Chapter 13 Selma
Selma
Selma screamed. Each time that wicked knife sliced through her flesh, claws raked her skin, and fists pummeled her gut, she howled in agony, pleas for mercy bubbling past her lips.
She tried to curl in on herself, to protect her vitals, but the two demonesses not wielding the knife held her firmly between them, leaving her body open and vulnerable to the abuse.
They offered no mercy, each second only bringing her more pain.
She lost track of time, lost track of everything but the searing agony and cackles of her captors, their amusement at her wails ringing through the warehouse—though to her, they sounded like they were filtered through water.
The only clear sound was her own frantic heartbeat.
Until an explosion shook the building.
The three demons froze, turning toward the entrance as one. Selma too lifted her head, following their startled gazes.
He was here—the demon from the bar. His dark eyes were wide and terrifying, his human features pulling into a mask of fury as he took in the scene, breathing heavily.
Selma snorted with weak amusement. She’d found him terrifying before—yet now even a normal human would have called him demonic. She’d never seen anyone look so angry.
“Lord.” Cold Eyes seemed to regain her ability to speak, but there was a quake in her once-so-self-assured voice. “We have a trade to off—”
He roared, a bellow that vibrated through the warehouse and shook Selma to her core. He was a mountain of fury, molten rage spilling into the air in clouds of inky black.
Magic.
Both Blondie and Red released their grip on her, diving for cover. Blondie, however, was too slow. Black, sparking magic closed around her ankle before she could escape behind the box.
Her foot twisted with a sharp crack, suddenly pointing at an unnatural angle. The demoness screamed—a sound that turned shrill as the black fog gnashed up her leg like a hungry maw, rending her flesh and splintering her bones in a spray of blood.
Cold Eyes lunged for Selma and she squealed, twisting away from her drawn blade—but the demon didn’t go for her throat. She grabbed Selma by the waist, twisting them both out of the way when the Lord leapt into the room, slamming down on top of the remains of the blonde female.
Snarling, he tore her head clean off with a wet popping sound, tossing it to the side. Then he spun around in a crouch, eyes fixed on Selma and her attacker.
Without preamble, the demoness shoved a hand down the front of Selma’s pants.
Too late, Selma realized what she was doing. Before she could shove the demoness’ hand away, her fingertips connected with the small piece of metal encircling Selma’s clit.
Her humiliation. The ring that’d sealed her fate.
“No!”
Her cry came too late. Harsh fingers twisted the metal, squeezing it down painfully on her nub of nerves.
Fire burned through her pelvis, into her spine, and down her thighs. She fell to the floor with a gasp, shaking as the nefarious magic flooded her blood. Heat bloomed from the metal’s vicious bite, overriding the pain.
And then… then came the need.
“No,” she sobbed, clutching her hands uselessly against the concrete floor as she felt herself soften, sharp pangs of desire rising through her pelvis like an uncurling serpent.
She looked up then as if drawn by invisible powers, and her eyes locked on his—the powerful demon still crouched by the blonde female’s mangled corpse.
His human irises were pitch-black, the pupils filling them, his gaze fixed on her and her alone. His nostrils flared wide, taking in her scent.
She shuddered in terror of being this primal creature’s sole focus—and with longing. Deep, intense, bone-melting yearning.
He was a demon, of that she was sure—but he was also big and strong, dominance radiating from his every pore. He was more than capable of saving her from the agonizing need growing steadily between her legs.
She let out a pained moan—a wordless plea as her mind fogged.
He moved then, shifting closer, but before he could rise and come to her, movement flashed behind him.
Selma cried out what should have been a warning, but it came too late. The redheaded demoness leapt at him from behind. Somehow he managed to twist at the last second, and the dagger that was aimed at his throat tore into his shoulder instead.
The Lord roared again, shaking the warehouse, and spun around to face his attacker, knocking the blade out of his shoulder in the process.
The dagger clattered and skidded on the concrete as he snatched Red by the throat and immediately pounded her into the ground hard enough that her skull cracked like an egg.
His fist followed, smashing into her face, breaking the front of her cranium and smattering her brain.
He spun and leapt to his feet, searching the warehouse for the third female. Judging by his frustrated growl, Cold Eyes had taken the opportunity to run while he took out her second companion.
Go. Follow her, Selma silently prayed, even if her body wished he wouldn’t.
The big brute took a few steps toward the warehouse’s door, seemingly intent on taking up pursuit. But before he reached it, his steps faltered as he looked back over his shoulder. At her.
Shit.
Selma scrambled forward on her hands and knees until her fingers closed around the dagger that’d previously been buried in his shoulder.
“Leave!” she hissed, somehow finding the strength to push back up into a kneeling position. She aimed the blade at him with a shaking hand, using the other to wipe away the blood from her split eyebrow.
He paused, gaze flicking from her forehead to her knife. A deep exhale left his chest.
“Fuck.” It was an exasperated growl, filled with frustration—and below that, husky need. The sound of it, of the rich, male rumble, made her core clench tight and a breathy gasp escape her throat.
No. No, no, no.
“L-Leave me alone,” she whispered, incapable of putting conviction behind her words despite her brain’s panicked screeching.
He didn’t respond, but instead of exiting the warehouse, he turned around. And then he was walking toward her, heavy steps thumping in the emptiness until he was close enough to crouch in front of her.
She lunged at him, but he simply batted the weapon out of her hand before he wrapped his huge arms around her and lifted her as if she weighed nothing more than a kitten.
He smelled like sulphur and male.
