Page 93 of The Demon Court

Lust needed to ask her. He had to know the answer to these burning questions, or he feared he might explode.

Entering the room without knocking, he started talking the moment he stepped over the threshold. “Little moon, have you always found me attractive, or did it take time? I’ll admit, I like the idea of you bumping into me in that little town and then hiding away with those pretty fingers between your legs, but it doesn’t sound like you.”

The room was dark and quiet. He frowned, his furrowed brows certainly making him look less attractive as he surveyed the room. She had to be here. Where else would she be?

But there were no candles lit. No fire in the fireplace. No warmth in the room at all.

Strange. He swore he could sense her. Lust could feel her somewhere close by. If he tilted his head slightly and closed his eyes, he could sense the way the low simmer of lust echoed out of her body, as though she knew he was here and wondered what he would do to her.

Was she hiding? No, it didn’t feel like that.

Then a breeze toyed with the sheer curtain that led out onto his balcony and he knew where she was. His little sorceress apparently enjoyed her day outside, at least, and hadn’t been willing to let go of it just yet.

Sighing with pleasure, he brushed aside the curtain and found her.

She stood as though it wasn’t cold outside, her hands wrapped around the stone railing. The long, graceful line of her back was bared to his sight, until her dark violet gown obscured the rest of her. This dress was not meant to seduce, nor was it meant to be anything other than be serviceable. But the loose tangles of her hair, a riot of different shaped curls after she had unbraided them, blew in the breeze around her face. A full moon rose on the horizon, its silver light toying with the outline of her body. Warm, sparkling lights glowed from the town below them and then disappeared into darkness at the very edge of their kingdom. Lost into the nothingness beyond.

All the thoughts in his mind of throwing her onto the bed and devouring her suddenly disappeared. Not just lingering as they usually did, but they were entirely gone. He didn’t want to fuck her. He wanted to hold her. Snuggle her against his chest and feel her breath rise and fall as they both looked out over a kingdom they loved.

“Oh,” she startled, glancing over at him. “I didn’t hear you come in. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize.” He wouldn’t hear it. Not when he wanted to hear other words coming out of her mouth.

And though he’d thought tonight would be the night when he fed himself into her, inch by thick inch, now he wondered if he wanted to spend his time breathless for other reasons. He could tug her into his arms and ask her a million questions. All the ones that he desperately wanted an answer to.

He remembered when he first brought her here. How he’d forced her to stand in this room and take her clothes off. How he’d brought Lara into this room, thinking that maybe she would enjoy the touch of a woman first. And then how she stood in front of his people today, all icy exterior with kind eyes whenever someone talked with her.

Lust knew other people had layers like this. There were plenty of women who were the same as her. Women with lives and dedications to others, women who were made to be nobles and who had spent their entire lives learning how to be the best political weapon they could be.

But he’d never noticed them. This woman had wrapped her hand around his throat and demanded that he look at her. See her. Understand that she wasn’t like the others, even though he swore she was.

He joined her at the railing, leaning his arms against it and staring out at the twinkling lights. “You know, when I first made this kingdom, I thought that seeing lights at night would never be possible.”

“Is that so?”

He nodded. “There weren’t enough people to gather the lights bright enough. We all started with so few subjects. There weren’t many humans left, you see.”

The faint rustle of fabric came before she shifted a little closer to him. “That’s not what we were taught. The kingdoms of mortals were known throughout the realms, all better and larger than the last. Then the seven demons arrived, each one manipulating the kingdom into the worst forms of themselves. People who could not live without fighting. Mortals who couldn’t deny their bodies base desires. Others who stole and raped and pillaged because they knew no other way.”

“Is that why you were so cold to my brother?” He snorted. “Greed’s kingdom is not the same as ours, certainly, but the nomadic tribes enjoy going to war with each other. He’s more or less tamed them, although it’s taken hundreds of years to figure out the best way to do that.”

“Tamed them?” Selene looked at him as though he’d suggested her entire history was wrong. Which, he supposed, he had. “What do you mean, tamed them?”

“The wilds of man.” He gestured with an arm to all around them. Then pointed far off into the distance, where there was the faintest outline of color. “That’s Gluttony, in case you were ever wondering.” He pointed in the opposite direction. “Greed’s kingdom is there. We arrived in our mortal forms with a singular purpose. Humanity was going to kill itself. Wipe itself out of this realm and then what would spirits be?”

“Spirits? The same as they always were, I suppose.”

He was going to tell her a secret that the others would be furious at him for admitting. “Spirits feed off mortals. We can not feel your emotions. We cannot generate them or develop new emotions. We live because you are alive, not the other way around. Without you all feeling, we would wither away into nothing. And many of them did. Many, many spirits died in those days.”

The stony expression never faltered from her face, but he thought there was a softening in her at his words. Almost as though she felt pity for the spirits he had lost.

A quiet silence stretched between them. And he could only hope that she realized how important the information he’d given her was. She could tell no one the truth about the kings, and in some way, he trusted her not to.

Sighing, she shifted closer to him, so close he could have tilted his hand and linked their fingers. He’d never wanted to hold a woman’s hand before. He’d wanted a lot of other things, but never something so innocent as that. Yet, now he thought the slightest brush of her fingers would be a blessing.

She licked her lips. “So you’re like parasites then?”

Lust reared back, all those happy thoughts disappearing in the insult's wake. “Parasites?”

---