Page 103 of Prince of Demons
Now, it surged.
Magic rose around them in a spiral of light. His body jerked, and she felt him in that primordial current flooding every part of her being.
He was still with her.
The bond pulsed once. Then again. And she clung to it, to him, with everything she had left.
“Come back to me. Come back,” she whispered, forehead pressed to his as her trembling hands smoothed over his body and arms, again and again, the light in her filling him until he radiated with it.
Slowly, his skin warmed. Then his breath hitched beneath her hands. A pull of heat beneath her palms, subtle but sure. She choked on a sob and gripped him tighter.
Then his eyes cracked open, just enough for her magic flooding him to shine through his black eyes, turning them molten charcoal.
“Stop,” he rasped, voice torn and ragged but his. “Georgia, stop. I’m here. Don’t… don’t give me any more. You’re pulling… from your life force.” His fingers, weak but steady, lifted to cup her cheek. “I’m here.”
She let out a broken, gasping sound, half-sob, half-laugh, and leaned into the warmth of his touch. Her whole body shook. Her light flickered wildly around them, dimming and surging without rhythm now, the bond still pulsing between them like a third heart. He was here.
“I thought I lost you,” she whispered.
“You brought me back,” he rasped. His thumb brushed her cheek, reverent. “My beautiful, strong female. I always knew… from the first time I saw you, I knew…”
His other hand reached up slowly, gingerly, pulling her down. Their lips met, the kiss a tremor, not passion. Fragile and slow and sacred.
Kesh pulled back, eyes clouded with regret as he searched hers. “Georgia, I?—”
“Kesh!” The voice cracked across the crumbled arena like lightning. Georgia whipped around just in time to see a swirl of smoke and shadow stop, materializing into a figure.
Kirigan stood where the auction platform had once been, eyes wide and face drawn. His mad gaze swept over both of them, hands trembling before he clenched them into fists. His face turned ashen as his eyes lingered on Kesh.
Behind him, Kain and Selma followed, she glowing with the same golden light still flickering around Georgia, he with the full power of his demonic force billowing like a cape around them both.
Selma moved first. No hesitation, no fear. She stepped into the center and took up a stance in front of Georgia and Kesh, the Stone of Power raised in one steady hand. Light flared from it, golden and sure, echoing the pulse of light from Georgia’s stone. Kain followed her, one large hand on the small of her back as they stared down the few remaining European lords. A united shield.
“The old royals are dead. Your king is ash. The last of their princes is gone.” Kain’s voice boomed through the wreckage, his power swirling dark and solid around him. “We control two of the Stones of Power. If you bend the knee now, you’ll retain your territories. If you resist…” He let the sentence hang, sharp and terrible. “You’ll join your false king in death.”
A long moment of tense silence followed as the lords looked from the powerful demon and his magic-glowing mate to the half-vaporized, half-gutted remains of the lords killed by either Kesh or Georgia before the American King and Queen even arrived.
One by one, they dropped to their knees.
Kain began issuing orders. Georgia didn’t pay attention to what he said. Letting the knowledge that they were safe, that there were finally no more battles left to fight, settle in, she turned her full focus back to Kesh. His eyes hadn’t left her face since he first opened them. He drank her in as desperately as a thirsting man who has finally knelt by a fresh stream.
“The power of you…” he murmured, voice hoarse. “I have never seen anything so beautiful.”
She smiled softly at the reverence in his tone, her thumb brushing instinctively across his cheekbone. “You always did say you wanted me to grow a spine. I think this might count."
His eyes darkened, this time with guilt. “I’m… so sorry. For everything. For how I treated you, for… for letting you go. I thought I was saving you. I thought… anything would be better than eternity bound to me, to my darkness. But the truth is… I was such a coward, I nearly—” His breath hitched with pain. “Because of me, you were hurt.” His hand reached toward her neck, slow and shaking, and hovered just beside the burn there. Not touching, just near. “You were always meant to be mine, and I knew. In the most foundational parts of me, I've known since the first moment I saw you, and I let my cowardice hurt you. I will spend the rest of eternity on my knees for you. I will never stop begging for your forgiveness. Even though I know I don’t deserve it. I know I can’t ever undo?—”
She kissed him before he could finish. A press of lips, light as breath, trembling as she cupped his face. “You came for me,” she whispered against his mouth. “You gave up everything to try to save me, and in doing that… You unlocked the strength in me that everyone else has always tried to stamp out. Including me.” She pulled back enough to look him in the eye. “Your love unlocked this power. Your love saved me.” She touched her forehead to his. “I choose you, too, Kesh. Still.”
He let out a breath that shook through his whole body, eyes closing as his hand closed tighter around the back of her neck, as if every instinct in him wanted her as close as she could physically get. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered, lips brushing over his once more.
For a long, blissful moment, nothing existed but the taste of Kesh’s mouth and the warmth of his touch. Finally, finally, for the first time in her life, there was calm, The background sensation of uncertainty and fear faded, replaced with a warmth that took her several heartbeats to put a name to.
Belonging.
She belonged here, to him, with him. In his world, by his side, soul bound to his. The magic his love had awakened in her flared, as if in agreement.
