To Enthrall the Demon Lord

by Nadine Mutas

  She was so exhausted her body felt twenty pounds heavier, so hungry she was past feeling hungry and now in that state where dizziness crept in. Her thoughts sluggish, she had no idea what he might have glimpsed. Had she pestered him with the details of her shame? Had he seen how weak she’d been, how pathetic? How she’d begged and debased herself? Had he finally learned just how broken she was, how tainted?

  See? that nauseating voice inside her hissed. He finds you repulsive. He’s disgusted by you, and—

  “He did not,” Arawn snarled, his expression murderous.

  She glanced up at him, cowered back a little.

  “He did not take the best parts of you.” He glowered down at her, the rain quieting all around, as if the sky itself held its breath. “No one can. You are not some bloody treasure chest that can be looted.” He spat those words, dark power flaring out from him, making her breath hitch.

  Her pulse pounded in her head, and she rose to her feet, swayed. Arawn’s hand shot out as if to steady her, but he curled his fingers into his palm at the last second, pulled back. His magic hovered, bearing down like the pressure before a thunderstorm.

  Nerves frayed from her exhaustion, she had no shields anymore, every painful wound laid bare, bleeding. “Then why am I missing those parts?” she rasped. “Why am I mourning who I used to be? He killed pieces of me. And I’ll never get them back.”

  “That is not true.” A muscle feathered in Arawn’s jaw. “Have you never talked with anyone about this?”

  She blinked, frowned. “Merle…” Pressing her lips together, she glanced to the side.

  Her sister had signaled she was open to listen if Maeve wanted to tell her, if she wanted to unload in order to process…everything. And for a second there, she’d considered it, sensing that the tangle of shame and anger inside her would only fester if she locked it up.

  But as she sat down with Merle, she noticed the tension in her sister’s shoulders, the pain flickering behind her eyes she was trying to hide yet couldn’t quite conceal. Merle was already hurting on her behalf, her soul already scarred by what she saw in that room in the warehouse when she and Rhun freed Maeve. If she were to learn of the full scope of Maeve’s ordeal, of how hard she truly struggled… Merle’s heart would splinter all the more.

  No, Maeve couldn’t tell her. Not just the details of her torture, but also the depth of her emotional impairment. If Merle—and the others—knew how fractured her thoughts were, they would treat her even more solicitously, like a failing figurine of spun glass, threatening to shatter at any moment. They already tiptoed around her with wary glances. And the damn pity in their eyes, as if she was terminally ill, as if they had to keep her environment free of any contaminants or else her body and mind would break down and die.

  Imagine if they knew the strength of the demons she fought every day, inside her heart and soul.

  She’d felt the same way about talking to her best friend Anjali, or to Lily or Basil. Hell, Lily was so damn strong, she never would have been abducted in the first place. She’d have kicked the demon’s balls so hard he choked on them, as Lily would undoubtedly phrase it. The thought of baring her shame to Lily made Maeve withdraw even further into herself.

  “Not your sister,” Arawn cut into her thoughts. “Not your friends. I mean someone with knowledge of the mind.”

  She swallowed past a knot of guilt and embarrassment. “A shrink?”

  He nodded, his forest-green eyes mapping her face.

  “I…tried. It didn’t work.” She shook her head with a soft scoff. “How are you supposed to open up and tell someone about it when that person doesn’t even know demons and witches exist? Doesn’t know what it means when you talk about powers and mind control and a bluotezzer drinking from—” She broke off, closed her eyes.

  The therapist she’d seen meant well, and Maeve had yearned to tell someone, someone who might be able to help in ways her friends couldn’t, but the human woman was oblivious to otherworld creatures and their powers. Maeve faltered when she tried to talk about her torture because she had to withhold so many details that what she could tell the therapist hardly made sense.

  She shook her head, sorrow dragging down her shoulders, her heart so incredibly heavy.

  “Eat.” A gruff command.

  Opening her eyes, she found a sandwich right under her nose.

