Page 61 of The Slave in A Princess Disguise

"I'm sure that if anything were wrong, Vladya would tell you," Ottai said at last, his voice carefully measured.

Ottai, the most honest and forthright of the grand rulers, was evading his questions. Worse, he was lying.

Daemonikai paused. If the situation was dire enough to make Ottai lie, then it was far more serious than he had initially suspected.

He would get his answers, and he would get them from Vladya himself.

By nightfall, Emeriel bolted upright, ripped from a fitful, tormented sleep.

Emeriel was thirsty, her throat burning like a parched desert. So horny she was dripping like a faucet, the moisture soaking into the sheets beneath her.

Emeriel lurched towards the water pot, her movements clumsy and disjointed.

But an invisible force slammed into her, knocking the breath from her lungs.

Thousands of knives carved their way through her, searing her flesh, shredding her organs, and leaving behind trails of molten agony. The pain was unlike anything Emeriel had ever experienced.

A scream tore from her throat. Raw, pain-filled, and animalistic, echoing through the silent cottage.

Her vision blurred, the room spinning as she collapsed onto the floor. If the previous waves of heat had been storms, this was ahurricane.

Emeriel rocked back and forth, clutching at her burning flesh as though she could somehow extinguish the inferno raging within. Somehow extinguish the volcano erupting in her core, its molten lava burning her womanhood, consuming her entire being from the inside out.

She let out another scream. And another.

Tears streamed down her face, mingling with the sweat pouring from her pores. She clawed at the floor, her nails digging into the rough wood in a futile attempt to get away from the pain.

"Oh my God!" She screamed.

This was different. Nothing like she had felt before. It was a monstrous, all-consuming pain that shattered her very being.

This was her end.

There's no way I will survive this.

Chapter eighteen

INTO THE FIRESTORM

HighLordHerodis’heartached with a profound sorrow he hadn't felt in decades. Emeriel's screams pierced the night’s air like a banshee's wail, filled with unbearable pain, each one a shard of ice twisting in his gut.

He wanted nothing more than to rush to her, to mount the female in heat, especially with those screams of agony. The sound of her suffering was nearly unbearable.

Despite the cottage being far away, her cries reached him clearly. As Urekai aged, their senses grew sharper, and their strength increased. Herod was no exception.

His heightened senses were even sharper, capturing every tortured sound, and it broke him. He could even hear the desperate whimpers punctuating her screams.

Herod's knuckles whitened as he gripped the arms of his study chair. His erection was hard and angry, straining through his pants. His muscles tensed in an effort to maintain control.

While she struggled to ride out her torturous heatwaves, Herod rose and began to pace his study like a caged beast.

Emeriel had made him promise no stranger would touch her during her heat, and he understood her disgust at the thought of enduring another male’s touch.

But now, hearing her pain, he questioned the wisdom of that promise. Was anything worth her going through this unbearable agony?

He could spare her this torment by taking her heat or sending in one of his most trusted soldiers.

Or you could send for her male.The thought whispered in his mind.

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