Текст книги "Prince of Demons"

Автор книги: Nora Ash

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

50

Georgia

Georgia came to on her knees.

The air was hot. The ground beneath her was hotter; fractured marble that steamed where it still held the imprint of her body. Her legs shook. Her hands trembled. One of them was closed in a fist without her remembering how, the smooth curve of the stone Suzanne had given her back in Maine pressed tight to her palm, still pulsing like a second heart.

She couldn’t hear anything, and her vision blurred at the edges with the bright light thrumming all around her. Her skin screamed in places—her neck, her wrists. Her thigh. She looked down.

The shackles were gone. Melted. Only the burns remained—rings of scorched flesh where gold had seared against her skin. Her wrists were red and blistered. A raw mark ringed her throat like a brand. And across the tender skin of her inner thigh, a single raised line burned furious and sharp, where the leash had swung and branded her.

There was… a power pulsing through her body. Bright and dull, like pressing on a bruise that ran the length of her veins. Woven through every cell of her body.

The stone in her palm thrummed in time with it, as if synced in perfect, volatile harmony. She blinked down at it, mind still slow. Where had it come from? Last she saw it had been… Kesh’s penthouse. Before…

Images flooded her: the heat, the agony, the need. Kesh, as wild as she. On top of her. Inside of her. The broken hollow in her chest at his rejection. The courting ceremony, Mallorn, Europe. Despair.

The leash. The fight. Kesh.

Terror lanced through her. Her head snapped up, eyes desperately scanning…

And there he lay.

In the center of the ruined arena, among rubble and dust and smoke.

His body. Half-buried in broken marble and streaked in soot and the charred remains of the demons who had taken him down, blood drying in the cracks of his armor, skin death-pale beneath the grime. His chest didn’t move. His eyes didn’t open.

The world dropped out from under her.

“Kesh.” Her voice broke in her throat. “Kesh!”

Her legs moved before her mind could catch up. The stone clutched in her hand burned hot, pulsing harder now. Light broke from her skin, shooting down her arms and legs as she stumbled toward him across the debris. The air around her thickened, power bleeding off her body in radiant waves. She fell to her knees beside him with a sob, light pooling from her chest, her hands, forming a shimmering cocoon around them both.

A shield. A ward. A desperate prayer. The magic bled from her veins, pulled from nothing but raw instinct to keep his broken body safe.

Her prince didn’t move. His mouth was parted, his body slack. There was so much blood…

“No,” she whispered, and the bubble tightened, sealing them inside. “No, no, no– Please. Don’t leave me. Please, please…”

She reached for him, tears already spilling down her cheeks. He couldn’t be gone; he couldn’t.

Please, please no.

Georgia gripped his face with shaking hands. One palm cradled his bloodied cheek, the other pressed hard over the wound at his side where the armor had split. Light, from the deepest parts of her she hadn’t even known existed before he stood in that arena, before he came to lay down his life for hers, curled between her fingers. It was right there. She felt it—the thrum of power far beyond her mortal comprehension, but she didn’t know how to use it.

“Please.” Her voice cracked apart. “Please don’t leave me. Not again, not like this. I can’t—” Her mouth trembled. “You don’t get to do this! You’re mine, you bastard—mine!”

The tears came harder. Her forehead dropped to his, lips brushing the bridge of his nose. His skin was cooler than it had ever been before, the fire in him nearly gone.

Her power didn’t build. It broke. Crushed open under the weight of her grief and poured into him without direction or shape.

Not a spell. Not skill. Need. Her love. Her terror. Her hope, ragged and bleeding and still somehow alive. It poured from her chest and her hands and her tears, spilling into his wounds like molten light, threading through torn muscle and shattered bone.

Something inside her cracked wide open. Not breaking—connecting. To him.

A tether pulled tight between them, so sudden and fierce it stole her breath. A current of knowing that split through the fog of panic. Like lightning. Like it had always been there. Dormant. Waiting.

Now, it surged.

Magic rose around them in a spiral of light. His body jerked, and she felt him in that primordial current flooding every part of her being.

He was still with her.

The bond pulsed once. Then again. And she clung to it, to him, with everything she had left.

“Come back to me. Come back,” she whispered, forehead pressed to his as her trembling hands smoothed over his body and arms, again and again, the light in her filling him until he radiated with it.

