Текст книги "Prince of Demons"

Автор книги: Nora Ash

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Only he was gone.

As was his father.

Lord Maell remained at the foot of the dais, hands clasped behind his back—clearly left in charge of the rest of her courting.

With a deep breath, she turned back to the demon who thought she looked lovely in blood. “And who might you be, then?”

After eight lords, it was becoming clear that Lord Iye was accurate in his prediction. So far she'd asked them all, point blank, what would happen if she turned down their advances once mated, and thanks to the rules of the courting ceremony, they answered her honestly.

Every single one confirmed that a ‘no’ from her when it came to sex would be ignored. They wrapped it in pretty words and promised she’d enjoy it, but at the core of each answer lay the same, inescapable truth: she would be raped. Repeatedly.

For the rest of her life.

The fire that had brought her into the room, head held high and determined to choose her own fate to the extent she could, faded a little more after each dance.

What choice was there to be had if the outcome would always be the same?

The queen may have done her best to lessen the trauma that came with being a demon’s Breeder, but even she was not powerful enough to change their very nature. Whichever male she chose, he would never view her as a person. Just a Breeder.

She looked up at the many faces eagerly vying for her attention and desperately tried to cling to the strength that had allowed her to face them before. It crumbled the harder she grasped for it. The faces began to blur—turning into one looming mass of black eyes and smiling mouths concealing sharp teeth behind pretty promises of devotion.

This was her life. There was no way out.

“Georgia?”

She jolted when someone gently wrapped a hand around her wrist. When she looked up, a familiar face frowned down at her.

Mallorn—Kesh’s Second.

“Kesh needs to see you. Now.” The last word was growled at the nearby lord, who’d been about to step in for his turn to court her. “She’ll be back shortly.”

“What’s the meaning of this? We’re in the middle of the ceremony! This is preposterous!” her would-be suitor snarled.

“You should bring that up with the prince, then. But I’d suggest you don’t—unless you also want to lose a limb. He’s in a foul mood today, which should be pretty fucking obvious. Or you can wait for twenty minutes, then get your chance to court the lady with your eyeballs still intact. Your call. Georgia, let’s go.”

Relief flooded her body. A small respite from the mass of males. As little as she wanted to see the prince right now, whatever Kesh wanted, it was serious enough to send the warrior he’d seemed like he wanted to murder only yesterday. And she was grateful for the intermission.

“Alright. Take me to him, then.”

His grip on her wrist tightened. Without another word, he led her out of the hall and away from the lords.

42

Georgia

Mallorn’s grip on her wrist remained gentle as he led her through the double doors and down a wide corridor. They passed several guards, each of them frowning at the demon by her side, but before any of them could open their mouths to ask, Mallorn growled, “Kesh wants to see her. Immediately.”

No one interjected as he guided her around the corner and into a room that looked like it had once been an office. A few dusty filing cabinets still sat abandoned in one corner, but outside of that, the room was empty.

Georgia frowned and turned back to Mallorn as he closed the door behind them. “Where’s Kesh?”

“He’s gone.” The demon finally released her wrist and went over to rummage through one of the filing cabinets.

Her heart did something strange in her chest. Lifted and dropped. “Gone?”

“He left. Alone. No guards. No backup.” His voice was tight but controlled. “He asked me to bring you to him. Quietly.”

Georgia stared at his back. This made no sense. The way he’d treated her, the way he’d given her up like she meant nothing to protect his family… “He… he asked you to, what? Smuggle me out?”

Mallorn paused in his rummaging. His shoulders tensed for a moment, then relaxed again. “Yes. Now, before it’s too late. He couldn’t do it alone—he’d never make it past the other lords with you. But I can. He asked for my help in getting you to him.”

“But… why?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

He scoffed softly. “You know why. He was inside you, Georgia. For a lord—especially someone like Kesh—there's no coming back from that. It’d be easier for him to live without his lungs than to let you go.”