“P-Put me… down.” It was so hard to remember why she was supposed to run from him. His infernal heat penetrated her flesh through his black leather coat, soothing her aching muscles and pulling her into a cocoon of safety.
“No.” He shifted her in his arms, eyes roaming her damaged body. “Did they cut you deep?”
“I don’t… I don’t think so,” she croaked, though it was hard to feel the extent of her injuries through the involuntary lust pulsing in her veins.
He didn’t say anything further. He simply carried her out into the night.
As soon as they were clear of the building, he adjusted her position again so he could free one hand to grab his phone. There was a sequence of digital tones as he dialed a number, and then his gruff voice resonated in his chest and in the air above her.
“Thomren, I need you to get Pete and his crew to come to the Spearhead Quarter down by the warehouses. I need a clean-up. They'll be able to find it by the scent. But before they get here, I need you to sort out a car. I'll meet you by 127th and Pearson. Got it?”
The person on the other end must have answered in the affirmative, because the demon hung up without another word, quickly stuffing the phone back into his pocket before he wrapped his arm securely around her again.
“Where are you taking me?” she croaked.
“To my home, Breeder,” he said, not sparing her a look as he strode through the empty back streets, eyes scouting for more enemies in the shadows.
His home.
He had saved her from death, but in the end, her fate would be exactly what she had sacrificed everything to escape.
Dread and sorrow warred with the excited twinge in her abdomen at the thought of surrendering to this powerful male. It was too much. Everything she’d been through, the constant running, the torture, the humiliation—it swelled up in her throat and came out in loud, ugly sobs.
The demon jerked, his face whipping toward her.
“Shh, little one.” His voice pitched in startled concern and he pulled her closer to his heated body. A moment later one of his hands, the palm of it the size of her face, curved around her cheek in a surprisingly soft caress. “Don't be scared. Shh, it's all right. Come, look at me.”
Gently he tipped her head up—and up—until she finally saw his face. His eyes were still black, but somewhere behind her grief she realized his irises were naturally that color.
He looked at her as he walked, supporting her body mostly with the arm not cradling her cheek. Concern colored his now perfectly human features, the absence of anger removing the visual cues of what he was.
“You’re safe,” he soothed, clumsily stroking her cheek. “No one will hurt you again, I swear it.”
Slowly his soothing words and warm touch calmed her shaking form so that she could gasp in a few deep breaths, quelling her anguished cries.
Without thought to who and what he was—simply needing the comfort his large hands and deep eyes promised—she leaned in and rested her forehead against his broad chest, willing her body and mind to release its pent-up tension to his heat.
“Good girl,” he muttered above her, strong hands caressing her face and tangled hair again and again in an obvious effort at keeping her calm. “Just breathe. I'll take care of the rest.”
When he came to a stop a little while later, she had gotten enough of a hold of herself that she dared another look up at him again.
His scent and his warmth made her pussy pulse hotly, the ever-growing ache making it hard to remember that she couldn’t stay in his arms—and that, come the morning, she would regret her easy surrender.
“Please. Let me… Let me go. You didn’t take me before, in the bar...”
A rumble of displeasure thundered in her ear and his arms constricted tighter around her.
“I can't,” he gritted. “If I’d taken you in the bar, none of this would have happened.”
“Please, I don’t want—”
“I know what you don’t want,” he snapped, his tense features softening when she flinched in response. “Even if I let you leave now, your scent will draw every demon within a fifty-mile radius. I am the Lord of this territory, and your well-being is my duty. I will care for you tonight. But after…”
“After?” she whispered, the reluctance playing across his features allowing a seed of hope to sprout somewhere past her fog of need.
He stared down at her, mouth set in a grim line. “I have no desire to force an unwilling Breeder into an eternity of service.”
She knew he could be lying—that he probably was. Lying was like breathing to his kind. She knew his words, as beguiling as they were, didn’t promise her freedom. But right now, they were enough. She didn’t have the strength to fight anymore, not tonight.
Closing her eyes against the fear and pain radiating in her body, she pressed her cheek against his leather-clad chest and surrendered to the fog promising blissful oblivion.
The demon stroked a thumb over her exposed cheekbone and she felt him bend his body around her, encapsulating her in his hard muscle to shield her from their harsh surroundings.
His mouth and nose nuzzled at the top of her head, causing her pussy to throb, and a rumble rolled through his chest in response.
Selma mewled and pressed in closer, rubbing her face against him. Now that she was no longer fighting it, her magic-induced need burned hotter than ever, making her yearn for release. She pressed her thighs together, rubbing them to alleviate the throbbing, but it only worsened.
“Please…”
He cursed and pulled his face away from her hair. “What’s your name, little one?”
He was trying to fight the pull of her scent, she realized. She knew what it was doing to him, had learned the hard way what a male demon would do to get at her once the magic from her cursed ring had been activated. And still he was fighting it, trying to distract himself with conversation.
Marathin would have fucked her in that warehouse, not caring that she was injured and scared out of her mind.
“Selma.” Perhaps she should have lied—Marathin might have put whatever the demon version of a missing person’s report was out on her—but in that moment, high on hormones and magic and the knowledge that this man was fighting his base instincts for her, she didn’t have the mind to. “I’m Selma.”
“Selma,” he repeated softly, as if testing the feel of it on his tongue. “I am Kain, Lord Protector of this city.”
Lord Protector.
There were many kinds of demons, she’d learned, and the rulers among them—the biggest, the most dangerous—were the Lords.
And yet in Lord Kain’s arms, she felt safer than she had her whole life.