Slowly, his skin warmed. Then his breath hitched beneath her hands. A pull of heat beneath her palms, subtle but sure. She choked on a sob and gripped him tighter.

Then his eyes cracked open, just enough for her magic flooding him to shine through his black eyes, turning them molten charcoal.

“Stop,” he rasped, voice torn and ragged but his. “Georgia, stop. I’m here. Don’t… don’t give me any more. You’re pulling… from your life force.” His fingers, weak but steady, lifted to cup her cheek. “I’m here.”

She let out a broken, gasping sound, half-sob, half-laugh, and leaned into the warmth of his touch. Her whole body shook. Her light flickered wildly around them, dimming and surging without rhythm now, the bond still pulsing between them like a third heart. He was here.

“I thought I lost you,” she whispered.

“You brought me back,” he rasped. His thumb brushed her cheek, reverent. “My beautiful, strong female. I always knew… from the first time I saw you, I knew…”

His other hand reached up slowly, gingerly, pulling her down. Their lips met, the kiss a tremor, not passion. Fragile and slow and sacred.

Kesh pulled back, eyes clouded with regret as he searched hers. “Georgia, I⁠—”

“Kesh!” The voice cracked across the crumbled arena like lightning. Georgia whipped around just in time to see a swirl of smoke and shadow stop, materializing into a figure.

Kirigan stood where the auction platform had once been, eyes wide and face drawn. His mad gaze swept over both of them, hands trembling before he clenched them into fists. His face turned ashen as his eyes lingered on Kesh.

Behind him, Kain and Selma followed, she glowing with the same golden light still flickering around Georgia, he with the full power of his demonic force billowing like a cape around them both.

Selma moved first. No hesitation, no fear. She stepped into the center and took up a stance in front of Georgia and Kesh, the Stone of Power raised in one steady hand. Light flared from it, golden and sure, echoing the pulse of light from Georgia’s stone. Kain followed her, one large hand on the small of her back as they stared down the few remaining European lords. A united shield.

“The old royals are dead. Your king is ash. The last of their princes is gone.” Kain’s voice boomed through the wreckage, his power swirling dark and solid around him. “We control two of the Stones of Power. If you bend the knee now, you’ll retain your territories. If you resist…” He let the sentence hang, sharp and terrible. “You’ll join your false king in death.”

A long moment of tense silence followed as the lords looked from the powerful demon and his magic-glowing mate to the half-vaporized, half-gutted remains of the lords killed by either Kesh or Georgia before the American King and Queen even arrived.

One by one, they dropped to their knees.

Kain began issuing orders. Georgia didn’t pay attention to what he said. Letting the knowledge that they were safe, that there were finally no more battles left to fight, settle in, she turned her full focus back to Kesh. His eyes hadn’t left her face since he first opened them. He drank her in as desperately as a thirsting man who has finally knelt by a fresh stream.

“The power of you…” he murmured, voice hoarse. “I have never seen anything so beautiful.”

She smiled softly at the reverence in his tone, her thumb brushing instinctively across his cheekbone. “You always did say you wanted me to grow a spine. I think this might count."

His eyes darkened, this time with guilt. “I’m… so sorry. For everything. For how I treated you, for… for letting you go. I thought I was saving you. I thought… anything would be better than eternity bound to me, to my darkness. But the truth is… I was such a coward, I nearly—” His breath hitched with pain. “Because of me, you were hurt.” His hand reached toward her neck, slow and shaking, and hovered just beside the burn there. Not touching, just near. “You were always meant to be mine, and I knew. In the most foundational parts of me, I've known since the first moment I saw you, and I let my cowardice hurt you. I will spend the rest of eternity on my knees for you. I will never stop begging for your forgiveness. Even though I know I don’t deserve it. I know I can’t ever undo⁠—”

She kissed him before he could finish. A press of lips, light as breath, trembling as she cupped his face. “You came for me,” she whispered against his mouth. “You gave up everything to try to save me, and in doing that… You unlocked the strength in me that everyone else has always tried to stamp out. Including me.” She pulled back enough to look him in the eye. “Your love unlocked this power. Your love saved me.” She touched her forehead to his. “I choose you, too, Kesh. Still.”

He let out a breath that shook through his whole body, eyes closing as his hand closed tighter around the back of her neck, as if every instinct in him wanted her as close as she could physically get. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered, lips brushing over his once more.

