Page 67 of The Demon Court

Selene slammed the walls down in her head, shoving everything underneath the surface of the glacial lake until she almost felt the frigid bite in her body. He couldn’t know. Couldn’t guess. She was nothing but a calm piece of ice that stood before him with no emotions, no thoughts, nothing but cold.

Slowly, she looked up into his eyes to see they had flashed to a deep, glowing purple.

“Can I help you?” she asked. Did her voice sound breathless? Would he guess what she’d been thinking about just moments before he came here? He couldn’t guess. She’d always kept things under wraps and this was no different from that.

But then he captured a wayward curl with his free hand, coiling it around his finger and giving it a gentle tug. “What were you doing?”

“I was sleeping,” she said with a frown. “You woke me.”

“Ah. That is good to know that, of all people, I was the one who woke you.” He tugged on the lock of hair, forcing her to lean closer to him. His voice dropped low and gravely. “Your lust was the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted, Selene. Better than mead, or wine, or honey. Sweet, just as I believe you will taste.”

She hissed out a low breath, pulling away from him while ignoring the sharp spike of pain from her scalp as she nearly ripped her own hair out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You can’t hide it from me.”

“We both know very well that I do not feel lust!” she snapped. Selene needed to get control over this situation. She needed him to back away from the door so she could think and not stare at those washboard abs that were quite distracting.

He chuckled, and her entire body clenched at the sound. “Oh, Selene, of all things you could lie to me about, this is not one of them. I can taste it, you know. It is the emotion I feed off of, and every person has a flavor. Yours is my new favorite.”

“And one you will never taste again, I promise you that.” Was it hot in the room? She felt like her entire body was on fire and she needed to... well, she didn’t know how to help herself. Back home, she would have walked outside into the snowy wonderland. But here, near the castle, they were too far away from those peaks to get snow.

He smiled down at her, far too amused. She wanted to slap the expression off his face, but the other half of her wanted to kiss him again. This time under her own terms, knowing that she controlled the kiss and that he was just as affected as her.

His eyes rolled back as he inhaled, deep and long and flexing those muscles as he did so. “Ah, even now I can taste you. What was it that set you off, little moon? I want to know so I can do it again.”

“Absolutely nothing you did,” she snarled, and then slammed the door in his face.

Pressing her back against the wood, she tried to calm her breathing. How did he know? She had everything under control, didn’t she? She had tucked it all away and there was no way that he’d sensed her again. No. He couldn’t have. Not again.

It wasn’t possible. She was chosen for this role because he couldn’t control her with his power. She knew how to control herself and her emotions, even in the wake of his power. Her unique power was born with her, given to her by the gods so that she would be able to take on this role and change the realm.

Right?

She didn’t even have the space to consider all these thoughts because he was knocking on the damn door again.

“What?” she shouted, the word harsh even to her own ears.

But he just laughed. Chuckled as though he thought her aggression was adorable. “Have you ever been on a hunt?”

“No.” Where was he going with this? “I have no interest in chasing down wild animals just to take their lives.”

“Ah, so you have never met a bloodhound, then. They’re remarkable creatures. If you give them the scent of any beast, they will take it and run. They will track the scent throughout the entire seven kingdoms if they must, but they always find their prey.” A soft thud on the side of the door suggested he leaned against it as well. “You’ve given me a taste, Selene. Now I know what you taste like and I will not forget it. You cannot hide any longer from me, although I do wish to know how you hid yourself for so long.”

She swallowed hard. “I will not be another one of your puppets, Demon.”

“Haven’t we been working so hard to prove that you are not? Trust, Selene. That’s what you said I needed to work on and I have proven myself trustworthy to you time and time again. Perhaps you need to work on trusting someone other than that family of yours.”

Her breath shuddered in her lungs, and she heard him walk away from her. As though he hadn’t dumped a flaming pile of shit in her lap and told her to figure out what to do with it.

He could sense her now? Even if she shoved all those emotions away until she had to deal with them later? What was she supposed to do now?

But before she could sink into her panic, she heard him walk back again. He knocked on the door again, and she snarled.

“What is it now?” Selene might have sounded hysterical.

“I don’t think I can control you,” he added. “I did already try to send lust through the door, and I’m not sure you even felt it. Just thought you should know, in case you were worried that changed as well.”

She hadn’t felt it, but maybe that was because she was so panicked that she’d gone a little numb. “Two can play at that game,” she replied. And then she chipped a hole in the lake in her mind. Just a tiny bit, no more than a tablespoon if it had been real.

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