Page 37 of The Demon Prince's Accidental Mate
I continued to stare at him as he made it out to be no big deal.
“Women like princes,” he said stubbornly.
I fought back laughter. He was serious. “Princes have castles, ride pretty horses, have mothers who are overbearing and cruel and absent fathers,” I said. “Not wings and horns.”
Belial snorted it all away. “I’ve got a castle bigger than any human prince.”
“Right.”
“But we probably shouldn’t talk about my parents.”
“You know what I meant,” I said, lowering my head slightly to make my point.
He shrugged it off. “I still fit the bill, though.”
I didn’t really have a response to that. It was a twisted and warped sort of way, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. But a prince ofdemons?
“See,” he said, pushing on. “Women like princes. This will be just like the stories. It’s time to come run away with your prince.”
I gaped at him. “Myprince?”
He made a grand show of looking around before pointing at the unconscious gray man and the still form of my attacker, which was what I’d tripped over upon going through the portal.
“They aren’t princes, that’s for sure. And I don’t see any other princely suitors around for you.”
“You’re right,” I said. “All I see are two men who attacked me—”
“That one’s a minotaur, actually,” Belial interrupted, pointing at my attacker. He muttered a word and flicked his finger past me, and the unconscious man shimmered slightly as his true form was revealed, with his bull head mounted atop the same human body.
“Oh,” I said in a small voice. “Well, when you put it that way, all I see are a minotaur who attacked me, another man who wanted to attack me, and a man who lied about who and what he was and signed me to a blood contract that binds my soul to his. Oh, and he did so against my will.Definitelyprince material there.”
Belial bared his teeth. Human teeth, that time. “I didn’t force you to sign it, Lily. You did so of your own free will. Nor did I make you bleed. You did that to yourself, accident or not. It wasn’t me.”
“You could still tear it up,” I pointed out. “But you refuse to.”
“If I do that now, you lose all protection from me,” he said. “Given that they’ll come after you again, is that what you really want?”
A groan from the minotaur interrupted us.
“Pardon me,” Belial said with a politeness that seemed so utterly false coming from a demon and yet rang true in my mind.
He moved past me and drove his fist into the creature’s head, knocking it back out.
“Well?” he asked once he came back to me, holding out a hand. “Are you coming with me, or are you taking your chance with Triuk and his minotaur minions? What’s it going to be, Lily, because it won’t be long before more of them arrive?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, feeling trapped.
“It’s time to make a choice. I won’t force you to do anything,” he said, giving his extended arm a slight wave. “This is yours, and yours alone. But time is running out to make it.”
I bit my lip. Was there much of a choice? So far, the people after me had held a knife to my throat and tried to disintegrate me with a magic staff. Belial had risked much and shown me his true self, all to protect me.
If those were my two choices, then it really wasn’t a choice at all.
I took his hand. His relief was immense as we hurried to the corridor intersection.
“I need you to trust me,” he said, pointing at the end of the hallway.
I stared beyond it at the immense wall of water rushing by.
