Novel & Cerita Hornblower: The Duchess And The Devil

Lucien slowly raised his cane. Pointing… Not at Daniel. Not at Elena. Not at Noah. Not at Grace. Not at Lily. He pointed directly at Damien. The world stopped. “No…” Damien said quietly. Lucien smiled. “Oh yes.” “You were never just the Devil…” “You were Sophia’s greatest secret.”

And this time, I wasn't going to play games. We sat together in the study room, now filled with shattered glass and traces of war. I cleaned my weapons with mechanical but focused movements. Isabella sat beside me, carefully tending to the wound on my arm. "How are we going to fight them, Alex?" she asked quietly. "They know everything about us. They know this house, they know your every move." I smirked, a dangerous, crooked smile forming on my lips. "They think they know everything, but they are wrong. They don't know that the Alexander Volkov they knew died today. What exists now is just a Devil who has lost everything and is ready to destroy anyone in his path."

“And what happened after? He protected her. Stood over her like she was worth more than the blood you bled. Tell me—did any of you feel protected tonight?” A few heads shook, shoulders stiff with resentment. “Exactly.” Luca leaned forward, his voice low but carrying. “Dante was blinded. And blindness kills quicker than bullets. While he bleeds for her, you bleed for him. And she? She doesn’t even have to lift a knife.” The whispers thickened, heavier now. “She’s cursed.” “A witch.” “Since she came, death follows.” Luca’s smirk deepened. “You want to know what she really is?” He set his glass down with a sharp clink. “She is the Devil’s Bride. And brides… they destroy their grooms.”

A chain of silk, no less binding for its elegance. That evening, he summoned a small gathering, select nobles, guards’ captains, men, and women who still feared uncertainty more than tyranny. I attended, silent, listening. He spoke of rebuilding order, of laws strengthened, of serpents hunted from their holes. But every word was woven with mine, my name tethered to his vision. “The duchess brings fire,” he declared, his voice ringing. “But fire needs stone to contain it, lest it burn the realm to ash. I am that stone. She, that flame. Together, unshakable.”

"There has been some mistake. This man was trying to secure me to rebel against you, but I would never…" The dirty man pulled out a pristine handkerchief and began wiping the smut off his face and teeth. He pulled off his long matted wig to reveal a close cropped haircut underneath. "What do you say, General Nurlan? Were you inciting this woman to rebel?" Zan asked. Nurlan furrowed his brow. "All I did was ask her intentions. The Duchess did all the rebelling herself." Ravenna was dumbstruck. She had been careful. Yet the man before her was a general, not a pirate, and the Empress herself had witnessed the duchess's treachery. The question escaped her lips, "How?"

“and I would win it.” And as the Duchess stares into Lord Brandon’s face, she discovers, that there is something frightening like no other nightmare in the world could replicate, in a devotion like this. An ardent, zealous, terrifying brand of devotion, one that is more befitting of a creature they call the Shadowed Beast than a man. For better, or for worse. The man - the monster - to whom she had bartered off her own daughter, with thoughts of a hundred and thirty thousand lives, and hundreds of thousands more.

Seeing her stun face, yet all too eager to listen, he finished the tale by telling. “Seeing such Alice told the Cook to mind herself, and even tries to change the topic by telling about the earth’s axis. But the Duchess misheard her and thinks that she meant about axes. Alas, the Duchess screams of ‘Chop off her head!’ then she starts to sing a nasty lullaby.” Stopping with that word as Chantal is taken blankly somewhere. He then drew his signature cunning smile and whispers. “Do not worry, everything is just a game after all. And in the middle of that game it just comes that you are one of the needed sacrifices, Chantal.”

"Hmm, yes, no matter who he is, he can't actually be a devil, right? Tanya asked back as she didn't know why Lydia was acting that way about the devil. "The devil, a man who came from the deepest part of hell, a man whose face as beautiful as that of adonis, his body cannot be more perfect, his voice as deep and enticing as an angels voice, but personality like the devil. His smile can freeze one's heart and may even cause the person to die. It is rumoured that those who had seen that sinister smile either had fallen into a tragic trauma or better still died tragically. The devil is no other than Alexander quinn.

She snickered. My eyes widened at the mention of the Duchesses name. Duchess Von Keem was a cruel ruthless woman. She would do anything to remain as the prince's soon to be wife. I heard she slapped a count’s daughter just for admiring the prince during a hunting tournament. It was said that Lady Meroux gave the prince a favor. That was why she received a harsh smack from the Duchess. The rumors say that the bruising lasted weeks

My dragon clawed around the base of the tree wanting to finish the job. “Why are you here?” As much as my hunch told me they were looking for Odessa, I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe they were hunting someone else. “Some slave to the Duke in Vamparia,” he rasped. “Please let me go.” I snarled, my fire burning into my neck. “What slave?” I pushed. “A girl named Odessa. She is the Duke’s old blood bag. She is supposed to become the duchess. Taking her as a mate,” his breathing labored, spat out blood from his mouth. Blood pooled at the base of the tree, surely a gash in his gut.