Hornblower: The Duchess And The Devil Novels & Stories

“My wife’s play. Not mine.” The words hit Dante like a slap. Livia wasn’t his wife. Hadn’t been for a long time. She was something sharper now. Something he couldn’t own. Final round. Dante laid down a pair of aces. His smile was thin, triumphant. Livia turned over her cards slowly. Three queens. Dante’s face crumpled. “That’s not possible.” “It’s called bluffing,” Livia said, voice low. “You taught me that. Remember?”

The servant stepped back and, in one command, ordered the midwives to cut through the duchess's abdomen. ‘But we can’t do that. She has to give birth natur-’ her words were cut short as a shadow appeared from the darkness and wrapped invisible hands around her neck and lifted her until she was hanging loosely in the air. The second midwife got on her knees immediately and fumbled through her apron for her birthing knife. Her hands were trembling as she tried to cut smoothly through the duchess's abdomen, but the tears that blurred her eyes wouldn’t even let her do a perfect job.

I do not succed, but the pain and betrayal I see in those blue depths are very, very real. Maybe Devon Lachlan isn't such an evil man after all. Maybe he is just being misunderstood. "Is that why you always threaten to take Dorchester away?" At the mention of Dutch, a shutter comes over his features. "Keep Dutch out of this conversation, miss Fernandez." His tone is smooth and non questioning, but his eyes say something else. My mouth snaps shut immediately. The music becomes more sexually provocative, the singer's voice dipping in beautiful lows and highs. Devon becomes bolder. His palm splays over my back, inching upwards untill he's completely running it over the length of my skin.

Why do I have to suffer a barbarian life? In the process of falling in love, I lost everything in his hands. My heart failed to discern the devil in human form. And look where he plonked me. *********** This book is purely fictional. All characters are only author's imagination. There is no resemblance with any living person. Lastly, this book contains some non consensual scene that can be upsetting.

He raised an eyebrow and she glared at him. Duchess Evelyn was considered a seductress and the most beautiful woman in valeria.. She is undoubtedly a warrior and also the Prince's mate . "What do you mean by that? You belong to me alone! And I don't care if you're married to some fickle woman, I'm the only woman in your heart and you and I know you can't change that!" She brought her lips to his neck and trailed her tongue on his bare neck making him curse under his breath.

He looked at the young man, a very man of Denever who immediately recover from shock. “So the devil-” he gritted his teeth when he realize the glare coming from the woman who lecture him earlier. He laughed like a madman and stood highly, forgetting the reason of why he even here this moment. “Spotlight never failed to be reliable as ever,” he said, narrating a damn thing. “You, for sure has decide to show that despicable horns of yours, Coplete.”

Thinking that there was a quite huge possibility that the cold-blooded butcher would buy her, Lili felt like a fishbone had been stuck in her throat. Even though the Duke looked handsome and fresh outside, it wouldn’t matter if his insides were rotten. Lili bit her lips and waited for the old lady’s reply. She hoped that the old headmistress could think of a solution for her current source of trouble. The duke. The man that had been dubbed as the ‘Butcher of the North’. She didn’t wish for a bloody duke as a sponsor, especially if the man was someone infamous for killing young ladies… like her. She wished some dragon would just swoop her away and be done with it.

She was shocked but didn't reject it. "Take care. Don't get killed or my lady wouldn't stop crying" "I will." … The Duke scowls as he had let Florence outsmart him with an Ice wall enchantment. A class A dangerous spell that used life essence to equate the impact of its blast. Florence used his remaining life to enact the spell and blew them out of proportion. He should have seen it coming but he was so filled with anger that hadn’t taken into account Florence's sly nature. When the blast happened, he was the closest one in range and therefore had the biggest contact. Although he cushioned most of the blow with a body hardening, he could not handle all of it. Leaving him unconscious for a fe

Reive pursed his lips, about to snort. “You think that should excite me?” he asked, completely forgetting etiquette. “I think it should excite you that the future queen’s doing you honor.” Livia answered calmly. “And we both being necromancers. There’s nothing more sexual than knowledge. Power. And in this castle there isn’t anyone who can measure their strength with me,” she finished imperiously and then added, “You can?” The next moment, the duchess waved her hands in the air, and the Dark wound round her fingers, turning into a second skin. For some seconds, she resembled a bone golem. With a sudden move, she seized Reive’s neck, squeezing his throat mercilessly.

Even if Roseanne is a human, she still outranks a luna by several ranks and hurting a Duchess is akin to declaring a war. “Vronsky will be pleased,” Lucianna claims. “To think that we can hand over an unmarked Duchess to him! It is a good thing that we were offered a good amount of creds to get rid of this wench. Vronsky is known to bed virgins. We can sell her off to him and earn more.” “How did you manage to do this, Luna?” the guard asks.