Page 8 of Lifeblood

Long ago now, I’d heard stories thatthisdemon king could command shadows. I certainly hoped he did a better job of that than commanding his fellow kings. His dark eyes burned with a seriousness that kept the icy fear flowing in my veins.

“You heard him,” Lancelot, the demon fae, added. “If we’re going to go to war over her, let us handle it in the morning. We can talk calmly now, can’t we?” He turned his shimmering, rainbow-colored eyes on me—an illusion, I was sure. But then… I wasn’t sure. Even his fair skin seemed to be covered in glitter that sent rainbows rippling outward.

When he didn’t look away, I realized he was waiting for me to answer. I swallowed thickly and nodded. “Calmly, yes.”

“See?” Lancelot said with a grin on his face. “If she can be calm, so can we.”

“Lance,” the fourth demon king, Tristan, said dryly and with much exasperation. As if he were used to dealing with Lancelot’s antics. Or Lance, as it were. Was that a nickname or preferred name?

Lance spun to the last king, the ruler from the Court of Undeath. Tristan’s brown eyes showed concern and but the crease in this brow gave away some amount of concertation. He, like the others, wore an expensive-looking suit, but he’d hung back from the rest to worry his right wrist with his left fingers. They wrung uneasy circles around a gold bracelet with a single gemstone hanging from it: hematite. I recognized it even from here. Hematite was a protective stone, which begged the question: What was the King of the Court of Undeath so afraid of here?

“Yes?” Lance asked as his friend fell silent.

“This is complicated.”

“Hmm, yes, Tristan,” Lance said with a slight roll of his eyes. “Thank you for stating the obvious. It seems Gareth requires help understanding these complexities.”

Finally, Gareth let go of my shoulders, or rather,shoved meaway from him. The force of it—and shock, to be honest—sent me staggering back a step, but I managed to remain standing despite my bound hands doing nothing to help my balance.

Then, as he turned to face his fellow kings, Gareth actually put himself between me and them.

“There isnothingcomplicated about this,” Gareth spat as he swiped through the air. Veins bulged along the sides of his neck and his ears were turning red. More telling, though, were the wisps of smoke starting to billow from his nose. “She’s mymate.”

He said it as if that explained everything. As if it were simply fact, and that because of it, I was his and nothing else about this situation mattered.

Except that it was a lie.

“Hollow mate, you mean,” I dared to say. If these men were going to argue about me as though I wasn’t even here, I’d say what I wanted, decorum be damned. These were demon kings and the very enemy of my kind. They didn’t care about me, just my blood. “This bond between us is hollow. I know you know that.”

It was missing pieces. But I wasn’t sure he’d let me clarifythatpart we’d both felt, too, last night in front of his friends. Friends who were all staring at me a little too closely right now. My brow knit together even tighter as I tried to breathe through the raw, demonic power hitting me every few moments. And I was a lifeblood. How did the human women handle these demon kings for any length of time?

They didn’t. Not all four at once. Maybe not even one for long.

Gareth glanced over his shoulder at me, and the cold,angrylook in his eyes cut through everything else in the room. “I should’ve killed you.”

“It probably would’ve worked out better for me.” I hated him. I hated all of them. But those words hurt, and I hated that they did. That this demon king had any intimate power over me at all.

Mordred charged forward another step at Gareth’s words, but then paused when Gareth didn’t follow through.

“Mordred,” Lance warned, a smirk still playing on his full lips. Did he really find this funny?

Mordred’s jaw locked hard. “We agreed on civil. No more threats. From anyone.”

Silence fell upon the room, but it was their demonic power that continued to fill it. Thick and tense, full of a dark rawness I’d never felt before. Except last night with Gareth.

There’d been so many new feelings last night with Gareth. A pull I felt even now, still hollow between him and me, as I stood behind him. Only, unlike last night, my anger was holding the submissive parts of me at bay. Because there was no chance inhellI’d get on my knees and submit to him in front of these demon kings.

I wouldn’t submit to any of them.

Lance’s grin grew as we stood there. “Oh… Oh! Isshethe one who broke into your hotel room last night and nearly escaped with all of your little draconic treasures?” His tone was mirthful, teasing, but there was a slight tightness to his jaw that suggested—to me, at least—he wasn’t sure if this was going too far. “Clever, clever girl.”

“Lifeblood,” I corrected him. “Another woman for you four to ravage and ruin.”

“Mate,” Gareth chimed in. “She’smymate.Mylifeblood. And she’s leaving here withme.”

Mordred’s jaw finally unlocked, but only to say, “She just said the connection’s hollow. What if it’s not a real mate bond?”

“It’s not.”That was what I wanted to say. But I kept my mouth shut.

---