For a long, blissful moment, nothing existed but the taste of Kesh’s mouth and the warmth of his touch. Finally, finally, for the first time in her life, there was calm, The background sensation of uncertainty and fear faded, replaced with a warmth that took her several heartbeats to put a name to.

Belonging.

She belonged here, to him, with him. In his world, by his side, soul bound to his. The magic his love had awakened in her flared, as if in agreement.

“What is this?” Kirigan’s voice, low and cracked, broke through the bubble of peace.

Georgia turned to see Kirigan make his way toward them, eyes fixed on her with an unsettling intensity. Disbelief mixed with something dark and unsteady. Kesh’s grip on her tightened, and a low, involuntary growl of warning left his throat.

The mad demon paused at his son's warning, hand half outstretched toward her. “You don’t understand, Kesh. Fate has marked our bloodline. That goddess knew—I need to learn how she knew before we did. How she knew. What is it about this girl that made you offer your life? The answer is inside her. It has to be.”

He took another step forward, as if proximity might help him understand what had taken root inside her. What had fused her to his son.

Kesh’s lip curled back, but it was Georgia’s magic that stopped him in his tracks. It flared up around her, gold turning white at the edges, and Kirigan froze mid-step.

“Don’t even think about touching me,” she hissed, anger curling in her gut as she glared up at him.

Kirigan’s hand lowered, just barely. His eyes flicked from her face to Kesh, then back again.

“I know what you did,” she continued. “You sold me to them! They told me. Mallorn was just the courier. You were behind it all. You traded me, like I’m just… a piece of meat? Like my life doesn’t matter, so long as, what? The people you love are safe?”

There was a moment of complete stillness.

Kain, who’d been busy with the other lords, turned slowly back around to stare at his father. Selma’s lips parted. Kesh…

Kesh went still as stone beside her. “You did what?” he whispered, breath like icy steel. His fingers tightened at her waist, barely restrained.

“It was… a mistake,” Kirigan said. His voice was soft, devoid of emotion, even if his disturbing gaze still held some unnamable darkness. “If I had realized what you were to him, I would have found another way, but I didn’t… You are Fate-sworn to my son, little Breeder, just like his brother’s mate was to him. Two in one family? It is… preposterous. An impossibility.

“You were supposed to be nothing more than instincts. And infatuation that threatened my family’s safety. I saw my youngest lost to desire, at the brink of shattering our support, had he acted on it and claimed you for himself. The gods are stirring, plotting… We wouldn’t survive a war on two fronts, so I did what I thought I had to, to secure peace with the Europeans.”

Kesh’s expression didn’t shift. He didn’t snarl, didn’t growl. He simply looked at his father like something inside him had gone cold and permanent. “You chose eternal rape and enslavement for the woman I love?” His voice was low. Quiet. Deadly. “You thought you knew best? You thought getting rid of her would… what? Make me a useful tool again?”

His nostrils flared with a deep, deliberate inhale, his grip tightening around Georgia’s waist as if she was the only thing keeping him from ripping out Kirigan’s throat. “You are dead to me,” he said flatly. “If you ever come near her again, I swear⁠—”

Kirigan cut him off. “This isn’t over. You have no idea what’s coming. The gods don’t care for love, or mates, or kingdoms. Whatever they have planned, whatever interest they have in our family, it will only have increased tenfold now that another Pure Breeder’s powers have been awakened by our bloodline. I acted only in the interest of survival—yours, and your brother’s.”

“You nearly cost my brother his soul,” Kain said. His voice rang out clear, sharp. He stepped fully into the ruined arena, eyes narrowed to slits. “You nearly cost my kingdom its strongest warrior. You nearly cost me my brother. That is not survival. That is cowardice. And in your hubris, in your arrogance, you miscalculated. You could have cost us everything, Father.”

“You sacrificed a Seer,” Selma seethed by his side. “You sacrificed one of my subjects, my sisters, to a fate so brutal, women have taken their own lives just to escape it.”

Kain took one slow step forward, shadows curling at his feet, voice like thunder striking ice. “You betrayed us. All of us. You are my sire, and that is the only reason you are still breathing. Leave—now. You are banished from my kingdom. Do not return.”

The silence that followed rang louder than any explosion.

Kirigan stood there for a moment, perfectly still. Then he bowed his head. Not in shame. Not in remorse. Just… acknowledgment. A nod to consequences. His gaze swept over them—his two sons, and the human women Fate had chosen for them. There was no apology in his eyes.

