Page 117 of The Demon Court

She turned in his arms as the tears fell and he gathered her up against his heart. Carefully. So gently. Like he knew how breakable she was.

Lust lifted her and carried them both to the bed. He got underneath the covers with her, holding her as close as he possibly could as she cried for the family she should have had. The family she could have been given. And for all the opportunities she’d missed to make a better one herself.

It took a long time for her to feel everything again, as he’d told her to do. But once she had emptied herself of all that emotion, she felt better.

Selene realized he traced his fingers over the red marks on her thighs. Lust dragged his touch up her sides to the ones just underneath her breasts, gently trailing along them like she had done to him.

As she slid into sleep, draped across his chest, she whispered, “I need you too, Lust.”

“I know.”

“Not because I want you, or for anything you give me.” She pressed a kiss over his heart. “I lo... I like you for who you are, Lust. I think you’re a good person underneath all that flash and ridiculous glitter.”

Seven kingdoms, she’d almost admitted how strong her feelings for him had become. She hoped he didn’t notice the almost slip of her tongue. But then again... Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

ChapterThirty-Nine

His heart shattered the moment hers did. It broke him to hold her as she cried, and he knew there was nothing he could do to fix this. Her family didn’t want her. She’d grown up with the fear that no one would ever want her. She’d been abandoned, forgotten, and then told she had no value other than her use to her family. And she’d no longer been useful.

If he could take the pain, he would. He would rip Minerva to shreds and feed Selene her still beating heart if it would make his little sorceress feel better. And yet, he knew it wouldn’t.

This was a wound she needed to heal for herself, and all he could do was wait.

Time wasn’t on their side. He let her rest in their room for a few days while he scoured their library for whatever answer he could get. Minerva would try to kill her. The mark on her neck was the key source of that, and he’d already sketched it while she was asleep.

There had to be some explanation in his library. Some book to help him understand what spell Minerva had used and what might help him prevent that spell from ever taking life.

Except there wasn’t. Lust spent hours every day trying to figure it out, and when he couldn’t, he tore pages out of books and shattered windows in his rage.

He had to save her. He had to do something other than just sit here and wait for the others to attack her. And some part of him knew that if he didn’t do something, then he was waiting for her to die.

A small mist fluttered out from underneath the door and then stood. Affection. The little spirit had grown yet again. It straightened its spine and stood as tall as his waist, though it didn’t look like a child. It appeared to be a smaller sized... person.

With a mop of hair on top of its head, lips and nose all in the right places, Affection looked very much like one of his court nobility. Although, it wasn’t male or female. Apparently, it hadn’t chosen yet.

“What are you doing in here?” Affection asked, its voice soft.

“She’s dying.” He slumped in his chair, legs spread wide and chest still heaving. Pages floated in the air around him, still fluttering down onto the floor with the quiet hush of the earth anticipating a storm. “And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

Affection’s eyes wandered over him and the mounds of paper nearby. “So, you are destroying the library?”

“I am destroying every book that doesn’t have the answer I seek.”

“What if it contains an answer for later?” Affection stepped over one pile, and the movement of its body was unnerving. “Books have lots of answers, and not all of them are for the present.”

“I don’t need your philosophical scolding right now.”

“I’m not scolding you. I’m telling you that you need to talk with her.” Affection sighed, and then grumbled something under its breath that sounded like, “For two people who are so fond of each other, you both ignore the other a lot.”

“Excuse me?” He stood up, pacing from one side of the library to the other. “I don’t think you understand what I’m doing here. It’s my job to fix this. I was the one that took her in from the sorceresses. If I hadn’t done that, then she wouldn’t be cursed. I could have saved her if I wasn’t so selfish.”

“But then you never would have known her.”

“At least she would have been safe. She’d be alive, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have to be afraid that she was going to die at any second, and she would be back with her family, who likely would love her more than I can.”

And there it was.

His greatest fear.

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