Page 14 of The Demon Court

So she’d stayed in her room. Until she realized the second problem.

If she had to endure him again, there would be no safe place to purge all the build up of emotions. Was he connected to her? Would he be able to feel her lust even from his castle? And he’d been able to tell when people were affected by his magic. She’d seen it in his eyes.

So, as the lust in her body finally cooled, she knew this would be a test of her own power. Because if she couldn’t keep all these emotions under lock and key in her mind, then the trick was revealed.

She wasn’t the only person he’d ever met who his magic didn’t work on. Not at all.

She was just another sorceress who was quite good at lying.

Ursula knocked on her door again. “Selene? Did you hear me? He’s coming! You did it.”

Of course she’d done it. She’d laid the groundwork for him to be interested and he was nothing if not a man who enjoyed conquest. He’d come. He’d tracked her down because she had thrown down the gauntlet before him.

Damn it. Why had she been born for this job and not to be Ursula’s assistant?

“Selene?” Ursula asked again, her voice quieter this time. “Is everything all right?”

No. It wasn’t. Selene stared at her reflection in the mirror and wondered just how she was going to survive this. The icy lake in her mind was completely and utterly purged. Free of any emotion she’d had to bury within the ice. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t fill up again. And quickly.

How did she stop it from spilling over? From leaking, even when it should have been locked underneath mountains of ice?

Her power made little sense, even to herself. Selene had read a thousand books on magic, spent countless hours researching how to expand what she could do. She’d trained with every other sorceress, but none of them had been able to understand why her magic was fractured. Sorceresses were good at one thing. She was good at two.

Maybe it had something to do with how she’d been left for them to find. Selene’s real mother had dropped her off in the middle of winter right in the front of the Tower. Minerva claimed that Selene had been outside in the cold for hours before someone had opened the door. No one went outside the doors in the winter. They were lucky anyone had thought to go outside at all.

The moment of fear and cold and icy despair as the one woman who was supposed to love her left had become her power. The sorceresses taken her in as a foundling and changed her life forever after that.

Ursula opened the door and poked her head in. “Are you alive?”

“Yes,” Selene replied, straightening the brocade of her gown one more time. “Alive enough, that is.”

“Oh.” Ursula ducked into her room, carefully closing the door behind her as though she didn’t want the others to see. “You know none of us would agree to this if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. He won’t hurt you, love. None of us would let him get close enough.”

Of course they would. If he offered them all a role in the palace and in the running of this kingdom, every single one of them would sacrifice her. Selene knew that. And she didn’t appreciate the lie.

Sighing, she shook her head and gave herself one more once over. The black gown should have been worn for mourning. A square neckline showed off her pretty collarbones, though they’d be mostly hidden by the fur lined black cloak she’d put on top of it. Steel gray embroidery decorated the bodice and down into the skirts with the vague impression of flowers, though it was difficult to see them unless the light was just right.

She’d pulled her hair up into a low bun and pinched her cheeks so she didn’t look quite so pale with fear. Unfortunately, that was the best she could do, given the circumstances.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered. “I hunted him down and now he’s played right into our claws. What will he do when he realizes I’ve lied?”

“This is a blessing. Our mother has spent her entire life preparing us all to take down this demon king. Soon we will walk through the kingdom, the rightful rulers of this realm! Can’t you see it? A better place for everyone. You even said yourself that the villagers were living chaotic lives. We’ll make it better.” Ursula walked up to her side and gently smoothed a single strand of her hair back into place. “This is a gift. You have to start looking at it as one.”

A gift to condemn a demon to death? How novel. The idea made her want to vomit.

“Of course,” she replied, though. Because that was what was expected of her and nothing else. “I’m just having a moment. Is he here already?”

“He rode through the gates. Minerva is going to meet with him in the great hall before she tells us what to do next. She said there’s a long conversation they need to have. Naturally, he’ll be very suspicious of her, and she wants to ensure he’s lulled into a sense of comfort.” Ursula held out her arm for Selene to take. “Do you want to listen in on it with me?”

“You know we’re not supposed to.”

“One more mischief. Just like when we were kids.”

They’d always called them “mischiefs” when they snuck around the Tower as children, getting into trouble where they weren’t supposed to be and taking over areas of the attic for their plotting and planning. They’d take over the entire Tower someday, they’d said.

Ursula might. She’d make a good High Priestess. Maybe then Selene would be a sorceress and not just a foundling.

She set her shoulders and rested her hand on top of Ursula’s arm. “Why not?”

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