Then he turned, stepped into shadow, and was gone.

The four of them stood in the cratered silence he left behind, the remains of the decimated royal palace smoldering around them.

Above them, the sky still shimmered with the echo of what had been unleashed. Ash spiraled through the air like snow. The wind carried the scent of smoke, blood, and magic.

In every direction, there was nothing but rubble.

The city of Rome was gone.

In the distance, sirens blared.

“Well,” Selma said, hands on hips as she took in the devastation. “I don’t think we’re going to explain this one with a gas leak.”

51

Kesh

The still-smoking seven hills that had once held one of the cradles of human civilization slowly disappeared from view as Kain’s jet put distance between them and what would undoubtedly prove to be the biggest disaster in demon history. Not that Kesh had it in him to care about the fallout. Not now. Not yet.

“Okay, all done.” The golden glow around Selma’s hands faded as she pulled back from Georgia’s wrists, gentleness in her eyes as she looked her over.

“Thank you. The pain is gone. This… magic we have, how does it work? How do you control it like this?” Georgia asked, her focus more on the other woman than her freshly healed skin.

“The scars? Will they linger?” Kesh cut in, pulling her onto his lap now that he could do so without causing her more pain. His thumb grazed the pink line around her throat. A fresh wave of self-loathing and shame washed through him. His fault. Her skin was marred because of his failings.

“I don’t know. I’m not a doctor, Kesh,” Selma said, her voice laced with overbearing patience. “This is what my magic could manage. Anything more than this might need divine magic. Or, hell, plastic surgery might do the trick.”

The thought of some arrogant human taking a scalpel to wrists and neck, let alone a god putting hands on her, made an involuntary snarl rip from his throat and his muscles constrict tighter around her body as instincts to protect her with his own flesh kicked into highest gear.

“Ugh, Kesh!” Georgia’s protest came as a muffled whine against his chest; slender hands pushed at his biceps in protest. He didn’t ease his grip—couldn’t. Not while shame and regret and fury pounded in his temples and poisoned his veins.

“Kesh. She needs to breathe.” Selma’s sardonic tone belied any seriousness to her words, but they speared through him with urgency, nonetheless. He loosened his arms just enough that Georgia managed to pop her head up, hair mushed from his embrace.

“Kesh. I’m fine,” she said, blue eyes capturing his. They were patient and tender and, in their depths, understanding. She knew the shame he felt, understood it because she was burdened with empathy so deep she was incapable of withholding forgiveness for his cowardice.

“My heart,” he whispered, face twisting with pain as he pressed his forehead to hers, desperate for the connection she should deny him, but never would. His fingers trembled against her throat, brushing the scar again.

“Shh.” She raised her hand to cup his cheek, soft and tender still. So at odds with the raw power she’d unleashed to save him. “These scars aren’t a memory of enslavement—they’re a reminder of breaking free. That I’m not helpless. Because of you.”

“I should never have doubted your strength,” he murmured, lips finding her cheek, her jaw. “From the moment I saw you, you’ve commanded every part of me. Your ability to care for everyone, even the demon who had to lie to himself to pretend he still had any say over his own heart… It was never a weakness. I will never let anyone tell you otherwise again.” Nor would anyone take advantage of her kind heart again. A hot spike of vengefulness rushed through his chest at the thought of the person responsible for his female’s cowed demeanor. Her wretched mother.

Once he’d found Mallorn and made him pay for his betrayal, he’d relish turning his attention to the woman who’d broken down her own daughter’s sense of self so she could be a better servant.

His body hardened at the thought of peeling the cunt’s skin off in slow, even strips. Georgia inhaled sharply in response to his erection rising beneath her and pulled her head back to glare at him, cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “Whatever you’re thinking about right now—stop it.”

He would never tell her, of course. She was too gentle, too prone to giving second– and third– and one-hundredth chances. The vengeance he’d extract on her behalf would only horrify her, make her plead for mercy for someone who, by all the stars in the sky, did not deserve another drop of her empathy.

“I’m simply thinking about how well I’m going to take care of you. All of you,” he murmured, nudging at her jaw with his nose to coax her into baring the sensitive spot at the side of her neck.

“You almost died less than two hours ago!” she growled, shoving at his chest with absolutely no result.

“I’m fine. But if you insist on coddling me, you could always let me feed on your energy, hmm?”

