Page 23 of Ashwood (Wallflowers and Demons #1)

BEAUTIFUL THINGS

KATHERINE

H e does not see that I am awake. He is taken with home. The road narrows and the gravel turns fine. Close to dusk, the rain begins to mist the village in silver haze.

One carriage ahead, I glimpse Williams whose shoulders are rigid beneath his cloak.

Nora shifts beside me. “Is this it?”

Her voice is soft. Tired. She refuses to be separated from me after the forest.

Dorian nods. “We’ve arrived.”

A woman in an apron steps out of a small shop, wiping her hands on her skirt. She stops dead when she sees us. Her eyes fall on the first carriage, and her mouth parts just slightly. She notices the golden crests and finery. The loaf of bread in her hands thuds into the mud.

“His Grace has returned,” she mouths with wide eyes.

One by one, more appear—at doors, behind curtains, stepping onto stoops. A few children play at the centre, and a few mothers carry laundry.

Our line of carriages rolls uphill past, until Ashwood Castle looms above us, half-swallowed by mist, its tallest tower peeking a sliver above the low-hanging clouds.

The courtyard groans open, made of crumbled half-men and beasts. No one speaks as we pass through the gates.

The carriages slow to a stop.

A figure stands at the top of the steps. Mr. Thomas. The underbutler, Tall, black-haired, and still as iron.

Behind him, the others emerge. All of them wait in a line. The door opens before I can reach for it. Williams, the valet, offers a hand. His fingers are cold.

“Duchess,” he says simply.

I step down.

Dorian’s already moving. He walks straight past the staff without a word, his boots echo off wet stone.

Thomas inclines his head. “Your Grace. Welcome home.”

Dorian disappears into the castle.

“I shall explain everything,” Everly says quickly as he dismounts and hurries inside.

Thomas’s eyes widen. “Is there trouble on the horizon?”

“Mmmm,” the butler simply grunts. “Go, we’ve business.”

Nora lingers behind me, wide-eyed. She flinches when Mrs. Grange brushes past her.

Nora bumps my arm gently. “We should go in.”

I nod, forcing my feet to move.

Behind me, the staff return to their duties.

The corridor is narrower and colder than I expected. Each one is more cavernous than the last. ‘Tis a castle of immense size.

Oil lamps light damp stone walls hanging with paintings of old Dukes past. Mrs. Grange walks ahead without looking back. “Your chambers are at the end.”

Nora shuffles close behind me, holding my damp cloak. “Do you want me to stay until you settle in?”

I shake my head. “No. Thank you, though.”

“Your Grace.”

Nora quickly departs.

Mrs. Grange stops at a heavy oak door, ornate but scarred. She pushes it open, and the hinges groan.

Inside, the room is warm, scented with old parchment. A fire crackles in the hearth. A thick carpet muffles footsteps. The four-poster bed is draped in deep lavender and heavy curtains are pulled back to reveal a narrow window overlooking the misty grounds.

“You’ll want a bath,” Mrs. Grange says, crossing to a corner where a copper tub gleams. “Nora will help you.”

I nod and start to unpack the small bag I brought, with my hands trembling, grateful to be out of that cursed forest.

Grange studies me with sharp eyes. “Ashwood is no place for weakness, Duchess. The ball’s preparations have begun. Politics will follow.”

I swallow. “I’m ready.”

She nods once and leaves.

The door barely clicks shut before the silence presses in. I’m alone.

I rise and cross to the window, pulling aside the curtain. Below, the village is quiet but alive, shadows moving under the moon's shadow.

“Lady Katherine.”

I turn to find William waiting in the doorway, a soft smile warming his freckled face.

“These are the day’s schedule for His Grace,” he says, holding out a folded sheet of paper. “Meetings with the staff, discussions on the ball, and… other guests.”

Other guests. I blink. The prince, Gabriel, Bow Street Runners.

I take the paper. “I give my thanks. “

William nods.

Later, in the dim glow of the library, I am introduced to more of the staff. As Mr. Everly presides over the group, we are all in consensus.

The ball must be perfect.

The town must believe the Duke is in control. Guests must not suspect what hides beneath.

I stand beside Dorian, sensing the growing animosity between him and Gabriel.

“Dorian, how long can we keep this up? What if we are discovered. We have no plan for escape or how to save the people. Will we perish trying to save Ashwood?”

