Page 22 of Taken to the Shadow Realm

And altogether too many days since that moment in the bath when I should have kept my mouth shut. I instantly knew that I had said the wrong thing. And since then, I hadn’t found the moment to broach the subject with her.

At first, I had been scared of what awaited me outside. I wasn’t afraid of the souls. I was worried that the demons at the auction would come back for my flesh.

But when I realized how densely packed with fog the area was, my fears slowly started to lessen. I wasn’t sure if all demons had the same reaction Yien did, but if it was even a portion, they would be rendered defenseless.

I could still see the way her face twisted in my mind. The pained expression that had crossed her face but also the dark veins that extended from her eyes.

I hadn’t had to see the colors of her aura to know what those eyes meant. I had seen them as I scanned the crowd at the auction and in the memories of the souls I touched.

Bloodlust.

But unlike them, hers was gone in the blink of an eye, causing me to be just that more curious about who the demon who bought me really was.

And what she wants to do to me.

I paused when a particularly strong memory passed through me.

I wasn’t surprised to be hit with the stench of sex or the feeling of pleasure coursing through my veins. It was common in the memories that I saw.

Sometimes I saw more innocent things. Happier times when the humans actually liked living with their demons.

But more often than not, those happier times included a demon between a woman’s legs, devouring her like they were starving.

It quickly became my guilty pleasure. At first, I was trying to see what Yien saw. Trying to dig through the memories that caused her to react like that.

But all I got were flashes of pleasure.

This time, I was watching a girl with not one, but two demons on her. One between her legs, the other trailing hot kisses down her neck.

“You’re so sensitive, Jillian,” the one kissing her neck said, their fangs scraping across her skin.

Her pleasure became my own. It heated my blood. Caused my heart to race.

It hadn’t been long since I allowed one of the men I was married off to touch me, but none of them had ever made me feel like that.

I was envious. Jealous of how easily they made her come. How they lavished her with attention I never got and probably would never get.

As a child, I had often thought, Why am I not good enough? But after seeing those memories, those same words began to have a different meaning altogether.

Why doesn’t Yien want to do those things with me? If all other demons pleasured their human companions like this, why doesn’t she?

I let myself get lost in the feeling. Get lost in the way they writhed against each other.

Unlike men in the real world, demons seemed to truly love bathing her in attention. Got off seeing the way she came.

I gasped when I was abruptly pulled back.

“Stay present,” Yien warned, her voice close to my ear. The tendrils of her aura wrapped around me and pulled me closer to her chest. “Don’t lose yourself to them.”

I was breathless. My skin too sensitive from the memories that were forced into me. The tendrils had a heavy, searing touch that made me sink back into her. It reminded me of the bath. Of the way her hands teased me but didn’t dare touch.

“Have you?” I asked. “Lost yourself to them, I mean.”

She shifted against me, her breath brushing across the back of my neck.

“I have not,” she said. “I have more control than that.”

Did she mean for her tendrils to travel up my thigh? To brush across my wet panties? I wished she did.

---