The words hit her like a physical blow. Something behind her ribs cracked open—painful hope, too sharp and too sudden. Her breath caught, and she pressed a hand to her chest, as if she could hold the broken pieces of herself together long enough to almost believe him. “He… couldn’t let me go? But… everything he said… about his family being his priority? He invited all these lords here to court me.”

“He had to pretend to comply—his father wouldn’t stand for anyone or anything getting in the way of protecting Kain and his family. Not even Kesh. So this is the way it’s going to have to be. He will take you somewhere safe and hide you until the war is settled and no one can force you apart.” Mallorn turned back around toward her, now with a silky bundle of fabric in his hands retrieved from the old filing cabinet. He shook it out, revealing a gorgeous, smoky-silvered cape that looked like it’d been plucked straight out of a fairytale. “Here, put this on. It’s laced with invisibility runes, but it will only last a few hours. We need to be far away once the magic wears off. Come, Breeder. Let’s not dawdle.”

Kesh had planned this. He… he had chosen her over his family, after all. Her broken heart ached as something deep behind her ribs began to mend.

But as she stepped forward to reach for the cape, a whisper of guilt made her pull her hands back. “If he leaves and takes me with him… what will happen to them? The king and the queen? Will the other lords abandon them? And if Kesh isn't here to help⁠—?”

“You really are a soft soul,” he cut her off, but his voice was quiet, almost gentle. He held the cape out toward her. “They won’t know he took you. Once you are safe, he will return. And he will blame me, in league with the Europeans, for your disappearance. The other lords won’t know of his betrayal, and another instance of European treachery will only serve to strengthen American alliances. Once the war is won and the threat to the king has been eliminated, he will pretend to find and ‘rescue’ you, claiming to have needed to mate you to save your life. No one will suspect the truth.”

Her knees felt weak. This… this was real. Despite his pretenses not to, Kesh had felt it, too. The powerful pull between them. He’d broken her heart, but only to save them both, and his family, too. Breathing shakily, she let Mallorn put the cape around her shoulders and pulled the hood over her head. His finger brushed against her cheek, unnaturally warm despite his human disguise.

“And you… you are okay with taking the blame? What will happen to you?”

Mallorn exhaled, a joyless smile pulling on his lip. “My first loyalty, my first responsibility, is to my prince. The… dust-up we had yesterday may have looked serious, but it was only a moment of my instincts getting the better of me. Kesh knows that, and this is what he needs from me, and so this is what will be done. Don’t worry for me, Georgia. I will be fine. Now, come. Let’s get you out of here. I have a car waiting. Follow me and be as quiet as you can. If anyone sees me trying to steal you away, I will be executed on the spot, and you—you will be given to someone other than Kesh.”

They passed several guards on their way through the corridors toward the back exit. Georgia clung to the inside of the cape, her heart beating so hard against her ribs she feared one of the demons might hear, but while they acknowledged Mallorn, no one even glanced in her direction.

They made it unaccosted to the back exit tucked behind a loading bay area. Mallorn nodded at the two guards stationed there, but when he reached for the door, one of the guards stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Halt. You know we are in lockdown until the Courting is over. Kesh’s orders.”

Mallorn paused. One eyebrow crept up as he slowly looked down on the guard’s hand on him, then back up to his face. “Bold of you to presume you get to command me, Girak. Do not get in my way. You won’t like the consequences.”

Girak lowered his hand from Mallorn’s shoulder, but he didn’t step out of the way. “The prince was clear. No one leaves without his explicit directive to us. If he confirms, of course we will let you be on your way, Mallorn. But until then, it’s our hides if we let anyone pass. Even you. And you know he’s fucking literal about it. He’s been a complete ball ache since the Breeder arrived.”

Mallorn narrowed his eyes slightly. “My orders are urgent—and from Kirigan, not Kesh. So either you move, now, or I will make you step aside. Once I return, I will tell Kirigan that his pressing and time-critical business was delayed because of you. And trust me—once I do, you will long for the time before he learned your name.”

There was a moment’s tense silence. Then, without another word, Girak moved back to the side of the door with a short nod.

“Wise choice.” Mallorn pushed open the door and stepped through. He held it open just long enough that Georgia managed to dart through behind him.