“We will try. It is our duty.”

With that he sends the staff on their way, the meeting is now adjourned.

That night, I hesitate before the door to the halfway room. Candlelight leaks out from the slits beneath. When I enter, I find Dorian already there, seated in his chair, hands wrapped around a glass of brandy. The windowless corridor smells of old books and jasmine candle.

“Come in,” he says softly. “I was not expecting you.”

The door closes behind me and I make my way to my chair adjacent him before the fireplace at the centre.

A tray sits between us, made with delicacies of fresh fruits, tarts, cheeses and cured meats.

“I hoped you’d share a light supper and a night cap with me.”

I take the glass he offers and our fingers brush. I remember the night with our cigars. Embarrassed, I pull it away. The fire is crackles, throwing shadows across the stone floor. I pull the throw over my skirted thighs, and my feet tucked underneath me. I sip the brandy and it burns in my chest.

Dorian sits opposite, one hand cradling a glass, the other clenched into a fist on his thigh. He’s been silent for a long time. Thinking, calculating. Dreading.

“They’ll all be waiting,” he finally says.

I shift to look at him. “Who?”

He doesn’t lift his gaze.

“The court. The other houses. The empire. Everyone who still thinks I’m just a damaged man with a title. They’ll be watching for the one thing that matters.”

I already know the answer. Still, I ask.

“What?”

“An heir.”

He says it like a curse. I can’t help but be offended. I don’t say what I think.

What if it’s rabid?

What if it grows teeth before it draws breath?

What if it kills me?

I press a hand to my stomach without meaning to. It’s flat. Still. A graveyard or a cradle — I don’t know yet.

He presses his hands to his face, tired from the days events.

“You said you wanted me to send me away,” I remind him.

He lowers his glass.

“It is the right thing to do…”

“Then promise me,” I say. “If it comes to that — if I die bearing your heir — if there is a child...”

“Don’t.”

His voice is sharp now.

“Promise me,” I implore, “that you will choose the babe at least and raise him.”

But he doesn’t respond.

His hands tremble.

Dorian might now weep for me, but if I might die birthing a child, at least something pure and beautiful might come from us.

Then, without warning, he leans over, grips my armchair and pulls me closer to him. It screams loudly over the floorboards.

My breath catches.

“Dorian…”

He’s warm when his fingers touch my cheek, and those eyes —human eyes — devours me.

“I do not wish to speak of misery…” he whispers. His hands trace the curve of my back. But then, beneath my skin, his muscles tense, his breath grows ragged. “Misery, it is dust against my cock.”

His eyes flash silver, veins glowing beneath the skin. He stifles a growl, pulls me closer, trying to contain it. His hands shake.

I pull away, but it’s too late,

I have wounded him enough. Teased him enough. Said the thing we were never meant to say — that I might carry his child. That I might want to.

The monster… he is coming.

“You speak of seed, and I will drench you, wicket harlot.”

His jaw locks and a growl shudders through him. I try to draw back, but he presses his face against my throat. His breath is hot and wet, laced with feral heat. His hand grips my wrist as he glares, unblinking, his lip twitching as he grows beneath me, and the skin on his cheek turns blood-red.

“You want it? Say it.”

I try to pull away but cannot.

“Dorian—”

“Say you want me to fill you till I leak down your thighs.”

“I-I—”

He does not wait for a complete response. The carnal part of him, lifts me in one sudden, vicious pull and drops me down into his lap. His cock, thick and pulsing, shoves against the wet heat between my thighs. I gasp, loud and helpless, as he drives deeper.

I seize around him. My eyes roll back.

It is too much and too deep all at once.

He thrusts again, and again, growling against my skin, hips jerking as he buries himself.

“Take every drop,” he snarls. “Stain the floor.”

Liquid slick already coats our skin — both mine and his. It spreads, soaking the inside of my thighs as he fucks up into me.

My body trembles, stretched and swollen, desperate and hungry for every inch.

“Ripe,” I groans. “Dripping. My seed running down your legs at court.”

I whimper. “Yes.”

His claws sink into my hips. Deep enough to draw blood. I wince aloud. He is at his mind’s edge.

He ascends deeper with each jerk beneath me, spine contorting against mine as the beast emerges, skin blood red. His mouth opens in a wordless scream as he empties himself with me.