  “I don’t want to know where you pulled that from,” she muttered while accepting it.

  The quiet sound from him could have been a choked chuckle, but when she looked up, his face was a mask of relentless hardness. He was still so angry. Until now, she’d only seen him in complete, smooth control masked by predatory languor, and never this close to the tension of a tightly curled cobra ready to strike.

  “Here,” he said with a rumble reminiscent of one of the large cats he could turn into, and handed her a flask of water.

  “Okay, seriously, where are you hiding this stuff?”

  She angled her head and looked him up and down, yet another excuse to drink in the brute beauty of his massive body, all those clearly defined muscles bunching under strokable bronze skin, the dusting of hair on his chest, trailing over his stomach to—

  “Would you like to pat me down?” A gleam of dark hunger in his eyes.

  She startled, stiffened, and glanced away, ignoring the slow-building heat in decidedly feminine parts of her body. She ate the sandwich instead, almost groaned at the taste, realizing just how starved she was. He nudged her to take the flask, drink until it was empty. Some energy returned to her, yet her limbs were still as tired as if she’d run a marathon.

  Why on earth? She’d only been sitting here…

  “You need rest,” Arawn said. “Return to your cabin. We will resume tomorrow.”

  She fell into step beside him as he took the path back. “What about the spell? What did you find?”

  “Your grandmother was a brilliant witch.” The leaves rustled softly as he walked next to her, a looming shadow of coiled power. “The spell is highly complex. It will take time to dismantle it. I have barely studied the first layer.”

  “What?” she squeaked. All this time she’d been sitting there, and he hadn’t even started taking the spell apart?

  “From what I could tell, it seems that at least the spellwork is not in danger of crumbling anytime soon.” A dark glance at her. “It will happen, however, and we should not wait until then.”

  “Okay, then why don’t we continue right now?”

  Not that she was eager to have him in her mind again…even if the feeling was nothing like when the demon—

  A sharp tug on that bond inside her made her stop and catch her breath. She turned to him, her eye twitching…in annoyance, in disbelief.

  Arawn studied her body with sensual focus, his attention lingering on those parts that grew irritatingly hot and tingly under his regard.

  “I sure would like to spend more time in you,” he murmured at a pitch that was a complement to the caress of his eyes, “but these spellwork study sessions drain you of energy. Another one too soon will leave you in a limp heap.” One corner of his mouth lifted, making her stomach flutter. “And, no, this is not how I want to render you limp.”

  The fluttering in her stomach grew into a flip, then shot out waves of prickling excitement over her nerve endings.

  He resumed walking, and she followed on legs that were inexplicably wobbly.

  When they arrived at her cabin, he accompanied her inside, his presence filling the room despite the open windows. It was as if he displaced the air with his power, and standing in an enclosed space with him was akin to being enveloped in his energy without even touching him.

  He nodded at the covered plates on the table. “Eat some more. Then rest. Lucía will come by later if you wish for company.”

  A lingering look of swirling shadows as he turned to the door.

  “I would really like to touch you.” The words were out of her mouth before she knew what was happen
ing.

  Blame it on her exhaustion, on those abraded, whittled-down shields of hers. Apparently the filter in her brain had vanished, leaving all sorts of unruly thoughts and irrational desires to flow freely out her mouth.

  Desires like the one which had been smoldering in her blood for quite some time now, its embers kindling and flaring, while this impossible, intimidating male who was all wrong for her kept such aggravating distance she’d reached the point where she wanted to rub against him and find out just how hard he—

  Arawn came to attention. He paused, the muscles in his broad back locked, and ever so slowly, he turned to her. Everything about him hushed, reminiscent of the way a feline predator would go still before it pounced.

  “If I get to touch you, too.” A calculating spark in those eyes of forest green.

  For a second, she hesitated, a million reasons why she shouldn’t clashing inside her, but—her desire to feel him won out. “Okay.”

