Page 16 of The Demon Court

Ursula grabbed onto her skirts and tugged her back down at the same time Lust chuckled.

“You know that’s not going to happen. If I wanted her, I would have her already.”

“And yet, you are here. I have her and you don’t.” The flash of pride in Minerva’s gaze wouldn’t keep her safe.

Selene braced herself at the first touch of his magic and then hissed out a low breath as it pulsed through the room. Sorceresses appeared behind her mother, ready to protect their High Priestess from his rage. But that didn’t stop him. Another pulse of lust sent every woman in the room to their knees.

Even her mother. The High Priestess of the Tower of Silver Thread, a goddess in her own right, fell onto her knees before him, rocking back and forth and... and...

Moaning.

Selene shoved it all down, deep underneath that lake, and ignored how Ursula pressed her hands hard between her legs as though trying to hold it back.

“If I wanted you all to bow before me, I could make you.” His eyes searched the six women who’d approached and sighed. “And yet, I do not see her.”

“She was born for you,” Minerva whispered, but her voice carried up into the rafters. “She arrived to us as a child and since then we have trained her for you and only you.”

“A puppet,” he snarled.

“No. A queen.”

“I have no use for a queen.”

She stood up with a snap. Her skirts billowed around her even before she realized that she was about to shout at him. She didn’t want to be a queen either, and her mother had no right to trade her off. She had given her dues, and she was supposed to be a sorceress now. Not a queen. Not a sacrifice to a demon!

Selene ducked behind the bush again as his eyes glanced over at the balcony. All her bravery fled in the wake of those blue eyes. Don’t see me, she thought. Please don’t see me.

“You have use for her. The entire kingdom awaits your choice of queen who will rule over them. There are whispers in the streets. Whispers of how you will rule on your own forever and disregard the needs of your people.”

“I have never done so,” he snarled. And when she peeked out from behind the bush again, his eyes had moved back to the High Priestess. “None of us, as you so affectionately call demons, have a bride. And we never will.”

“You may know what the nobles and the beautiful ones say, but you do not know what is whispered in dark places. You have need of a sorceress, Demon.”

He rolled his eyes, and the light caught on his horns. More glitter, she noted with disdain.

He eyed her mother and then sighed. “I’ve seen this ploy before. You are not the first High Sorceress who tried to wriggle her way onto the throne. You offer me a puppet who, if I indulge in a few nights, will expect a payment for access to her innocent body. You will then try to make me bend because you believe that I care about your daughter or sorceress or foundling. When I do not allow you to cajole me into a bargain, then you will threaten her life. I will tell you I have no interest in her life, and then she will die. Your people will rebel against you because you killed one of your own with your careless actions, and then a new High Sorceress will take your place. Within two more centuries, all of this will repeat itself. Or am I wrong?”

Selene caught her breath.

Was that the plan? Was she to be thrown into his arms only for her mother to make demands of him later?

Of course it was. She saw it so clearly now. After all she’d given up, her mother wouldn’t trust her with something so important as this. The truth of her mission had never been just to tempt him. It had always been to infiltrate the castle.

“You underestimate me, Demon,” Minerva hissed. “We will no longer bend to you.”

“Is that so?” A flash of anger made his face even more attractive.

The pulse of his power was stronger this time. Then another. And another. Over and over again, until even Selene winced.

His voice thundered around them, terrifying and monstrous in its power. “All it takes is one thought for you to drop to your knees. Another for you to know what it is to die a little death. How much more power do you believe it would take for me to end you all where you stand?”

Ursula moaned, the sound echoing with the rest of her sisters as all the women suddenly writhed on the ground.

And she couldn’t take it anymore.

Selene leapt to her feet, then raced down the stairs. Her footsteps might have echoed, but who could hear them over the sounds of her sisters? Or her mother?

This memory would haunt her for the rest of her being. Finally, she reached the ground floor and stood at the top of the stairs where her mother had stood only a few moments ago.

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