Arousal stirs low and heavy in my gut. A lazy half-awake thing.
“Just snuggling, greedy boy,” Mal chuckles. “For now.” He adds with a wink.
My body moves towards him. Drawn like a snake to a snake charmer. Helpless before his pull.
I climb into the hammock, and he wraps an arm around me. I’m pressed close to his warm, masculine body. This is bliss. His scent is washing over me. It feels as if I’m bathing in it.
“You’ve been very brave,” he rumbles. “Saving your friend was a lovely thing to do.”
Brave? I don’t feel brave at all. And I don’t think my actions were. Swimming down into the kelpie’s cave was not hard. There was never any danger. It didn’t even take long.
Does Mal think it was a challenge for me? Does he think sending the kelpies to sleep was harder than sending a focussed thought and a blast of will? It is interesting to think he might underestimate my power. It could signify that I might be able to escape one day.
But that’s a puzzle and a thought for another time. I do not have the strength or even the will to ponder it now.
My thoughts turn to the other part of his comment. Is Lello my friend? What even are friends? I don’t think I remember. I barely remember Lello, but part of me really wanted to save him. It felt important, necessary. Imperative. Am I truly that altruistic? Or is Mal correct, and Lello means something to me because he is my friend?
So many questions, I hate it. I just want my mind to be still, empty and quiet for once.
“Are you all right, Little One?” asks Mal.
I nod. Here in his arms, it really does feel as if everything is going to be okay. A warm feeling of safety is enveloping me. It is an illusion. I know this. But I’m still embracing it. It is far too enticing not to.
A yawn seizes ahold of me. My eyes feel heavy.
Mal kisses the top of my head. “Go to sleep, Little One. I’ve got you.”
If only that were true.
Chapter twelve
Mal
Jesus fucking Christ, how has my life come to this? I am lying in a hammock of all things, while cuddling a sleeping demon. I have either lost my mind entirely or there is something else deeply wrong with me.
Whatever the hell is going on, he feels wonderful in my arms. The warm weight of him is invoking a feeling I cannot hope to name. It is nothing I have ever felt before. I am not this soft. Has he ensorcelled me? I have never felt this way about anyone else before. I didn’t think I was capable of it.
Why Gray? Why now? None of this makes any sense.
He’s a sweet, traumatized and needy little thing, but that has never moved me before. He is gorgeous, but I’ve had beautiful men before. I don’t think I’m so easily swayed.
I look down at his sleeping form. He is incredibly stunning. Especially when sleeping. All the lines of fear and pain are smoothed out. He looks how he should look. Beautiful, breathtaking, and alluring. A little bit exotic.
Where did he get this body from? He would have chosen it for its potential, but why is it so very striking? What is its ancestry? My guess is something not quite Caucasian, despite the paleness of his skin. The dark hair and eyes hint at Mediterranean or perhaps even further East.
I take a closer look at him. Examining the contours of his face. Shit, I think I have figured it out. I can sense that he has walked the Earth for a very long time. I think his body pre-datesanything I might recognize. It is from a people who no longer exist. A group who migrated and their bloodlines intermingled and became something else.
Well, that’s kind of unsettling.
As is his power. So phenomenally strong, I’ve never known anything like it. Maintaining this act that I’m stronger than him is nerve-wracking, but I need to keep it up. Gray is hurt, scared. Full of fear and fury. A cornered wild animal. So very dangerous. He could cause so much destruction if he realized the truth.
His idiot friends should never have removed him from that devil’s trap he was held in back in the harem. I suppose they didn’t know any better, so I can’t really blame them, but it’s terrifying what they have done. They have no idea what they have unleashed upon the world.
Gray has had the ability to destroy civilization since his friends freed him. And it is not even that they are foolish enough to trust him, it is simply that they do not know. It is beyond their understanding. They cannot see how powerful this little demon is. They don’t know that I do not have the knowledge to create a devil’s trap, because very, very few people do. And not one of them is someone worth the risk of dealing with.
Obeying me, submitting to me, is the only thing keeping Gray in control. The only thing keeping everyone safe. Gray has to keep believing that he is beholden to me, for as long as possible. At least until he has healed enough not to take his rage out on innocents.
I bite back my humorless laugh. He is going to hate me so much when he discovers the truth, and that will be the end of me. Oh well, I’ve been on the path of self-destruction for years. Might as well embrace it fully. Death by Gray’s hand will not be worse than by any other demon’s. And I’ve long known that it’s going to be a demon who ends me. The abomination that is my existence is going to be discovered eventually, and it will be a demon that ensures I am exterminated.
