The Demon King’s Bride by Skye Wilson
Don
It was the happiest day of my life.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Roth.” I purred the words down at Bea as I smirked and stroked her cheekbone with my thumb. The moment was perfect except for the fact that I was still having to use her pathetic fiancé’s surname.
Still. She was mine now. If this was the charade I had to play in order to keep her, so be it. I would play it well. No one else here had even noticed that Simon Roth was no longer even in this realm.
“Who the fuck are you?” she hissed back up at me in return.
I chuckled.
Well. Almost no one.
Of course, Bea had realized that whoever I was, I certainly wasn’t her idiot of a groom.
Seeing her walking down the aisle toward me in her tight white gown and her lace veil had excited me enough to make my glamor slip for a moment. I was lucky she looked so stunning. Everyone else’s eyes had been entirely on her.
And kissing her had felt so good, so damn right… I knew I’d lost hold of glamor again, even though I’d tried not to let it. Not too much, at least.
That time, the only person who’d been close enough to see through my disguise had been Bea herself.
“Come on.” I lowered my hand from the small of her back and let my fingertips brush against the perfect curve of her ass—just for a second—before I took her hand in mine again. “Can’t keep our guests waiting, can we?”
“Like hell we can’t.” She stumbled after me as I drew her back down the aisle. Thankfully, she kept her voice low enough that the others wouldn’t be able to hear her. The last thing we wanted right now was to make a scene. “These aren’t your guests.”
I snorted.
She was right about that.
“But they’re yours,” I reminded her, grinning as I hoisted her hand triumphantly into the air, clutched in mine. I spoke to her through my smile. “You don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of them, do you?”
“Fucking try me,” she growled back, digging in her heels.
I only laughed.
God, she was exceptional. Every bit the spitfire she’d been when I’d first fallen for her.
I couldn’t have chosen a better woman for my bride.
And whether she liked it or not—now, she was my bride.
I knew better than to take her up on her offer.
Instead, I swept her off her feet and took her into my arms.
“Put me down!” she insisted through her teeth. Her breath against my neck was a gorgeous wash of humidity and warmth.
“Not on your life, darling.” I carried her the rest of the way down the aisle like a knight in shining armor. I was Lancelot, and she was my Guinevere. “Now, smile for the cameras.”
Bea turned her face just in time to see the photographer waiting for us at the end of the aisle. His vintage camera flashed, capturing us forever in that moment.
It was the first of many pictures for our wedding album. Later, when the photographer developed it, he’d probably be surprised to find how shocked Bea looked in the photo—
But he’d be even more surprised when he realized that based on this photo, and every other taken today, he’d somehow misremembered the color of Simon Roth’s hair and the wicked charm of Simon Roth’s smile.
For a moment, it might even occur to him that the man holding sweet Beatrice in his arms in these photos might not be Simon Roth at all—and he’d be right.
While the guestswere guided off to their cocktail hour, Bea and I gathered with the wedding party and the families in the rose garden for more pictures. I kept her close to my side for all of them.
Now that she was mine, it wouldn’t do to have her go wandering off. Or, for that matter, running away.
“What’s wrong, darling?” I asked her in between shots. It was a dick move, sure—but while I was still pretending to be Simon, I was hardly pretending to be a saint. “You look unsettled.”
“Gee,” she snapped back at me quietly. With her family gathered all around us, I supposed she didn’t want to risk raising her voice. “Wonder why?”
“Aren’t you happy?” I paused and put my arm around her, fashioning my lips into a photogenic grin once more as the photographer counted down for another shot. I relaxed again after the camera had flashed. “It’s your wedding day, after all.”
“Oh, I’m ecstatic.” As my hand wandered from her hip down to her ass, Bea grabbed my wrist and hauled my fingers back up into place. “Can’t you tell?”
“I’m glad to hear it. As your husband, your happiness is paramount to me.”
“That’s so sweet of you, darling.” Bea’s eyes flicked up to meet mine for a moment. Her voice dropped to the breathiest of whispers. “Except that you’re not my husband.”
“No?”
“No,” Bea said through a plastered-on smile. The camera flashed again. “You’re a fucking faker.”
“Am I?” I pulled back from her slightly to arch an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Some kind of technology, I suppose.” Bea glowered at me for a moment, but already the photographer was snapping his fingers to demand more smiling. More staring into his bright, shiny lens. “Who are you working for, I wonder? One of Leviathan Financial’s competitors?”
“No, but good guess.” I love the way your mind works, I wanted to tell her, but it would have only sidetracked our current conversation. She’d always had such an imagination. Unfortunately, it was currently working in the wrong direction. My disguise wasn’t a thing of science fiction; it was far closer to fantasy. “It’s strange, though.”
“You wearing my fiancé’s skin?” She snorted. “Finally, something you and I can agree on.”
“No.” My smile in the next photo was a smug one. “What I mean is, if you really cared about your so-called fiancé, you might have first asked me what I did with him.”
Bea’s lips fell open as she turned to me again. She looked surprised at herself for a moment. Then, her brows dropped back into a scowl. “I do care about him.”
“Is that so?” As I recalled, she’d seen him as a bratty child who needed to be put in a good, long time-out. Which is exactly what I’d been more than happy to provide him with. “You really believe that?”
“It is, and I do,” she insisted, but I wasn’t buying it.
Partly because I knew her better than that.
Partly because she didn’t even look convinced herself.
“If that was the case, then why did you go through with your vows?” I asked through another smile. Another photo. Another flash. “Why did you let me go through with mine? Why didn’t you run?”
“I thought you were him,” she snapped. “I didn’t want to make a scene.”
“Please, Bea. We both know that’s not true. I know you saw me. The real me.”
“I thought I was hallucinating. Now, I know better.”
“Or, an even better question still—” I looked down at her and ran my thumb across her lower lip. Luscious and dangerously kissable. Just like every other part of her. “Why did you let me kiss you like you were my very own personal whore?”
The camera flashed again. I was eager to see how that photo in particular turned out.
I imagined it captured her perfectly. An exquisite mixture of furious, stunned, and gorgeously turned on.
“I told you. I thought you were him.” Bea turned her face away from me. “As it turns out, I thought wrong.”
I took her chin between my knuckle and my thumb and turned her face back up towards mine.
“Then you must love him deeply.”
Bea frowned. “And why do you say that?”
“Because.” My smile was wicked again, and so was I. “If you didn’t, I can’t imagine any reason why you would have kissed me back quite like that.”
Bea stared up at me for a long moment, her brown eyes full of disparate things. Confusion. Shame. Anger. Lust—at the memory of how good that kiss had felt, maybe. Frustration. Confusion again.
I watched her cycle through each emotion until she finally settled on one.
Anger.
“I don’t know who you are, but you’re a fucking bastard,” she snarled up at me.
“Something else we can agree on,” I said with a smirk. “But remember, I may be a bastard, but you’re the one who married me.”
I could tell she wanted to slap me long before the photographer finally dismissed us from our photo session.
It was a show of immense personal strength, in my opinion, that she was able to wait until they were all gone before she finally drew her hand back and laid the smack across my cheek.
“I married Simon. Not you,” she spat, then turned and stormed off.
I rubbed my cheek and smiled, watching her walk away for a long moment before I followed after her.
Oh, yes. She was furious with me.
Good thing I liked her when she was angry.
Always had. Always would.