Page 37 of Demonchild

She had to confront him.

She had to make him lift the curse.

She would do anything he asked of her. Anything.

At the edge of the clearing, Malissa dismounted and tied the reins to a tree to keep her horse from wandering off. The animal was restless. The darkstone ring was making it nervous, and for good reason.

The horse knows this is a bad place, she thought.If I had as much sense as a horse, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

The pain stabbed at her again, doubling her over.

It was too late to turn back now. She was here. She had to confront the demon. He was the one who had done this, and he was the only one who could stop it.

She had to make him save her baby.

That was probably exactly what he wanted—to make her become even more deeply indebted to him. Making her owe him her life was not enough. Now she would owe him the life of her baby as well.

But there was no other way.

Malissa took her satchel and headed for the center of the clearing and the darkstone ring. It was strange, seeing it in broad daylight. The last time she’d seen it like this had been on the dayshe had first discovered it. All of her subsequent visits had been made under the cover of darkness.

It suddenly occurred to Malissa that she didn’t even know if the conjuration would work during the daytime.

She was about to find out.

CHAPTER 20

At first, the light was blinding. After the blackness of the void, even starlight seemed bright. But this… this was something else entirely.

Sunlight.

Seven hells, how long had it been since he’d actuallyseenthe sun?

As his pupils narrowed, and his vision adjusted, Beliath searched the cloudless blue sky overhead. His eyes found that blazing yellow orb hanging close to the zenith, and he stared directly into it. A mortal could go blind doing that, but Beliath was no mortal. He let his eyes soak up all the brightness, even as his spread wings soaked up the warmth of the sun’s rays, warming his blood.

It was…

A bit overrated, to be honest.

The moon was better. More sensuous, more subtle. Then again, Beliath had helped put the moon together, so his opinion was naturally a little biased.

Still, all this light really was a bit much. All this color, all this vibrancy. How the hell could anyone stand it?

“What have you done to my baby?”

The growl of Malissa’s voice startled Beliath out of his reverie. He had been so distracted by the unexpected brightness, ithadn’t even occurred to him how strange it was that the woman had summoned him during the daylight hours.

But it occurred to him now.

For a moment, he thought it was the equinox, but he immediately realized that was not the case. If today were the equinox, he would have felt it, would have felt the magic dancing through the air, through the trees, through the pillars of the darkstone ring.

That left only one other possibility. Malissa had come to him during the daylight hours because something was wrong. Something that couldn’t wait til nightfall.

And what had she just asked him?What have you done to my baby?

Beliath whirled around to face her.

Today, she looked different. Partly it was the sunlight, which allowed Beliath to see her naked flesh more clearly than he had ever seen it before. That sight, combined with the smell of her sweat, sent the blood rushing into Beliath’s cock.

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