  Dark power curled about his shoulders, his arms and hands, then drew back again, as if brought to heel. He prowled closer, his focus an unrelenting burn on her, until his heat brushed her skin, only a few inches between them.

  Heart beating too fast for her to catch a breath, she raised her hand toward his face, paused. He was so much taller, she would have to go on tiptoe to reach him…

  Arawn inclined his head, allowed her easier access. His gaze rested steady on her face, though she didn’t dare meet his eyes. The intensity in that contact might rob her of her courage to claim the other touch he’d agreed to.

  Slowly, tentatively, she grazed his cheek with her fingertips, marveling at her new streak of bravado—she was touching Arawn’s face, the Demon Lord’s face, and he let her, allowed her this close, granted her something that very likely few others were entitled to. She had yet to see him interact physically with…anyone, really.

  She stroked along his jaw, the stubble rasping over her fingertips, then brushed the very edge of his lips, not quite daring to fully touch them. Her hand slid lower, and with a pounding heart, she watched his expression as she stroked down his throat. A vulnerable part of the body, even for a creature of Arawn’s power, and the fact that he didn’t budge an inch, calmly let her explore him, it did something to her.

  She gasped and withdrew her hand, her fingers tingling from the warmth of his skin. Swallowing, she clenched her hand to a fist as if trying to hold on to the elusive sensation.

  “My turn.” The deep bass of his voice resonated through her.

  And at that, Maeve stilled.

  Dear gods. She’d been so focused on wanting to feel him, she hadn’t specified what kind of touch she was willing to allow. What if he touched her intimately? Despite the freedom of her fantasy about him, despite the want pulsing in her core, it was one thing to imagine physical contact in the safety of her mind, but to face the real possibility of it? What if, based on what he’d glimpsed of her dream, he thought he could—

  Her burgeoning panic fizzled out as he lifted his hand to her face, mirroring the way she’d touched him.

  Stomach sinking, she closed her eyes, tingling heat flushing her face, her ears. Of course he’d want to trace that jagged line of the scar marring her face. The first thing anyone noticed about her. The one feature guaranteed to snag people’s attention—and hold it. Even when they tried to ignore it, their eyes would skip back to that scar every couple of seconds, and the longer they had to pretend not to want to stare, the more uncomfortable they’d get. Until they’d find an excuse to wiggle out of the conversation, if only to spare themselves the awkwardness…

  A feather-light touch of Arawn’s fingertips on her lashes.

  She gasped, her breath stuck in her throat. He was touching her eyelashes. With a tenderness she would never have imagined him capable of, he grazed them, one eye after the other, the touch soft and almost…reverent. His fingers withdrew, only to be replaced by the warmth of his breath the next second as he leaned in—and gently, lightly, kissed her eyes, his lips deliberately brushing over her lashes, as if seeking that tactile stimulation.

  After a moment of aching heartbeats he drew back, leaving her shaken to her core.

  “Take some time to recover,” he murmured, and she wasn’t at all sure he meant from the exhaustion of the spellwork study session.

  Chapter 15

  The statement, this time, was even more blatant.

  Arawn stared at the butchery in front of him, the human limbs strewn on the ground, arranged so it denied any natural feeding pattern. As Deimos—who had examined the scene first—confirmed, the visible wounds were not consistent with those made by predators killing for a meal, whether of the natural or otherworldly kind. As with the first one found two days ago, this slaughter spoke of either senseless violence, or a very deliberate provocation.

  He crouched down, studied one of the piles of internal organs topped by the human male’s head. The man’s face was frozen in an expression of horror, unmistakable even though his eyes were missing, his tongue cut out of his gaping mouth. The other two human heads—another male and one female, propped on top of their respective heaps of organs—displayed the same kind of mutilation. The eyes and tongues were all laid out before the heaps of organs, along with the brains from the opened skulls.

  Though humans were more than capable of sociopathic brutality of this caliber, something about this particular butchery whispered of the sort of detached yet feral cruelty most commonly found in long-lived otherworld species, especially demons or fae. Shifters were rarely this precise in their slaughter—when they snapped, they rampaged. They didn’t arrange their kills in a calculated pattern like this.

