Page 102 of The Demon Court

“I thought we were having dinner?”

Minerva shook her head. “Dinner is for family. You, my dear, are a guest in this house until you remember who you are.”

The sting of her words burned like a slap across Selene’s face. It was fine. It would all be fine. She didn’t have to be the person who everyone wanted her to be, not unless she desired to be so.

And yet... She still found herself becoming that little girl again. The one who wanted to be like the others and was never allowed to be. She wasn’t given to the Tower. She was left here. A foundling with no family to her name, other than this one who didn’t want her.

Sighing, she nodded and dropped into a low curtsey. “I will not let you down, Mother.”

“See to it that you do not.”

Minerva disappeared into the only warm room in the Tower. Selene turned toward her sister and nodded. “Let’s go.”

“It’s the same room,” Ursula said, as though that somehow made it better. “No one touched anything. I made sure it was clean, just in case you... for when you came back.”

In case she failed, her sister meant. When Selene did not respond, neither did Ursula. They both walked up the countless stairs, all the way to her door that had been her haven for years. Except now, it was to be her prison.

Sighing, she planted her hand against the door and held Ursula’s gaze. “Do you think she’ll ever consider me part of the family?”

Ursula hesitated, then blew out a long breath. “I don’t know.”

It was enough of an answer.

Selene swung the door open and stepped into her old bedroom. The same room she’d been in since she was a child. There used to be paintings on the wall, drawings that she’d done of the Tower and her family. She’d wanted to paint the walls, but Minerva had told her it was too childish to do so.

Instead, the white walls were more gray than she remembered. Her wardrobe to the right had a fine layer of dust on the top, and her blankets on the bed were still mostly composed of fine white skins because she always got cold here. It was so cold. All the time.

She hated it. She hated feeling cold when she’d been shown what warmth felt like. And suddenly that thought blossomed into something else. Something that whispered warmth wasn’t just physical, and everything here lacked what she now knew she wanted.

Her heart thundered in her chest. There was a cloak in the closet that she’d left. It had a few tears from countless years of use and would have made a poor impression. But it was her warmest cloak. If she put that on, she might be able to sneak past the others and then she could find him.

Him. Lust. The only person she really cared about seeing right now.

“Well, well, well. You look like Minerva grabbed you by the tail and yanked. Can’t say I’m all that surprised.”

Gasping, Selene whirled to find him leaning against the wall to her left. How had he—

She supposed she shouldn’t even think the question. He’d gotten in somehow, and she knew it wasn’t through the window. She had a room with only a small slot for a window, where it might have been used to shoot arrows at enemies. Selene could barely fit an arm through, let alone a full grown man.

“How did you…” She let the question trail off into nothing.

Lust grinned, his eyes sparkling with some emotion she couldn’t quite name. “Don’t ask questions of demons, little moon. Don’t you know answers come with a price?”

Anything. She’d pay anything for him to remind her of a time when she hadn’t felt so cold. And then something clicked in her mind. She didn’t have to feel cold if she didn’t want to. He was the only one who knew how to warm her.

Selene darted toward him before her mind could warn her that this was a terrible idea. There were better places to seduce a man like him. Less taboo places than her childhood bedroom with a gaggle of sorceresses below, all of whom wanted him dead.

But the moment her arms wrapped around his neck and her body plastered against his, she was lost. Selene devoured his lips, consuming them with her own. Nipping and biting until he hissed out an angry sound because she’d almost broken skin. She didn’t care. He had a duty right now, and that was to make her forget.

His arms snapped around her in a vise. He wouldn’t let her go now, not even if she begged for it. Selene had walked right into the arms of a demon king, and her body was the sacrifice he’d claim.

Groaning into his lips, she writhed against him. He was already rock hard against her belly, likely from their fun in the carriage. Had he ever taken care of himself, or had he been like this since they parted?

She liked the idea of him suffering. Waiting for her to touch him.

He drew his lips from hers, leaving a wet streak across her cheek as he moved to her throat. “I’m not complaining, but why—”

She palmed his cock, drawing her fingers from the base up to the head that she could feel almost escaping his pants. “Stop talking.”

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