Page 159 of Wolf Caged
He was ruggedly handsome, his eyes as black as night but sharp as they took me in, raking over me from head to toe and back again, a little rough looking with the scar that bisected his eyebrow and his overlong onyx hair trying to break free of the tie that held it back, curling around to brush his thick neck. A heavy band of black metal with a purple sheen to it inlaid with gold decorations encircled his neck, not quite meeting in front of his throat. And he was as large as a house, consuming all of the space in the chair that had dwarfed me, his black shirt and leather pants, and heavy boots making him blend into it.
A chair I was beginning to feel had been built for him.
“You’re new.” His voice was as deep as a chasm, as rolling thunder.
I fidgeted. “I’ve been here a few weeks… months… actually. I’ve not seen you around before. So one might say you’re new… to me, at least.”
The corner of his broad, firm mouth quirked.
I shuffled back a step as he rose from the chair, a monstrous male that had to stand over seven foot tall, but it wasn’t his size that startled me.
It was the great, black leathery wings that unfurled from his back.
He stretched the bat-like wings and then snapped them closed, and I gawped at him. Utterly gawped. Rude of me, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
“What corner of Hell did he pick you up from?” he said as he looked me over again and I struggled to rouse myself from my stupor.
A demon. He was a demon. From Hell.
I frowned.
One who had just made me sound like some kind of rescue puppy.
“He didn’t pick me up from anywhere. Heboughtme,” I snapped. I wasn’t sure if that sounded better or worse than being some kind of stray. Definitely worse.
The demon seemed to think so.
His onyx eyes gained a deep reddish-purple corona in their depths as they slid from me to something behind me.
Someonebehind me.
“It is true, Malachi.”
I tensed as that rich, deep voice rolled over me, heating my blood, and turned to see Kaeleron leaning against the doorframe, his eyes not on me but on the one called Malachi. Watching. Guarded.
An unholy growl rumbled through the room, more frightening than the storm yesterday had been, rattling my bones and making me take a step back, towards Kaeleron.
Darkness clung to Malachi’s features as he stared the fae king down, his eyes burning with that purple fire now, but glacial at the same time.
“Saphira is not a slave though,” Kaeleron continued, as calm as anything in the face of this male’s wrath, anger I felt sure would detonate at any moment as I inched a little further out of the line of fire.
I recalled the conversation I had listened into that first day in my cell. Jenavyr had mentioned a male who had been conveniently sent away on business by Kaeleron, one who would never forgive him for buying me. This male. I looked from thedemon to the fae king. His wary gaze that remained fixed on the demon told me he had known exactly what would happen when this male learned how I had come to be here and he was prepared for it.
Kaeleron’s pose remained relaxed, but I knew better, could spot the tells now as he subtly braced for impact. “What I did could be considered a kindness.”
I snorted, even though it was true. “I suppose you did save me from a far worse fate.”
Kaeleron inclined his head. “So you see, there is no reason for this to get out of hand.”
The demon wasn’t listening. He flexed his clawed fingers and stretched his wings, as if warming up for a fight. His horns grew, curling forwards, the gold shifting with them as if it was part of them and just as organic and fluid, able to grow and contract.
“You bought her?” Malachi snarled.
Kaeleron nodded and held his right hand up. “I saved her.”
“Youboughther.” The reddish-purple in Malachi’s eyes began to devour the onyx of his irises and I figured that was a bad sign because Kaeleron stopped leaning casually against the doorframe and straightened to his full height. “What did youbuy, Kaeleron?”
“My virginity,” I said brightly, still in a bit of a mood with Kaeleron after last night and kind of wanting to see him get his ass kicked by a demon who stood at least six inches taller and had a couple hundred pounds on him.
