Page 123 of The Demon Crown

She let him have the smallest amount of air. Not nearly enough to keep him alive, but enough for him to let out a garbled groan.

“Perfect,” she murmured.

There were even a few chuckles from outside the walls of the tent. She made a whimpering noise, then added in a breathy moan, just to make it more believable. The man between her thighs choked again, but then she squeezed harder than before.

Baring her teeth, she murmured, “They’re out there thinking that you’ve turned me over. Probably making some jokes about the size of your cock and how no woman, willing or otherwise, wouldn’t want it. And all the while, I’m sitting here suffocating you between those thighs you so desperately wanted. How is it? Is it what you expected?”

That shade of purple was not one she’d ever seen on a person before.

“I suppose it’s terrible.” She leaned just slightly, using her back muscles as well as her thighs to put even more pressure on him. “I want you to know it was the haven you sought in the bodies of women that killed you. You might never have tasted this pussy, but I hope you can smell it while you die.”

And then she laid back in the sand and waited. She never loosened the hard clench of her muscles, not even when he stopped moving. Not even when he stopped breathing.

She laid there, her legs shaking, muscles quaking, lungs burning, and she kept squeezing until tears burned in her eyes. She counted to a thousand and then back down.

Varya wanted to let up a hundred times. She wanted to just give up and if he wasn’t dead then she could maybe wrench his neck to the side, but she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to do that. All of her strength was in her legs.

So she kept going. For all the women who came before her who hadn’t gotten so lucky. For all the women that would certainly come after if she failed in doing this. It didn’t matter that his hand slid to the sand, limp and curled. It didn’t matter that the chuckles from outside the walls of these tents continued, jabbing at their captain for never lasting long enough. That they bet she’d passed out because no one could take a tent pole like that.

And she vowed deep in her heart that she would murder them all.

Greed would come for her. He always did. Even when she didn’t want him to find her, he was there. At the end.

Finally, she couldn’t hold on any longer. And it felt like her hips had snapped into this new position. She had to forcibly remove her legs from around the beastly man’s neck. And even then, she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t be sure unless she touched him and she didn’t want to.

But she did.

Varya leaned down, wincing at the pain of the bruises covering her legs as she felt for a pulse. There was none. Thank all the gods.

He was still a behemoth in his death. Far too large for her to move, so he would have to stay in the center of the tent. Finally, she looked around, searching for anything she could use as a weapon. Unfortunately, there was nothing at all. Just sand and more sand that had been kicked up in their struggle. She could see the patterns where they had rolled, struggling for purchase.

Shit, how long had she been quiet?

This time, her whimper sounded much more real. Because it was. Because she was going to do something that she had never even thought of in her life. But she crept around his body and removed the belt from around his waist. Lifting it over her head, she cracked it down upon him.

It felt a bit like she was massacring the dead, but he deserved it.

Another whimper, another crack. Then the voices outside the tent started up again, commending their leader for his stamina after all. Let the girl have it, they said. Teach her what it means to hold secrets that the Horde wants.

She hated them. She hated them all.

And then she remembered that Greed had said the desert needs blood. It feasts upon the souls of the wicked and that likely all the death in their kingdom had raised the snake. It had sunk through the sands, awakening the creature.

One body wasn’t likely to do the same thing. She wouldn’t summon the snake here, though it had likely already reached her small stone town. But it still felt right, like she was honoring the gods, to pull the Horde leader’s knife out and then slice it across his throat.

Huddling in the back corner of the tent, she held the knife against her chest and stared at the door.

If she was wrong, then one of the Horde members would come through that entrance first. They would likely try to kill her. She would kill them and run. But she wouldn’t get far because there were a lot of them and only one of her.

But if she was right, then Greed would come through that entrance first. And the sight of him doused in their blood would soothe the tremors that ran through her body.

ChapterForty-Four

Greed hated this. Every second of it. He hated that he didn’t know where she was, what was happening to her, or how he was going to get her back. He hated how she could be anywhere right now, waiting for him to come and find her. Or maybe she’d already escaped. Maybe he would ride across the desert to save her, only to find nothing waiting for him.

Fear of the unknown churned in his belly and his heart told him to leave everything here. The villagers would find their own way. Everyone knew where his castle was. They weren’t being attacked by the Horde any longer, and if they couldn’t figure out how to save themselves now, then they didn’t deserve his help.

But then his gaze would find one of the younglings. The little girls and boys who stood beside their parents with fear in their eyes. And his heart whispered that he couldn’t leave them. Not yet. Not when they were so frightened and their homes were destroyed and none of them knew where they were going to go.

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