“For fuck’s sake.” Georgia planted both palms on Kesh’s face and pushed again. This time, he let her put a few inches of distance between them, if only to better enjoy the deepening pink in her cheeks. “We’re in a confined space with your brother and sister-in-law, the whole of Rome got turned to ash from your fight with the European royals, and I turn out to have magical powers and somehow summoned a powerful stone that has everyone fidgeting. I think we have more important things to focus on right now!”

Kesh’s expression sobered as he took in her irate expression. She didn’t know. She thought the ancient city had been blown off the map by his battle with the lords. She didn’t realize…

Gently, he closed both hands over hers and guided them to his cheeks. Her glare softened, her thumbs rubbing lightly over his cheekbones, as if the light he brought out of her couldn’t be contained by a scowl for more than a few seconds. The same light that, in her desperation to save him, had summoned the Stone of Power imprinted to her, and turned an entire city to dust.

Silently, as she looked up at him with a tenderness he still struggled to comprehend, he swore to himself that she would never learn the truth. The cost to her soft, human heart would be too much for her to bear. Because, while she could forgive him, he knew her conscience would never let her absolve herself. Initial reports from Kain’s men suggested a large proportion of the human population had survived the blast, even as their homes had not, but there were still casualties. Many casualties.

No. He would carry that burden for her.

“Speaking of the events in Rome,” Kain broke in. When Kesh glanced at him, he’d pulled Selma into his lap, his hand resting on her hip to anchor her to his body, but his eyes were on Kesh. “There are many urgent matters for us to discuss. First and foremost how we navigate the containment with the humans. The local lords are working several angles to control the narrative, but we have to acknowledge the very real risk that we won’t be able to hide our existence after today.

“Add to that the precarious political position we find ourselves in, the urgent need to unite the kingdom across the Atlantic, the unknown factor of the gods’ plans, our father’s betrayal… and the yet un-claimed Pure Breeder our lords had hoped to court…”

White-seething fury slammed shut over Kesh’s mind. His arms clenched Georgia tight to his body without conscious thought—but the rage-fueled snarl that ripped from his throat was entirely deliberate. “If you think I’m going to let anyone court my female⁠—”

Kain raised a hand, interrupting him. “Of course not. I am neither blind, nor an idiot. But if we want to avoid further complications or challenges to your right to her, I will suggest that we take care of the… formalities… before we land.”

“Formalities?” Georgia’s voice was once again muffled by his chest.

“Kesh. Oxygen,” Selma admonished.

Kesh gave her a half-hearted glare before he eased his grip on Georgia’s body. Her head popped back up again.

“What sort of formalities? I get to choose. You’re the good guys—and frankly, even if you weren’t, I am one thousand percent done being a political pawn. I’m not marrying anyone but Kesh. I’ve made my choice.”

Soft heat flooded through his chest, easing some of the rage. He looked down at the woman in his arms, lids half-lowering with affection. Even if she still hadn’t quite understood that demonic mating was something far deeper, far more lasting than the human concept of marriage, the steely determination in her voice that she belonged to him was unquestionable. “I like you like this. Demanding,” he murmured, nuzzling at her ear with his nose. “You’re even more lovely with that titanium spine fully polished. I’ll make sure it never dulls again, I promise you that.”

“Ugh, Kesh, knock it off. Now is not the time!” She squirmed against his affections, blush returning—undoubtedly at the knowledge that Kain and Selma were still present.

“Actually, little Breeder… I’m afraid now is the time,” Kain said, his voice deliberately gentle. “Once you’re claimed, in the eyes of our most sacred laws, no one can intervene. But if we land back in America and you are not, not even I will be able to stop challenges to your right to choose your own mate. It was difficult enough to get the lords to accept the original courting ceremony. After your kidnapping and the chaos in Rome, it will be impossible to control the situation. Kesh will be challenged, repeatedly. Violently. Immediately. And with no chance to fully recover his strength.

“Which is why it will be safer for you, for him, and for our rule, that he claims you now. Once you carry his mark, there will still be disgruntled males. Perhaps even some factions that oppose us on this basis, but nothing and no one will be able to pull you apart. So if you are certain my brother is your choice, Georgia, we will perform the claiming ceremony now.”

“Oh… I… Well, yes. Of course I’m certain.” She looked from Kain back up at Kesh, a shy smile on her lush lips. “A wedding in the sky, huh? That’s… sort of romantic.”