  They would also have eaten all the organs.

  Someone with more sense than a shifter running amok was making a game of killing humans—and dumping the bloody remains in a way that could not be interpreted as anything but a provocation.

  Because this time…the scene was laid out within Arawn’s territory.

  His blood burning with cold fury at the slight, at the insolence, he rose and turned to Deimos, who was glowering at the bloody arrangement while leaning against a tree. His second clearly shared his mood, no doubt taking this as an insult to his ability to keep Arawn’s dominion safe.

  “What have you heard in the grapevine?” Arawn asked him.

  Black lashes lowered over eyes of piercing blue, rose again as Deimos looked at him. “No one we know did this.” He pushed off the tree, approached the slaughter with careful steps that spoke of leashed power. “I talked to the demons, the shifters…nothing. There’s unrest growing in Faerie since the royal court was murdered, but no reports of fae fleeing the realm yet. No rumors of a fae gone off the deep end and leaving corpses in their wake.”

  “This smells of old magic,” he murmured.

  Deimos’ expression sharpened. “The scent you picked up?”

  Arawn nodded, drawing in that elusive trace yet again. “I have a theory.”

  “Care to share?”

  “Do you recall,” he said, the grass beneath his bare feet soft and wet from the recent rain, “the conversation we had all those years ago?”

  The other male became still in that way so intrinsic to all predators. “I have not found a single trace. No whispers. If this is one of them…”

  There was no amusement behind his smile. “They are bound to be sneaky, Deimos.”

  A long look from his second, then a scoff. “If they are anything like you, yeah.”

  This time, real humor caused him to smile. Deimos was among the select few entitled to speak to him this way, had earned that right through unflinching loyalty over hundreds of years.

  “I cannot be sure yet,” Arawn said after a moment, “whether my theory is correct. At this point, it could still be the work of a mind gone mad.”

  For if the perpetrator was a regular otherworld creature, then dropping heaps of blood and gore not just close to Arawn’s border, but in his territory, indicated some form of insanity
.

  “In which case, though,” Deimos added, “there should be more clues to their identity, more tracks and evidence to follow. This”—he gestured at the scene—“is almost pristine in terms of arrangement. Whoever did this took great care to conceal who they are.”

  “Because they are playing a game.” Arawn tilted his head, pondered the blood-drenched display. “It is not an open declaration of war. Not a surgical strike to my dominion.” For that, the perpetrator would have had to hit something entirely different than a few random humans. Which made this all the more puzzling.

  “But it is a provocation.” Deimos narrowed his cerulean eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Because, looking at the two incidents, whoever did this was moving into Arawn’s territory, a deliberate poke.

  He didn’t like being poked.

  “All right. Here goes.”

  Maeve took a deep breath and stepped out of her cabin, onto the hanging bridge. The wood creaked beneath her shoes, the bridge swaying slightly as she crossed over to the slope. The late afternoon sun peeked out through intermittent clouds that had released drizzles of rain earlier, leaving the ground still wet, the air heavy with moisture.

  On the slope in front of the bridge, she halted, cleared her throat. “Kelior?”

  A few seconds ticked by, so she followed up with, “Hello?”

  The soft sounds of footsteps on cushioned forest ground, and then the male she almost charbroiled yesterday emerged from the brush. Shoulder-length red hair framed a face of finely sculpted masculine beauty, his skin white with a golden shimmer.

  “Maeve,” he said, bowing his head in greeting. “Is there something you need?”

  “Yes.” She wet her lips. “I want to apologize.”

  Red brows drew together over his light blue eyes. “For what?”

  “For freaking out yesterday.” She fidgeted with the seam of her sweater. “It wasn’t your fault, you know. And I just want to let you know it’s nothing personal. I just…have some issues.”

  He shook his head. “No apology needed. I overstepped my bounds. I shouldn’t have—”