason he couldn’t guard Boohail. That would solve our problem of the missing protection barrier.
Then again, for all I knew, he might decide to set fire to the whole place. I had planned to just slip away once we reached the Southern continent. Get to the nearest town, rob a stable, and ride the horse back home. Though, when I considered the new state of the world, a guard dragon seemed like the ideal solution. Provided he wasn’t a psycho cannibal.
Fuck. I’m going to have to actually consider this marriage.It was too risky to bring him home to meet Ma and Pa just yet. I needed time to sort out whether Dante could actually be trusted. Best-case scenario, he was just lying to get me to go along with him. After all, a guard dragon in the face of a demon-infested world was awfully convenient.
I fiddled with the end of my braid. I used to dream about going on fantastic quests when I was a kid. Joining forces with the heroic band of explorers to vanquish a demon overlord or retrieve a priceless relic. The world had been full of adventure and possibility in the ancient stories my ma used to tell me about the time before Myva. With the gates wide open and the demons at large, the potential for exciting new experiences looked to be limitless.
Instead, fate saw fit to give me a fucking marriage of convenience.
Fate is such a bitch.
Alright, that’s enough of a pity party. It’s like Grandma Nutmeg always said: being a whiny little twat never solved anything. Well, that and how to hide the taste of arsenic in case your husband ever manhandles you.
Resigning myself to my fate, I stood and entered the music room. Dante’s head tilted in my direction and the music paused. “Um, hi,” I said with a wave.
He set the cello down and turned to me. “Cherry, sorry, did I wake you?”
Holy crows, so much chest.I bit the inside of my lip, trying to tear my mind away from the descent into madness that was Dante without a shirt. Light brown skin stretched over sculpted muscles. The only blemish belonging to a few scars on his stomach. Which, somehow, made it worse. Gods, I wanted to run my tongue along each—
FOCUS WOMAN. GODS.
“Oh, no,” I said, waving him off. “I just couldn’t sleep. Then I heard the music and came to check it out. You play beautifully.” Looking around the room, I spotted the piano I’d heard before. But no one was around it. “I thought I heard piano music alongside your cello. Who was playing?”
He glanced at the piano feet away from him. “No one.”
“Pardon?” I asked.
He waved his hand at the piano, and a soft tune started playing. “It’s enchanted. If you play something on it once, it will remember the keys and repeat the song back at your command.”
Right, myhusbandowns an enchanted castle. I should’ve guessed as much from the floating clap-on candles. “So, do you know if it will be morning soon? I don’t think I will be able to go back to sleep.”