Selma let out a loud snort. “Oh, sweet summer child…” she pushed off Kain’s lap, slapping at his hand when he was too slow to release his grip on her. “You hold on to that thought of romance for as long as you can. I’m gonna go tag in the co-pilot, so someone not in the family can bear witness. And I can… not.”

Georgia looked after her as she headed for the door to the cockpit, a small, confused frown marring her brow. Kesh pulled her attention back to himself with a finger under her chin. His entire body thrummed with anticipation. This… this was what his entire life had been leading to. This moment. This woman. “I will make sure you spend the rest of your life never regretting your choice,” he rasped, gently brushing a lock of her hair behind her ear.

The frown smoothed from her brow, and her eyes crinkled at the corners with her responding smile. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Good.” Unable to wait any longer, he tangled a hand at the back of her hair and drew her in for a deep kiss. Her breath hitched sweetly as their lips bruised together, then mingled with his when he flicked his tongue between hers to tease her open.

“Stars, even these lips taste like life,” he groaned into her mouth. “

She slapped his chest in admonishment and tried to pull back. He didn’t let her. Rising to his feet, he hiked her up and made her spread her thighs for his hips before he put her down on her back on the carpeted airplane floor.

“M-pph!” Georgia protested, body going rigid under his.

“Shh, my love.” He pulled back, pulse hard in his throat at the sight of her kiss-swollen lips and wide eyes. “Let me worship you like you were meant to be worshipped.”

“Not now, you absolute savage! There are people here, and we’re supposed to be getting marri... oh. Oh, no. Oh, you can’t be serious!” He saw the moment the truth finally hit her, and her dreams of at least a semi-human ceremony aboard his brother’s jet turned to vapor.

The startled, outraged look crossing her pretty features made him chuckle and press another kiss to her lips. “You’re so fucking adorable. Don’t worry, my heart. Once we have completed the ceremony, there will be no doubt in your mind that we are bound in soul and flesh for the rest of eternity. You may call me your husband once it’s done, if you so prefer, but what we will be to each other is far more than a marriage could hope to encapsulate.”

“Why is it always about sex with you demons—ah!” Her growl broke on a soft gasp when his hand slid up underneath her shirt, her breath shuddering when he closed his fingers around her breast. She shoved at his shoulders and peeked over his back at Kain and the co-pilot, who’d taken Selma’s spot by the king’s side. “Seriously, can we at least not do this in front of your brother and whoever this guy is?”

“You are a Pure Breeder, Georgia. Witness must be borne,” Kain rumbled, his voice soft and respectful. It still made Kesh snarl and jerk his head to the side, the sound of another male addressing his female making primitive instincts flare. “Do not speak to her!”

Kain raised both hands in surrender and bowed his head before leaning back in his seat. His brother was more than familiar with possessive mating urges.

Mollified that there would be no further attempts to distract her, Kesh returned his full attention to Georgia, gaze molten. “Normally, I would claim you in front of the rivals I defeated for the right to you. They would have to watch and bear witness as I took what they coveted. But nothing with you is ever simple, is it?” He flicked a thumb over her nipple and smirked when her front teeth dug into her lower lip in response. “So I will claim you here, now, with the king and Greg as our witnesses. And once I’m done, you will be mine in every way.”

“Greg? Really? Oh!” Her protest died on a gasp when he pushed her shirt up over her head and clean off her body, baring her.

She instinctively clasped her hands to cover herself—one between her legs, the other across her breasts—her startled eyes darting back to Kain and the pilot, cheeks pink with embarrassment.

Kesh knelt back up, letting his eyes roam over her curves. The pink scars from the places her shackles had burned her glowed against her pale skin, fresh reminders of the abuse she’d endured at the hands of the Europeans. Her strength, too, yes—but he would never forget the sight of her on that platform, naked and scared and on display for the monsters planning to break her.

“I will never hurt you. I will never humiliate you. Everything we do together—even this—I swear on everything in this world and beyond, I will make sure you want it. All of it.” His voice came out in a rasp, his throat tightening with the weight of responsibility. This woman, this gentle creature who’d trusted when she had little reason to, had offered him kindness when he’d deserved nothing but hatred… she was his to protect, body and soul. He’d die a thousand times over before he’d do anything that might turn her into a hollow shell, like so many women before her. Like his mother.