Page 77 of Martyr

“Enough!” Lake pulled Yejun back so that he toppled off of Nix, but he didn’t move him further away than that. “Let us explain.”

“Explain?” the Demon stood and shoved Lake hard enough he fell down onto the couch. “No explanation needed,brother. You made him your mate to protect him from me, knowing that once I found out, I would react just like this. Are you going to deny it?”

“No.”

“He can’t be trusted! What if—”

“I didn’t want any of this,” Nix dared to interject. “I didn’t ask to be used to help you find the hacker, and I didn’t ask to be bitten. You can’t blame me for getting involved with you when that was never my intention.”

“Iris was a lying cunt,” Yejun said. “And from what I can see, you’re no better.”

“Because I didn’t tell you she and I are related?” He sat up indignantly. “Look how you’re acting! No one in their right mind would tell you something like that! It’d be suicide!”

“He isn’t going to kill you,” Lake growled, and even though the reassurance had been meant for Nix, his heated gaze was pointedly locked on the other Demon.

“You’re choosing him over me,” Yejun accused.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You know what she did! What she put me and West through and yet you brought him into this and forced us—”

“Forcedyou?!” Nix barked out a humorless laugh. Maybe he was losing his mind due to the fear, or maybe he was more hurt by Yejun’s flippant comments than he realized. Hell, perhaps he just didn’t give a shit anymore.

About any of this.

Juri would keep Briant safe, and he’d just discovered that the King he’d been after all this time had already been dealt with. It wasn’t like he could do worse to Rase than blind him.

Nix tore off his shirt without a second thought, exposing the smattering of love bites and bruises all across his chest. “You don’t have a right to make that claim. The only person here who’s beenforcedto do anything is me. Branwen hurt you? Boo-fucking-hoo. She hurt me, too! Hell, you’re hurting me right now!”

Yejun’s eyes flashed with anger. “Don’t sit there and act like you didn’t like every second of it. If I touched you right now, you’d get hard for me in seconds.”

“Fuck you.” Yup. Nix had definitely lost his mind. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and his bottom lip trembled pathetically, but he didn’t even attempt to get off the table. Instead, his shaking hands went to his belt and he undid it.

“What are you doing?”

“This is what you want, right?” The sound of his zipper coming undone was like a gunshot, but he did his best to keep his composure and hide just how frightened he actually was. Obviously they could tell he was emotional right now, but pleading for his life wasn’t going to work, and showing them just how afraid he was would probably only spur Yejun on further.

Nix lifted his butt so he could remove his pants and underwear and then tossed them to the side. Then, he boldly met Yejun’s gaze head-on. “You want to humiliate me. That’s your go-to method when you’re pissed off at someone.”

That’s why he’d tricked those guys into screwing on the waif field and why he’d pissed on Rase even after blinding him. Pain wasn’t enough to satisfy the monster inside of Yejun. He needed to inflict the ultimate suffering, and for someone like him, someone who came from money and power, that was by tearing apart a person’s pride. Reducing them to nothing.

He’d put those pieces together a while ago, and yet he’d still foolishly allowed himself to buy into the artist's bullshit about caring for him.

Yejun didn’t care about him.

Yejun just wanted inside of him.

Nix spread his legs, effectively straddling the table.

He hated this table. If given the chance, he was going to set it on fire.

“I won’t stop you,” he said. Hecouldn’tstop him, but refusing to resist and make things worse was pretty much the only way he could protect himself.

It was the only way he could hold on to any semblance of his self-respect, something he’d already given far too much of to the Demons.

“You think I won’t?” Yejun asked.

He shook his head. “I know you will.”