Page 29 of The Demon Crown

Varya lifted her foot and then stepped forward into nothing.

Only to hang by her bag as the straps caught at her shoulders.

“What—” she hissed, wriggling until she was lifted higher in the air and then dangled in front of golden, gleaming eyes.

“Are you so quick to kill yourself when I’m not here?” Greed grinned. The man was all too pleased to be holding her like a cat who had caught a mouse.

Swearing, she tried to kick him in the thigh but couldn’t quite reach. “Put me down, Greed.”

“No, I don’t think I will. You were insistent on leaping to your inevitable death without a single thought to what kind of place this is. You’d be dead if I didn’t grab you.”

Eyeing the floor, she made sure she wasn’t hanging over the gap before freeing herself. She palmed the clasps at her shoulders and flicked them open. Falling into a crouch right at the edge, she punched him hard in the knee.

Hissing out a breath, he staggered away from her while hissing a few choice swears of his own. “Feral woman! What was that for?”

“I’m not a plaything,” she muttered before walking up to him and kicking the back of his already weakened knee. He went down onto it, eyes wide, before he rolled away from her. “Now give me back my things.”

“The things you stole from me.” He turned in a crouch, her bag still in his clutches. “Don’t start something you can’t finish, treasure.”

“Oh, I can finish it.” She reached behind her and pulled out a knife. “I will not be so nice this time. You needed my help, I gave it. Now you’re trying to steal from me, and that’s an entirely different situation.”

He shouldn’t look so tempting with that grin on his face. It shouldn’t make a flash of desire heat her entire body as he reached for his own knife. “You won’t win a fight against me.”

“I’m a lot smaller and quicker than you. I think you’ll be surprised.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Come on then, little one. Let’s see just how terrible a fighter you are.”

Oh, she was going to kill him.

Varya launched at him, not waiting to see what he might do. He was bigger, but she was faster. She slid between his legs the moment he stood, her fingers already grasping onto her bag. But he used that handle to yank her back toward him.

Slithering out of his arms, she rolled over his back and lunged away from him. The stair, she could use the stairs.

But it was over before it started. He’d already caught up to her, using one of the straps from her bag to slide over her shoulders and yank her back to his front.

He ground himself against her hip, already hard and hot and far too tempting. “I think I like you, treasure. What do you say that I keep you?”

“Absolutely not.” She struggled against the strap, but it was too tight around her shoulders and his muscular arm was a band of iron around her waist. “Let go of me.”

“Absolutely not,” he mimicked, before jerking her around.

Greed walked her toward the edge, the rushing water echoing in her ears as he dangled her above it again. Her feet no longer touched the ground. The only thing holding onto her was his arm and the very precarious hold of her bag.

His lips brushed her ear, his words stirring every ounce of desire in her body. “This way is a lie. Any who dared to touch the sacred waters ended up stuck in a wedge of stone where the water disappears in the earth. It is a slow way to die. You can gasp for air every minute or so, but only that. Eventually everyone drowns.”

By the seven kingdoms, he’d saved her life.

Gasping, she tried not to show how pale her features had become. “Then what’s the right way to go?”

He released his hold around her waist and she felt the strap give. Varya hated the little sound of shock and fear that came out of her mouth as she slipped, just a little. But he just waited until she looked at where he’d pointed, where a small opening had appeared on the opposite side of the wall. Not down, but across.

“We go that way,” he murmured into her ear. “The door is the entrance into the rest of the kingdom. And depending on what you seek, I can bring you the rest of the way.”

“What do you want in return?” Because nothing with this man was ever free.

His arm returned to her waist, dragging her away from certain death and pressing her against all that warm skin. The heat billowing off him warmed her to the core, but it was the feeling of his impressively large cock wedged against her ass that made her blush.

He moved, shifting against her, rubbing and teasing and she had to get control of this or they’d have a repeat of that stupid moment in the cave.

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