Page 134 of The Demon Court

“You are everything,” he whispered. “My beginning and my end. I thought I was living before I met you, and my darling, I was merely surviving. You walked into my life and set my entire world ablaze. How could I ever let you go?”

She had no idea. But she didn’t want him to.

A wheeze of air filled her lungs, enough for her to say, “Death nips at my heels.”

Another flash burned in his eyes, perhaps in recognition of the words. He pressed his lips to hers, gently, oh so gently. “Then it’s time we run.”

Something twisted at the back of her skull. And she could feel him moving now, his long claws reaching through her skin as her warm blood dripped onto the snow beneath them.

“There has to be a weak point,” he muttered, his claws dragging along her body as his magic poured through her.

It hurt, she wanted to scream. He was hurting her, but she couldn’t say a single word through it. The snakes, which had been so quiet, suddenly revolted. They wriggled and writhed and tore her body apart from the inside.

“A weak point,” he said again, his eyes meeting hers. “Selene?”

The spell. She had to focus on the spell.

The snakes moved again, all of them suddenly focusing on turning her skull into a bonfire that would destroy her. She had to think fast.

When her mother had first laced the spell through her, she’d touched it with her finger. The back of her hand, wasn’t it? A small hole in the web.

Selene struggled against the curse hardening her veins and then held up her hand.

Lust looked at her with pride and then grabbed onto her. A single claw speared through the weak point, and then she felt blood at the back of her neck.

She arched in his arms, her back bowing against the pain that seared through her body. But worse was that she could feel it inside her soul. It pulled and tugged as though he were trying to rip her out of her body and she couldn’t... she couldn’t...

He pulled something important out. She felt the dark tendrils hanging onto her, digging inside her skin and inside her skull, and the blinding pain wouldn’t stop.

She opened her mouth in a scream that could not come out.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over again, his biceps bulging as he tried desperately to yank whatever it was out of her. “I’m almost done. I have it, Selene. Hold on for just a few more moments.”

“You’re killing her!” The scream came from outside the bubble at the same moment she felt a pop.

A rip, a tear, a sudden void of the lack of something, and then her world went dark.

ChapterForty-Five

Home.

It wasn’t the same without her.

Lust stood in his office, his mind wandering through distant memories and better times. Hands behind his back, he stared out of the window and down into the grounds below.

The garden had already frosted over. Winter had arrived in the week since he’d returned from the Tower. Icy frost crawled over everything, spreading throughout his kingdom just like they did his heart. The entire castle could feel it. They were all lacking a certain snarky woman who usually had something to say in every circumstance.

Her absence spread like poison. Even his servants were testy. They got in more arguments with each other than they ever had. He had to break them up time and time again as they bickered and claimed others were causing issues. Not to mention he was still aggravated by his brother’s presence.

Greed tried to talk with him every single day. The ridiculous hovering was driving Lust mad. Yes, he was brooding. No, he wasn’t all right. Yes, he would be all right. He just needed a little time to get his head on straight.

Because he was here and she wasn’t, and that was unacceptable.

Sighing, he shifted his gaze from the cold outside and tried to feel something other than this strange cold that had spread throughout his entire body. The numbing quality was perhaps what she had claimed her power could do. If she had survived it, then he would as well.

The doors to his office burst open, the lock breaking under the immediate and far too powerful shove from a shoulder that could only belong to his brother.

“Get out,” he snarled. “I have no interest in talking with anyone. Not yet.”

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