His bride.

So, this is what he wants from me, to keep me in his house as his little pet, his deliciae, and do things to my body while I assist in his work. Is this what he’s been waiting for all these years, alone, with only a lich for company? What if I’d married someone else? I’m old enough to be married. Didn’t he ever consider the passing years and worry that I might not come to him?

But no, he knew no man would want a woman branded by darkness.

I’ve envisioned my life as a lonely spinster many times and I accepted my fate as wholly as I once accepted death. But now a different future presents itself to me: a life as the necromancer’s bride.

In bed that night my mind paints pictures for me. Lying in Meremon’s arms, in Meremon’s bed. Being pleasured by him the way he used the slime to pleasure me. It’s a terrible, frightening image but there’s a pounding between my legs as I imagine his cold fingers stroking me like the dead hand did in my dreams. I wonder if Meremon’s dead, or nearly so, and if that’s why he’s so cold and his heart beats barely three times a minute.

This is how lonely I am, that I can entertain thoughts of Meremon even as I fear him.

If I hadn’t come to him perhaps he would have gone down into the village for me. I imagine how the villagers would have gawped at him as he walked among them, his striking looks thrown into stark relief by the mundanity of the surroundings. I picture him finding me in the market square, the coldly handsome sorcerer, and taking my hand to kiss my palm in front of everyone. And then leading me away with him, forever, because I’m chosen. Because I’m special. Because I’m his.

I turn over in bed, despairing. Am I so starved for touch and affection that I can take pleasure in the thought of this bizarre man saving me from my own home?

The truth finds me easily in the dark. Yes.

Meremon and I speak little over the next few days, working together in his laboratory in silence. I clean and tidy the benches and bookshelves in between slicing this, grinding that. He seems to have a lot to do. I have no idea what he’s up to.

I left the jar of slime in his laboratory and we both pretend not to notice it sitting there. Or maybe Meremon really doesn’t notice it, wrapped up in his work as he is.

One morning I wake to cramping pain across my abdomen and I know my bleeding has come. The pain is particularly bad this month and I have to drag myself out of bed, shaking and clammy. I can’t manage even to dress and I sink back down onto the mattress, thinking only of curling up in the dark around the pain, my arms clutched over my belly.

Filax shuffles into the room a few hours later. I watch him through slitted eyes as he hovers uncertainly. A few minutes later he leaves me alone.

I fall into a doze and wake to find someone standing over me. Not Filax, but Meremon.

“Are you ill?”

I nod. “I will be all right soon.”

He pulls my arms away from my belly and rolls me onto my back. “Is it your stomach? Did you eat something in the laboratory you weren’t supposed to? You must be careful, deliciae. There are many poisons.” He places his palm flat against my belly, feeling gently.

I push him away, aware that I’m only wearing my thin chemise. “It’s not poison. This is normal. You know. For women.”

Meremon frowns deeper and I feel myself blush scarlet. If I have to explain the menses to a grown man I will hurl myself out of the window.

A moment later he slips his hands beneath me and picks me up in his arms. He carries me down the stairs while I stare at him, bewildered.

“What are you doing? Put me down and let me sleep, will you?”

He ignores me and I start to struggle. “Don’t be so agitated, my Rhona. Ah, but you are in pain, aren’t you? I shall help you relax. Soporus.”

Instantly a feeling of heaviness comes over my limbs and I sag against him. He carries me into his laboratory and lays me out on one of his long workbenches where he performs his strange experiments.

I’ve become one of his experiments.

My limbs are weighed down by an invisible force and I can barely move. Meremon busies himself around me, clearing the space and placing his rolled up cloak beneath my head.

“Why do you torture me?” I whisper through numb lips.

He strokes my hair back from my face. “I do not torture you. On the contrary I hate to see you suffer. You shouldn’t accept being in pain like this. I don’t accept it.”

Why must he be so loving as he’s being so strange? I have wanted this so badly and it’s not fair that the tenderness I’ve craved comes from a man like him. I’m too weak not to be moved by him.

Shameful tears prickle in my eyes. Meremon sees them and kisses my brow, his long hair brushing my cheek. “I tasted your tears. I know what those people did to you and I wish I could have stopped them. You will know no more loneliness, my Rhona. No more sadness and dark nights. I have you now.”

He takes hold of my chemise and it melts as he pulls it asunder, exposing my breasts. His eyes drink their loving fill of me. “I’ve taken you away from those who don’t deserve you and I will treasure you all your days.”

“You’re cruel,” I whisper, and my eyes blur with more tears both from his sweet words and hungry eyes.

“How am I cruel? I want only to give you pleasure.” He squeezes my left breast and takes it into his mouth, sucking slowly. My nipple pebbles in his cold mouth and I feel the exquisite strokes of his tongue. Everything feels over-sensitized and I can’t move, only breathe.

Meremon undoes my drawers, spotted with blood, and tugs them down my legs. He spreads my legs and looks at me and I turn my face away. How can he look at me so adoringly in this state? Or at all? What is pretty or lovely about it? I expect him to touch me there but instead he turns away and picks up a jar, examining its contents. Something large and alive is flopping about in the bottom.

“What is that?” I whisper hoarsely, my eyes wide.

“It is Hirudo immanis. The monstrous leech.” Meremon tips it out onto his palm and it’s fleshy and off-white and the thickness of three men’s fingers. “But don’t let the name frighten you. It will not hurt you.”