It is not one pulse, it is a torrent, hot, thick, and endless. It coat my insides, and gush out around him, spilling down his thighs and mine. I rock against him, riding the wave of it, while his claws twitch and his eyes dip to blackened coals.

I throw my head back as I convulse around him, chocking his rigid cock until ecstasy spends itself.

Dorian doesn’t stop.

He can’t stop.

It floods me.

Despite knowing the truth of what it means, that I am a chalice of ruin. I take him all.

Only when he slumps, exhausted and panting, do I lean forward and press my cheek against his.

Already, the demon abates with his cock still hard inside me. We are soaked along with the chair beneath us.

“How will we explain this to maids?”

He holds me, trembling, and then, he laughs.

KATHERINE

There are cages surrounding me, filled with more than one bird as I write the list of supplies, along with the notes. Dorian, who stands behind me, pulls a leather-bound volume from the shelf.

“Did you know,” he begins, “that these islands were once part of a unified defense system? Two halves of a greater whole — Ashwood and Wexmoore — linked by a network of signals and messengers long before our time.”

Leaning forward in my chair, I nod for him to continue as Iscratching at the parchment.

“In the dark ages, when raids came from the sea, the castles stood vigilant. The forests you now fear were once guarded paths, patrolled by sentinels. And the waters between? Treacherous, jagged rocks made passage dangerous — but necessary.”

He gestures toward a faded illustration of the two islands, connected by lines and symbols.

“The need for swift communication has always remained.”

He picks up a small leather pouch, releasing a soft flutter as a pigeon emerges and settles on his wrist.

“And Wexmoore, he will not ask questions of why?”

“He knows who I am, Katherine. There are no secrets between us. The islands are brothers forged from blood and war.”

“His Grace, he knows of your secret?”

Dorian nods. “He must. We are inextricably linked.”

Upon finishing the list, Dorian rolls up the thin piece of paper, lighter and thinner than I am used to.

“It is so unusually thin."

Dorian spreads the parchment before me, but it’s unlike any I’ve seen. It’s as thin and almost translucent, yet sturdy enough to hold ink without a blot.

“This is your genius,” I say, running a finger over the delicate sheet. “Tis light as air.”

He smiles and beams with pride. “The carrier pigeons can bear only so much. Heavy messages slow them and make them vulnerable. This paper allows us to send longer instructions without risking delay.”

I nod, imagining the birds darting between Ashwood and Wexmoore, swift as shadows across the night sky. “So every detail for the ball, the supplies, the poison runs—all can be sent at once?”

Dorian leans closer. “Precisely. Efficiency will be our shield until the forest yields.”

“How long will it be before this… opens for go od?”

He adjusts his cravat and gestures with a steady hand. “The tides here are governed by the moon’s passing, as you know. Twice each day, the water falls to its lowest, uncovering the causeway for several hours. But that window is brief — six to eight hours under normal conditions.”

I frown. “Six hours hardly seems enough to move all our supplies — let alone carriages and horses.”

He smiles. “Ah, but that is where Ashwood’s secret lies. The seabed beneath the way slopes gently upward — far more gradual than common shores. It means the stones are revealed earlier, and remain dry for longer than one might expect.”

He points toward the horizon.

“During the spring tides — when the moon is new or full — the water retreats even further. This stretch remains exposed not merely for hours, but for days. Near a full week, if fortune holds.”

I blink in surprise. “Days? A week? That is… miraculous.”

Dorian nods. “It is a rare gift of geography — one the old builders exploited when they constructed the causeway in ages past. The stones were laid carefully, designed to endure the constant wash of tides, even made with a roughened surface to guard against slipperiness.”

“And the horses?” I ask, still doubtful. “Surely their hooves might slip upon the smooth stone?”

“Indeed, which is why their shoes are specially fitted — iron with cleated grips. Every detail is accounted for. Even the carriages bear reinforced wheels to handle the uneven stones.”

I glance back at the path, imagining the procession of horses and wagons creeping slowly across the gleaming causeway, surrounded by the soft glow of lanterns and plankton light.

“It must be beautiful,” I say quietly.

He smiles again.

“You will see it, Katherine. The way will open, and the first crates will roll in. The village will whisper of the marvel and so will the Prince.”

“I think I know how to light the way.”

Dorian’s smile deepens, amused and intrigued.

“Do tell.”

“You’ll see.”