She followed him around the corner at the back of the old casino and into an alley, where a sleek, black car with tinted windows was parked.

“The backseat doors are open. Keep the cape on and the hood up until I tell you otherwise,” Mallorn said softly.

She did as she was told, sliding into the leather seat and tugging the cloak tighter around her body, hood shadowing her face.

Once the door closed behind her, Mallorn slipped into the driver's side and switched the engine on. “Make sure you stay down until we’re there. The runes won’t last much longer, and I can’t risk anyone catching a glimpse of you.”

“Okay.” Georgia slid down on her side, curling up against the backrest. Her heart still thumped unevenly in her chest, but when he pulled out of the alley and out onto the busy street, the first threads of relief started threading through her nervous system. They were going to make it. He was taking her to Kesh—Kesh, who had chosen that unnamed, unrelenting pull between them over honor, over duty. Over everything.

However confusing and horrible the past twenty-four hours had been, regardless of the hurt and betrayal she’d felt in his hands, it was worth it. Would be worth it. Because the one thing that had been brutally clear as she allowed the forty-nine lords to court her, the one inescapable fact she had refused to acknowledge, was that he was her only shot at happiness. Of a genuine connection—frail and fraught, but real.

Her one chance at true love.

Neither she nor Mallorn spoke for the next twenty minutes as he drove them through the city’s streets. She couldn’t see much from her low perch on the backseat, only the sides of indistinguishable buildings and occasional flashes of the sky, darkened by the window tint.

When the car finally slowed, then stopped, he pulled the handbrake and looked over his shoulder in her general direction. “You can remove the cloak now, Georgia.”

Finally.

She pushed off the seat to sit upright so she could undo the cape and pull it off her body. “Are we there?”

“Yes.” Mallorn plucked the silky fabric from her hand, folding it away in the glove compartment.

The car was parked in what looked like some sort of industrial car park, but from the backseat she couldn’t see much apart from a tall chain link fence and broken concrete.

Mallorn opened the driver's side door and slipped out of the car, then came around to the back and opened her door. It was only then she realized he’d had the child locks on.

“Come. He is waiting.”

She got out and frowned as she looked around. This place… why did it seem… familiar?

The demon by her side grabbed her by the elbow, his fingers still gentle, but the tug he gave her was firm.

Automatically, she followed him as he led her around the car—and she finally realized why this place seemed so familiar.

Ahead of them was a grim-looking warehouse, its roof covered in rusting corrugated steel. Atop the singular door, the word Hell flickered in red neon.

He’d brought her back to the brothel.

“Wait…” Confusion and a gut-level hit of dread made her feet falter. “Kesh said to meet him here? That… that can’t be right. Why would he⁠—?”

His hand around her elbow remained firm, the gentleness of his grip waning when his steps didn’t slow with hers and she was pulled along beside him. He didn’t look at her. Didn’t answer.

“Mallorn? Why are we meeting him here?” Her voice pitched higher, the dread solidifying. She dug in her heels. He grabbed her by the arms and slung her over his shoulder.

Too late, realization set in.

Kesh wasn’t waiting inside.

“No! No, what are you doing? No! You can’t do this, please, no!”

She screamed and kicked and fought to get off his shoulder. It was no use. He held her in place with no visible effort and carried her over the threshold, back into the nightmare she’d only narrowly escaped.

It was dark inside, the air frigid against her skin. No one sat at the reception desk this time, and as Mallorn’s long strides carried her down the long corridor with the makeshift chambers of horror lining each side. But though the smell of sex lingered, no one occupied the fluid-stained beds inside. The brothel was empty.

“Why is she screaming?” There was a voice up ahead—unfamiliar, but authoritarian. Disapproving. “Tell me you haven’t hurt the girl.”

“Of course I haven’t,” Mallorn growled. He carried her the last few paces, then put her down on her feet in a horribly familiar room: Jimmy the Pimp’s office. “She’s just familiar with this place. No woman willingly steps foot in a brothel twice.”