He turns briskly to me. Or rather, my parted legs, and approaches me with the writhing creature. Its mouth parts are rows of pulsating teeth and I realize he means to put it on me. Put it in me.

“No—Meremon—that’s—ah—” I try to squirm away but his enchantment is too strong. I feel the creature wriggle against my sex and then, scenting blood, begin to burrow inside me. I let out a high moan and squeeze my eyes shut. Why is he doing this? The leech’s flexible body squeezes through my tight entrance and pulsates against my inner walls.

“Stop it, please,” I beg him.

Meremon glances up at me. “Do not fret. It will not go so deep as to break your maidenhood.”

The last thing I’m thinking about is my maidenhood as I anticipate the enormous leech biting into my hidden flesh. Meremon places a hand on my hip, stroking me in what I suppose he thinks is a comforting manner as he watches his disgusting creature worming its way into me. It doesn’t hurt—yet, at least—but it’s the strangest sensation I’ve ever experienced.

Meremon keeps stroking me, and then he moves his hand lower, down over my pubic bone to brush against my sex. He strokes again, his thumb rubbing through my folds. “You are so beautiful, my Rhona.”

He leans down and kisses me there, his lips gentle as the leech still pulsates within me. Then his tongue slides against my swollen pearl and I moan despite myself. He’s cold like the slime but he feels more intense. He sucks my little nub into his mouth and rolls it against his tongue, making me cry out.

Meremon is the very devil and yet he makes me feel like heaven.

I can feel the creature still wriggling inside of me and my inner walls clench around it, as if delighted with its presence. The ache in my belly is dissipating as the golden strokes of Meremon’s tongue take over. I hate that I love how he makes me feel. That his sweet cruelty is more tender than anything I’ve felt my whole life.

I can feel myself approaching that precipice again and even the dreadful leech feels good. There’s no pain, only Meremon licking my sex and his hands caressing my breasts. I close my eyes and just feel, unable to do anything else, unable to even hate him or fear him as the waves of sensation roll over me.

His thumbs pinch my nipples softly as I reach my peak, my back arching and my hips flexing against his mouth despite his enchantment. Meremon goes on licking me with long, slow strokes throughout the climax gripping my body. It’s stronger than ever this time and I feel myself squeeze the thick leech at my core.

Finally the tension passes off and I lie on the table, gasping. Meremon reaches down and tugs the leech out of me and after a moment of resistance it slides free.

Breathing hard but finally able to move I ease myself up onto my elbows and watch him examine the thing on his palm. There’s a smear of blood on it but thankfully none on Meremon’s mouth. Maybe there wasn’t much as I’d only just started.

“What are you going to use that for?” I ask with a shudder, eyeing the still writhing creature.

Meremon arches a long brow. “Use it? I have used it. It is filled with your pain.” He turns to the fireplace and throws the leech into the flames, and it sizzles and shrivels up.

Tenderly, he helps me sit up and gathers my chemise around me, the fabric melting back together at his silent command and covering my breasts. “I can’t have my bride suffering. You’ll never feel that pain again.”

I look at the fire and then back at him. “But how?”

He smiles, a delighted smile, and whispers, “Magic.”

Then he kisses me. I make a frustrated noise in the back of my throat and pull away. I know it’s magic but he’s a necromancer. I thought all they did was play with corpses. “I don’t understand anything that you do.”

“It is very simple. I wish to make you happy.”

I look down at the smoky star in my hand.

Seeing the direction of my gaze he traces the mark with his forefinger. “I wanted it to be this way. One who has accepted death is very beautiful to me.”

His arms are around me and he’s strong and cold and yet comforting at the same time, and he presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I only want to make you feel good, deliciae. I am trying to remember how and you must be patient with me. It’s been a long time since I’ve touched a living woman.”

I feel my flesh creep a little. A living woman. I don’t think I want to know. “You want me to feel…good?

“Yes. To experience a sensation that is pleasurable. To be aware of me through my touch.”

“I know what feeling good means,” I reply, exasperated. “I didn’t know that that was what you were trying to do.”

He’s more baffled than ever. “Why, yes. Is that not my duty as your husband, to give you pleasure and to take away your pain?”

The slime. The leech. I thought his intention was to experiment on me, to torture me. “Men in my village do not court women in these strange ways. And I’m not your wife. Next time you feel the need to come at me with a jar of slime or a giant leech at least tell me what your intentions are.”

“Next time,” he breathes. He puts his fingers beneath my chin and presses his cold lips to mine. “My deliciae, my Rhona. I had forgotten how wonderful it is to be wanted.”

I open my mouth to say that’s not what I meant but he covers my lips with his again, his cold tongue sliding into my mouth.

What would the villagers say if they could see us now, me in the arms of the necromancer? His mouth on mine. His cold hands squeezing my breasts.

Sorcerer’s slut.

I draw away from him with a shiver. “You’re so cold. Are you dead?”

His expression is rueful. “I am a little dead, and a little cursed.”

I wonder how a person can be a little dead, and a little cursed, but he seems lost in thought, his arms tight around me. I let my cheek rest against him, enjoying the cold strength of his body. No one can see. No one will call me names if I let him hold me in secret.

“I will find a way to make her mine, my virgin bride,” he says to himself. “I must find a way, now that I know how much she wants me.”