Page 10 of The Demon Crown

“Ach, don’t pretend you don’t like a little blood. Pretty thief.” He reached out a hand toward her ankle, only to have it fall in the sand as she stood and moved away from him.

“Don’t touch me, I will kick sand in your face.” But her words were softened by how carefully she looked over the interior of the cave system. As though she were desperate to heal him.

Maybe she did like him, after all. He wouldn’t mind it if she did.

The thief crouched next to his head, and Greed couldn’t quite take his eyes off those lovely thighs as they flexed in her leather pants. She pressed her hand to his forehead, and he arched into her touch. Any touch. This was all getting worse, and he didn’t understand why.

She hissed another breath out. “You’re burning up. Have you ever had a fever before?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“A fever. It’s when you’re injured or sick and your body raises its temperature to heal.” She stared down at him, tiny wrinkles between her eyes that made him want to smooth them out. “Do you ever get sick?”

“I am a demon king,” he muttered. “I do not fall ill.”

“Well, apparently you do and I don’t know if you have specific things you are allergic to or cannot eat. Is there anything like that you can think of?”

He just wanted her to touch his forehead again. He wanted her to touch him. But there were things that he shouldn’t eat or consume, but she couldn’t know that. Could she?

Suddenly, he was feeling very hot. And not in the way he was used to, where he wanted to rip off his clothing. He felt like he needed to shiver, but he wasn’t cold at all.

No, maybe he was. He was definitely cold now.

Shaking, he tried to sit up, only to be shoved back down by a stern hand on his shoulder. “Lotus flower,” he muttered. “No palm or persea either.”

She sat back on her heels. “Nothing symbolic to the dead, then?”

“Precisely.”

“Why?”

He couldn’t answer that question. No matter how many times she asked.

All Greed wanted to do was sleep. The sand was comfortable enough, and surely this woman hadn’t saved him to leave him on his own to die.

“Don’t fall asleep,” he heard her say. “Oh, by all the seven kingdoms, you ass! Stay awake!”

He’d never been very good at following directions.

ChapterFour

This damned demon.

Varya should have left days ago. She had the map. She had the key to her people’s salvation and here she was, sitting in a fucking oasis in the middle of a cave system, waiting for the demon king to wake up.

Three days. He’d been asleep for three days and she’d been packing his wounds with yarrow that she’d found beside the small stream that led into a pool. She’d been trying her best to keep him alive, and he hadn’t so much as twitched.

If he died, she knew they would kill her. Who? Oh, there were lists of people who would kill her if they found out she’d been with the demon king when he died. His own guards, for one. Half the people in this kingdom who somehow liked the man. His brothers, no doubt, would hunt her in whatever kingdom she tried to flee to.

Varya would have to live the rest of her life on the run, and she wasn’t so good at that. She’d escaped the Horde this long only because she’d learned from other people. But she had a mouth that ran off without her permission and a rather memorable face.

Although, she supposed if she had to be anywhere right now, this wasn’t a terrible place to be.

The demon king had pointed her in the right direction of a cave that was safe for them. He’d forgotten to tell her it was a literal oasis. The stones above their head trapped moisture and kept it a cool, consistent temperature even at night. Holes in the ceiling rained sand with the breeze, but let the light in during the day so there were countless numbers of plants growing inside this cavern with a ceiling that was easily five men high.

A stream of water that snaked out from underneath more rocks gathered up in a pool at the center, crystal clear and drinkable. The food was a little scarce, but she’d found enough prickly pear and some rats to keep herself well fed. The demon king wasn’t likely to eat while he was asleep, so she did her best to stay alive.

And wait.

---