Georgia immediately tried to dart back out of the room, but Mallorn easily kept a hold of both her arms, rooting her in place.

“Let go of me!” She kicked at his shins, and connected, but he didn’t so much as flinch. He did, however, give her arms a small squeeze, as if to settle her. It didn’t have the desired effect, but the gentle contrast to the kidnapping he’d just performed startled her enough to cast a look around the room.

There were two men in there with them. One was heavy-set, wearing a pinstripe suit she recognized as easily as she did the calculating look in his eyes: Jimmy, in his human disguise. The other was a stranger—one with an intimidatingly tall and broad frame that somehow seemed to contain more mass than it could believably hold. A lord.

“She’s ‘been here before?’” There was dark ice in the stranger’s voice. Slowly, he turned his dark eyes toward Jimmy. “You whored a Pure Breeder?”

Jimmy swallowed and took a half-step backward. “N-no, of course not, Your Highness! I would never– There was a misunderstanding, you see. She was brought to me as payment for a debt. Once I realized what she was, of course I immediately changed any plans to work her. She’s untouched. I swear it.”

“Well. Not entirely untouched,” Mallorn grumbled.

The stranger shifted his focus to him, his black eyes narrowing slightly. “Not entirely…?”

“Prince Kesh had her. Released inside her. He would have claimed her, had I not interrupted.”

“The usurper’s brother is no more a prince than his brother is king. If you wish to live under my family’s benevolent protection, you will do well to remember this.” The lord held Mallorn’s gaze for a moment longer, then he turned his attention to her.

Instinctive fear ran up her spine the second his eyes connected with hers. They were cold, ruthless, despite the smile he offered her.

“Ah. Well. Mishaps happen, don’t they, little Breeder? We’ll have you tested for pregnancy, and should the mongrel’s seed have taken root… Well, there are remedies for that.” He inhaled softly, his smile tightening at the corners. “You reek of fear, sweet one. Please try not to. I don’t much enjoy the urges it brings up in me.”

Georgia stared up at him, the horror of his words filtering through her panic. Remedies. He was talking about… She hadn’t even considered the possible consequences of her wild, heat-fueled time with Kesh. Hadn’t had the presence of mind, with all that came after. But this stranger was right—she could be pregnant.

Her knees turned soft with fear, one hand finding its way to her abdomen on instinct alone.

The lord flattened his lips in an expression of overbearing annoyance. “Ah yes, my apologies. That was… indelicate of me. You are hard-wired to feel protective of any offspring, even if sired by a cretin. But worry not—if we do have to take unfortunate measures, you should be gestating again within your next cycle. Now, really. Do try to control your emotions. You’re making my skin… itch.”

“I… I don’t understand. Who are you? If you wanted to court me, why am I here? You could have come to the ceremony⁠—?”

The stranger let out a short, sharp laugh. “Oh, my dearest girl. A courting ceremony? Precious. No. I am Prince Aragalan, first in line to the throne of the rightful King of Demons. And I will not be courting you. I will be bidding on you at your auction in Rome tomorrow evening. And I intend to win.

“But my family upholds traditions, and we will allow the lords who support us to partake in the bidding for the right to your womb. They may not stand a chance against me, but it’s important they think they do to secure their continued loyalty. Keeping the lords loyal proved… difficult, once word got out that the American imposters had acquired a Pure Breeder they allowed to be courted by their supporters. But now, thanks to our friends here,” he nodded toward Jimmy, “you belong to us. And our supporters will fall nicely back in line. Within a year, I will have a son to establish my lineage, just in time to take back the Americas from the scum who thought they could splinter our rule.”

The rightful King of Demons.

Ice-cold dread slowed her racing heart as the full realization of Mallorn’s betrayal set in. She turned to look at him. “You’re selling me to the Europeans? Scheming with someone like him?” She indicated Jimmy with a weak hand gesture. “Why? You’re his Second. I don’t understand why you would do this.”

A flicker of pain crossed Mallorn’s features, quickly smothered with anger. “You are still blind to his true nature. Your heart makes you dumb. Loyalty did the same to me. I thought him my friend. He never was. He knew my deepest yearning—knew all I wanted was a mate, a child.

