I’d gotten an itch in my marrow that told me someone was raiding the tomb of my last human pet, and I teleported to the mausoleum immediately. What I found were two thieves, robbing the corpse of the family jewels I’d buried with her.
I’d killed the male right there in the cemetery by ripping out his spine. However, I couldn’t bring myself to destroy his female companion. From the instant I laid eyes on the little thief, I wanted to own more than her bones. So I took her, with her heart still beating, down to Hell for the best form of torture I could muster for a woman like her: mypersonalattention.
My contempt for the woman quickly turned to obsession.
Only days later, I made her my queen.
This was the first time she’d returned to her world since I kidnapped her, and her absence—even for just a night—was unadulterated torture.
I had no doubt in her ability to protect herself. Even if I did, I’d sense if she was in any danger, and I'd be at her side in a blink.
So why couldn’t I shake the urge to cut her task short? To drag her back home and never let her out of my sight again?
By blood and darkness, I loved her.That aside, I was still the possessive demon lord that had dragged her to my realm and made her my prisoner a year ago.
If any filthy mortal so much asbreathedon my mate, I’d obliterate them. I’d keep them alive for as long as possible, just so they could hear each sickeningcrackandcrunchof their bonesas I ripped them from their body with my bare hands.
“Where is she?” I slammed the book I’d been trying and failing to read for the last two hours, making Cecil, the castle librarian, flinch and lose balance of the stack of books in his arms. Using my arcana, every volume froze in midair before they could hit the ground and floated back to the shelves, inserting themselves into their designated places.
The skeletal servant didn’t have eyes. Instead, teeth lined the gaping sockets where his eyes had rotted out long ago. When he blinked, they clacked. “M–My Lord?”
“Find Cambridge Funeral Home. Kill the necro-rapist. Strip his soul,” I repeated the simple steps of her assignment just loud enough for Cecil to hear. “That was it. She should have been back by now.”
The undead servant slipped a long, knobby finger between his leathery throat and his cravat and tugged on his collar nervously. “Well, it is her first time back in the world of the living, My Lord… S–She might have needed time to gain her bearings.”
I dismissed Cecil’s comment with a wave of my hand. “Nonsense. My queen has navigated the labyrinth of my realm; she can certainly find her way in her native land. Especially with my teleportation magic at her disposal."
“Perhaps you fear that she won’t return to you, now that she has a real opportunity to escape,” a new voice said. I jerked my glare away from the librarian to see my queen’s maid rounding the corner with a tray of tea and cookies.
I glared at the skeletal woman, who had once been a feared witch in her living days. “I do not fear that she won’t return to me.”
Holga placed the tea service on the table before me, glancing at me with those hollow eye sockets in a way that suggested she didn’t believe me at all.
I bit my lip beneath my mask, fingers clenching tight around my neglected book. Maybe there was some truth to her suggestion. As the lord and master of the Hells, and over death itself, I feared one thing alone.
Losing Rayven.
She was my everything, the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins, the reason for my being from the moment I dragged her down to Limbo and clamped my collar around her throat.
If I somehow lost her, my castle would return to the cold tomb it had been before her presence gave it warmth. I’d likely become the raging demon lord I was before her love soothed me into something more, and I’d hunt her down and make her mine whether she liked it or not.
I’d done it once before. I’d do it a million times over again, until the end of eternity. However many times it took to make her mine forever.
“She’ll return, My Lord,” Cecil assured me, his many teeth gnashing in Holga’s direction, shushing her for putting the idea of Rayven’s escape into my head. “She loves you. We’ve all seen how she looks at you.”
His words sparked warmth in my chest, and I imagined the way my raven-haired queen looked at me. The reverence, admiration, and fear in her eyes. The feral look that glinted in them as she stared up at me from her knees.
I knew she loved me, that her heart beat for me alone, but a foreign sensation bubbled just beneath my comfort. Something festering, slowly seeping through my bones, that I couldn’t put a finger on.
I ran my fingers through my dark hair, carefully missing my antlers. “Then why do I feel as though something is wrong?”
Cecil frowned. “If she’s in any danger, you will sense it.”
“Yes, I know that. Something else doesn’t feel right.” I couldn’t shake the feeling prodding my brain. “Her leaving the Hells… I feel as though I should have gone with her.”
“If I may be so bold, My Lord,” Holga said as she poured me a cup of Earl Grey tea. Her bony form clicked and clacked with each of her movements. “She can’t be chained to your side forever.”
At that, I scoffed. If I had a mind to, I absolutely could chain her to me.
