Page 104 of Prince of Demons
“What is this?” Kirigan’s voice, low and cracked, broke through the bubble of peace.
Georgia turned to see Kirigan make his way toward them, eyes fixed on her with an unsettling intensity. Disbelief mixed with something dark and unsteady. Kesh’s grip on her tightened, and a low, involuntary growl of warning left his throat.
The mad demon paused at his son's warning, hand half outstretched toward her. “You don’t understand, Kesh. Fate has marked our bloodline. That goddess knew—I need to learn how she knew before we did. How she knew. What is it about this girl that made you offer your life? The answer is inside her. It has to be.”
He took another step forward, as if proximity might help him understand what had taken root inside her. What had fused her to his son.
Kesh’s lip curled back, but it was Georgia’s magic that stopped him in his tracks. It flared up around her, gold turning white at the edges, and Kirigan froze mid-step.
“Don’t even think about touching me,” she hissed, anger curling in her gut as she glared up at him.
Kirigan’s hand lowered, just barely. His eyes flicked from her face to Kesh, then back again.
“I know what you did,” she continued. “You sold me to them! They told me. Mallorn was just the courier. You were behind it all. You traded me, like I’m just… a piece of meat? Like my life doesn’t matter, so long as, what? The people you love are safe?”
There was a moment of complete stillness.
Kain, who’d been busy with the other lords, turned slowly back around to stare at his father. Selma’s lips parted. Kesh…
Kesh went still as stone beside her. “You did what?” he whispered, breath like icy steel. His fingers tightened at her waist, barely restrained.
“It was… a mistake,” Kirigan said. His voice was soft, devoid of emotion, even if his disturbing gaze still held some unnamable darkness. “If I had realized what you were to him, I would have found another way, but I didn’t… You are Fate-sworn to my son, little Breeder, just like his brother’s mate was to him. Two in one family? It is… preposterous. An impossibility.
“You were supposed to be nothing more than instincts. And infatuation that threatened my family’s safety. I saw my youngest lost to desire, at the brink of shattering our support, had he acted on it and claimed you for himself. The gods are stirring, plotting… We wouldn’t survive a war on two fronts, so I did what I thought I had to, to secure peace with the Europeans.”
Kesh’s expression didn’t shift. He didn’t snarl, didn’t growl. He simply looked at his father like something inside him had gone cold and permanent. “You chose eternal rape and enslavement for the woman I love?” His voice was low. Quiet. Deadly. “You thought you knew best? You thought getting rid of her would… what? Make me a useful tool again?”
His nostrils flared with a deep, deliberate inhale, his grip tightening around Georgia’s waist as if she was the only thing keeping him from ripping out Kirigan’s throat. “You are dead to me,” he said flatly. “If you ever come near her again, I swear?—”
Kirigan cut him off. “This isn’t over. You have no idea what’s coming. The gods don’t care for love, or mates, or kingdoms. Whatever they have planned, whatever interest they have in our family, it will only have increased tenfold now that another Pure Breeder’s powers have been awakened by our bloodline. I acted only in the interest of survival—yours, and your brother’s.”
“You nearly cost my brother his soul,” Kain said. His voice rang out clear, sharp. He stepped fully into the ruined arena, eyes narrowed to slits. “You nearly cost my kingdom its strongest warrior. You nearly cost me my brother. That is not survival. That is cowardice. And in your hubris, in your arrogance, you miscalculated. You could have cost us everything, Father.”
“You sacrificed a Seer,” Selma seethed by his side. “You sacrificed one of my subjects, my sisters, to a fate so brutal, women have taken their own lives just to escape it.”
Kain took one slow step forward, shadows curling at his feet, voice like thunder striking ice. “You betrayed us. All of us. You are my sire, and that is the only reason you are still breathing. Leave—now. You are banished from my kingdom. Do not return.”
The silence that followed rang louder than any explosion.
Kirigan stood there for a moment, perfectly still. Then he bowed his head. Not in shame. Not in remorse. Just… acknowledgment. A nod to consequences. His gaze swept over them—his two sons, and the human women Fate had chosen for them. There was no apology in his eyes.
Then he turned, stepped into shadow, and was gone.
The four of them stood in the cratered silence he left behind, the remains of the decimated royal palace smoldering around them.
Above them, the sky still shimmered with the echo of what had been unleashed. Ash spiraled through the air like snow. The wind carried the scent of smoke, blood, and magic.
In every direction, there was nothing but rubble.
The city of Rome was gone.
In the distance, sirens blared.
“Well,” Selma said, hands on hips as she took in the devastation. “I don’t think we’re going to explain this one with a gas leak.”
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Kesh