"And the second he got the chance, he used that knowledge. He dangled you in front of me, in front of all his men, to tighten our loyalty when all along… you were Pure. You could never have been ours. And he used you too, too.

“He made you believe he would protect you, didn’t he? Did he perhaps even let you believe he loved you? The second I told you he was waiting for you, that he chose you over his family, over power, you came with me. But the truth is, Georgia, he will never choose you. You were never anything more than a pawn in his quest to maintain power for his family. That is where his loyalty lies, and where it will remain. So I did what I had to do to protect my future. My family.”

“It is a shame the American usurpers don’t understand the value of rewarding loyalty. But, I suppose, their mistake is our gain. You will both be richly rewarded for your efforts in bringing my family a Pure Breeder. A mate for you, young warrior. And safe haven as well as my family’s royal stamp of approval to run your business out of Rome for you.” Aragalan gave Jimmy a smile devoid of warmth before he turned back to Mallorn. “Now, come along. I want the Breeder aboard my jet within the hour. We have a long flight back to Europe.”

43

Kesh

“You need to get yourself under control. Now.”

Kesh paused his pacing in the anterior room Kirigan had dragged him to after the incident with Lord Ithikan’s hand and bared his teeth at his father’s infuriatingly expressionless face. “You think I’m not? You think this… this farce would continue for so much as another second if I wasn’t?”

Kirigan’s expression stayed blank, but the weight in his gaze remained suffocating. “You look at her like she is your undoing. You show your vulnerability with every breath, every movement. You revolve around her, and it is obvious to any man not too bespelled by the promise of her to look. We cannot afford this infatuation, Kesh. Forget what would happen if our supporters realized you’ve had her—that the only reason you didn’t claim her yourself was your Second’s interruption. We’re at war, and if your focus doesn’t return to that singular fact soon, we’re going to lose. You’re distracted by this girl, by the promise of her pheromones, believing it’s love. It’s not, I promise you.”

“And what would you know about love?” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. They hung in the air between them, thick and acrid; an old wound rotting at the center.

“What would I know about love?” Kirigan’s voice was deceptively soft, but though his expression remained blank, something sick and unsteady flickered in the depths of his black eyes. “You ask me that, after what happened with your mother?”

“My mother? Love has nothing to do with what happened to her.” The wound ripped open. Three decades worth of pus spilled out. “You happened. You broke her, just like I would break everything pure and light in Georgia if I let myself do what every instinct in me screams for. You think I think this is love? I know it isn’t! I am not fucking capable of loving someone as good, as gentle, as her. Just like you were never capable of loving my mother.

“Because that’s what we do, isn’t it? We eradicate anything that feels good, anything that means something, until it’s as empty and dark and disgusting as the act that made us. You raped my mother to create me, just like your father raped whatever hapless female birthed you. That’s all we are. Generations upon generations of violations made flesh.

“I thought it was just you. Kain—Kain loves Selma. He was willing to let her go, to let her be free. But it’s not just you. It’s in me, too, this… fucking sickness!”

Snarling with the tension coiling in his chest, he punched a fist into the nearest wall, desperate for any sort of relief. None came, even as the plaster cracked and crumbled around his knuckles.

“I could have killed her! When I smelled her, I didn’t know—what if she hadn’t been Pure? I would have killed her with my need. So no, Dad. This isn’t love any more than you raping Mom until she took her life to escape you was love. It is nothing but a monster aching to ruin the only good thing it’s ever encountered!”

For a long time, Kirigan said nothing. Only Kesh’s ragged breathing filled the room. He knew he’d pushed too far, said things that should never have been voiced.

He didn’t care.

He couldn’t care about anything but the unbearable ache behind his ribs that had settled in ever since he realized what he’d done. How close he’d come to ending the creature of light who’d held him while he cried for his mother’s death. A death he’d nearly replicated with her.

“When your mother died, she took a part of me with her,” Kirigan said, the quietness in his voice anything but gentle. “Not because I loved her. I did not. What your brother found with his mate is not possible. Love for us is not possible, because it requires us to deny the very thing we are.

