Page 76 of Prince of Demons
Selma sighed. “I’ll try to contact Bealith—see if she is willing to share any information on this goddess.”
“Wait… wait, what do you mean I’d be Kesh’s ‘illegitimately’?” The words were out of Georgia’s mouth before she could stop them.
They all turned to look at her—the queen, the king, and the monster who’d sired him. She felt the full weight of their attention, and the full vulnerability of her own undressed state, but this was all wrong. What they were saying, the implications… Her gut felt tight with mounting foreboding, and despite her attempt to keep her voice calm, it still quavered. “I was told I get to choose. How can it be illegitimate if I pick?”
There was a moment’s silence, the tension in her gut only increasing.
“She’s right,” the queen said. A brief but genuine smile flickered over her features. “If she chooses Kesh, that is her right.”
“Selma, it’s not that simple,” the king said, his voice soft. “The law that allows Breeders to choose their own mates has only been accepted for regular Breeders—not Pure ones. You know how difficult it was to get support for it. Attempting to convince the lords that the third Pure Breeder in a row should go to our family, simply because she chooses to, is going to cause a riot. Especially because Kesh has had unrestricted access to her while thinking she was a regular Breeder. It would be argued that he’s used this time to influence her affections.”
Selma pinched her lips. “What do you suggest, then? That we tear her away from him? That we allow the lords to treat her like a piece of meat for auction, just because it’s inconvenient for our politics that she picked your brother? You would never have allowed that to happen to me—yet you expect Kesh to allow it? And Georgia to submit to it? In the end, no matter how you look at it, her choice is all that matters.”
A glimmer of relief threaded through Georgia’s chest, softening the tightness there ever so slightly. The queen was on her side. They’d find a way?—
“You’re wrong.” Kesh’s voice was so soft, she barely felt the rumble of it where she was pressed against his chest. “It’s not her choice. It’s mine.”
“Excuse me?” Selma asked, but her voice drowned in the thundering of blood in Georgia’s ears as she looked up at Kesh and saw the distant, cold expression in his eyes. She knew what he was gonna say before the words came, and gut-wrenching pain twisted her heart.
“Kesh… Kesh, no. Please, look at me, please—” She reached for his cheek to turn his face toward her, to make him look at her—make him remember what she knew they’d both felt when he took her, but he didn’t budge. He looked straight ahead, at his brother, not so much as acknowledging her panicked attempts at reaching him. There was only cold indifference in his voice when he said, “I am not mating this Breeder. Nothing is more important than our family’s survival. She will pick her mate among the lords who support us. That is my choice.”
39
Georgia
“Kesh…”
His name fell from her lips one final time, but the constriction of her throat made it sound like barely more than a whisper.
He ignored it, as he had her other attempts at reaching him, and turned his attention to his brother. “My Second knows of the Breeder’s Pure status. If this information hasn’t spread already, it’s only a matter of time before it will. We need to regroup and prepare to send out invitations to her courting as soon as possible if we are to avoid a revolt. I suggest we move to my official premises and proceed. The sooner this is handled, the better for everyone.”
Horrible, cold numbness sank deep into her chest.
This was really it. Everything she’d felt, that all-encompassing connection, truly meant nothing to him. Or, at least, less than his duty to his family.
She supposed she shouldn’t have expected anything different. He’d made it clear from the beginning that his priority was to ship her off to some other demon as soon as possible, so he could return to what truly mattered to him: his war, and his family’s survival.
She’d been naïve to think that moment between them meant the same for him as it did for her. The cold numbness spread through her whole body. He was a demon. What did she expect? He was a demon; any sense of humanity she’d seen during their time together would never measure up to the truth of his nature. And she… she’d allowed herself to believe that there was more to him, more to their so-called connection than the simple fact that he and all his kind saw her as a womb to breed, because… because he was the first person since Larry to ever treat her like she mattered.
The humiliating truth made her close her eyes, the sound of Kesh’s family turning to a wordless murmur behind the rushing of blood in her ears. How pitiful, how disgustingly weak she was to have pinned hopes of love on the Prince of Demons.
The air felt too thick to breathe, his strong arms around her body like iron bands restricting her lungs.
“Put me down.”
Kesh ignored her—they all did. They were discussing how to host this ‘courting’, this ritual to pretend she had semblance of choice in the matter.
“Put me down!” Anger, refreshing amidst the icy numbness, washed through her. This time, her voice projected loud enough that he couldn’t ignore her.
Kesh’s eyes flicked down briefly, but didn’t connect with hers. “No. The floor is cold, and you have no shoes.” His tone was calm but vaguely irritated. Like she was a persistent child demanding sweets before dinner.
“I don’t care. Put me down right now.” Her skin crawled, the sensation of his warmth against her no longer soothing, but violating—a reminder of a betrayal she had no right to feel. “Put me down, put me down, put. Me. Down!”
“Kesh—” There was a hint of warning in the queen’s voice, but he ignored her, as he did Georgia.
“So it is decided? We will send for the lords this evening, and the courting will begin tomorrow aftern—” His voice died when Georgia’s hand impacted with the side of his head with as much force as she could muster. Finally, his black eyes met hers.
“Put me down, Kesh. I don’t want you to touch me—ever again.” There was more malice in her voice than she’d ever contained in her life.
