Page 44 of Demonchild

“Anything, Your Highness.”

“I want you to keep an eye on Dr. Jaeger for me. If you notice him doing anything out of the ordinary—anything at all—I want you to let me know right away.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

After Droanna was gone, Malissa spent some time pacing the length of her bedchamber, pausing occasionally to glance at the portrait of Wulfgang on the wall, or to look out the window at the afternoon light. She did not really see any of those things, however. Her attention was all turned inward.

She had not taken Jaeger’s concoctions since the incident with the poison. She suspected that was how the poison had entered her system in the first place. The only thing she hadn’t been sure of was the man’s motive. She’d thought, perhaps, it was because she had refused his advances several weeks before. Now she knew the real reason.

Jaeger didn’t care about her. She was just a means to an end, a way for him to get revenge for what had been done to his people.

Malissa almost felt pity for him.

Almost.

If he had only tried to kill her, that would have been one thing. But he had tried to kill her baby, and for that he would have to pay.

Come the equinox, Beliath would be free from his prison, and he would make Jaeger experience pain the likes of which few mortals had ever known.

Which reminded her…

She needed to pay a visit to the dungeons beneath Drachenval. There were a few items she needed to gather for tonight.

CHAPTER 23

The blackness in which he resided was no longer nothingness. It was her black hair, long and soft and redolent with her feminine scent. It entangled him. It bound him. It held him prisoner in ways no ring of stone could ever do.

It was a prison he would gladly accept.

While he waited, drifting in the sea of black silk, he had plenty of time to think, and all his thoughts were of his little dark queen. He thought of how soft she felt, how sweet her lips tasted, both above and below. Those were good thoughts.

But most of all, he thought about the poison, and his queen’s resistance to it. A resistance that went beyond what any mortal woman should have been capable of.

It was that resistance which had saved their child.

As acambion, a demon-human hybrid, the child would be impervious to many things. Flames could not harm him. He could not drown. Even poison, eventually, would be ineffective against him. However, it would take some time for that latter immunity to develop. As an unborn infant, his body had not yet built up the necessary defenses against poison.

But his mother’s body had.

How could that be?

Beliath had heard tales of mortal kings and queens who, fearing assassination, had routinely taken small doses of all manner ofpoisons in order to build up a natural immunity. But Beliath did not think this was the case with Malissa.

There was something else going on with his little dark queen. Something special. The next time they met, he would talk to her about it.

And he would have a look at that book of hers.

As if on cue, Beliath felt the sea of dark filaments parting, felt his consciousness lifting, rising from the black depths like a ghost rising from the tomb.

His queen was calling.

The last time she had summoned him, it had been broad daylight, and the sun had stung his eyes. This time, it was night—sweet, sweet night—and the only lights were the moon and the stars and the five candles flickering atop the low pillars of the darkstone ring.

And his queen.

Framed against the shadowy backdrop of the forest, her naked form almost seemed to glow. A touch of silver from the moonlight, a touch of gold from the candles, and a little touch of rose from the hot blood coursing through her veins.

His cock hoisted at the sight of her.

---