“No. The day I claimed her, she carved a slice of my innermost being and replaced it with her soul. My penance for taking her freedom. The price we all pay when we claim a mate. When she died, she left a hollow in me that will never be filled.

“I can’t stop Kain from giving a piece of himself away—it’s too late. The damage is done. He’s forever tied to this… fiery soul. And in her, he’s found the one thing that was never supposed to be possible for our kind. Love.” His face twisted with the word. “He thinks it a blessing, but the truth is that it doesn’t matter what he feels for his Breeder. She will always be a liability to him, a weakness he can do nothing to shed. Which means I have to do anything and everything to ensure she doesn’t die. Because if she does… I will lose him.

“But as much as I can’t let you throw away our alliances for this Georgia and risk his Selma’s life in the fallout, I also can’t risk yours.

“If you give this Breeder a piece of yourself, as I gave mine to your mother, then you risk losing it when she decides she would rather end her life than live it with you. And trust me—nothing is worth that. Nothing. There is a reason most demons who lose their mates don’t survive it, Kesh. You’ve seen what I’ve become. I will not allow the same fate to befall you. Nor Kain. So yes, my son. You will get ahold of yourself. You will let one of our allied lords mate her. And if the need persists, then I will find you a female demon to slake your desires in. I will handle this, Kesh. All you have to do is let go of a future that could never have been anything but misery.”

This was the closest his father had ever come to verbalizing that Kesh's survival mattered to him. That he cared.

It was possibly as near to love as he could ever come.

And it tasted like ash.

“I don’t know how to let her go when the fate I’m surrendering her to is no better than what she would face with me.”

And there it was. The shameful truth he couldn’t suppress, no matter how hard he tried, admitted on a whisper so raw there was no place to hide.

Whoever mated his gentle little human would force her submission.

He was a monster; he would ruin her. His hands or those of some other monster, her fate was the same.

Yet his instincts screamed no.

His instincts promised him he would never hurt her.

But his instincts lied. He’d already hurt her.

“Kesh…” For a moment, there was a flicker of something almost like regret in his father’s eyes, so brief he might have imagined it, before the usual dark nothingness slid back in place. “She can’t be⁠—”

A knock on the door interrupted whatever he was about to say.

“Come in,” Kesh snapped, not wanting to hear his father’s denial of what his entire being screamed for.

Sefron opened the door. “Your Highness, Governor Maell wishes to know if you will keep the Pure Breeder long? The lords are eager to continue the courting ceremony.” He grimaced. “And by ‘eager’, I mean they’re about five minutes from ripping the horns off each other with impatience.”

Kesh frowned, his attention snapping fully to the guard. “What do you mean, ‘will I keep her long’? She’s not with m—” Ice-cold dread crashed through his nervous system as realization hit his body before his brain. He was moving before the full weight of terror hit. “Who took her? When did they take her?”

Sefron blinked, shock filtering over his features. “Your Highness, no one took her. Mallorn came to bring her to you about half an hour ago. He said you needed to see her.”

Mallorn.

The name rang through him like a hollow strike.

His Second. His most trusted friend, up until yesterday.

The man who’d accused him of using Georgia to manipulate him. Who’d seen him take the woman his friend had wanted for himself.

He’d felt fear before, especially since the gentle little Breeder came into his life, but nothing… nothing like this.

“Sound the alarm. Lock down my territory. No one gets in, no one gets out.”

“Your Highness, surely Mallorn wouldn’t⁠—?!”

“Do it!” Kesh spun back around to his father. “Call Kain. Tell him she’s gone. Tell him whatever the fuck he needs to know to deal with the fallout.”

“She’s disappeared under your care, Kesh. It’s prudent for you to stay and⁠—”

“I don’t give a shit what’s prudent! He took her. I’m getting her back. And so help me—if you try to stop me, you’ll be the first thing I burn.

Only silence followed him as he strode out of the room to find the woman he could no longer pretend he was capable of letting go.