The theory had been that if the demons who hunted her managed to track the license plate on the hunk of junk she’d bought from a shady car dealer, and they found it while she was sorting out her pit stop, they wouldn’t be able to find her just from which shop she’d parked in front of. Of course, in practice, the plan had a rather obvious flaw.
Gently she touched a hand to the silver mark marring her forehead, shuddering at the memory of the monster who’d blinded her. She’d always thought her ability to see demons for what they were was her curse. But now…
Now that she was blind to their true forms, she wished she could see them again. Running from monsters you couldn’t see? Not easy. Only her constant vigilance, the continued moving from town to town, had kept her safe.
Until now.
At least this demon was so obvious even a regular person would be wary around him. His handsome face wasn’t enough to hide the overly bulging muscles, nor the nearly palpable dark energy flickering off him like a looming thunderstorm.
Selma cast a quick glance over her shoulder to see if he’d followed, and drew a sigh of relief at the nearly empty stretch behind her. For whatever reason, Hulking Brute hadn’t taken up chase.
But her deep breath of relief was cut short when something caught her ankle and she tripped, landing face-first on the pavement with a shriek and scraping her hands and knees in the process.
Pain shot from her cheek, knees, and palms, and she tasted blood from where she’d bit her tongue when she fell. Just great. Falling over her own feet while trying to escape a demon was not exactly a winning moment.
“Are you okay, sugar?”
Startled, she looked up from the pavement at two young women, one of whom was bent over her splayed-out form. She hadn’t noticed them before she fell.
“Y-Yeah, thanks.” She scrambled to get up, only for the women to hoist her by her elbows.
“You don’t look so good,” the woman still holding onto her stated. “Why don’t you come with us and we’ll get you sorted out, hmm?”
Something in her eyes was off. The coldness there sent shivers of recognition down Selma’s spine, and she pulled back in an attempt at getting free. “No, thanks, really—I’m fine.”
The woman’s grip didn’t loosen, and when an unseen third person placed a hand on her shoulder, panic started bubbling in her veins, making her chest heavy with icy realization. In her desperate escape, she’d nearly forgotten that not everyone she needed to fear was male.
“Let me go!”
“Or you’ll do what? Scream?” The redheaded woman who had yet to touch her pulled a blade from her sleeve, pressing it against Selma’s stomach through her sweatshirt. “Breeders. Come now, or die on the street. Your choice.”
“Please.” Selma gasped as the woman pressed the knife closer, but she let her assailants drag her down a narrow passageway as all her thoughts turned immediately and sharply to the one singular goal: survival.
“Please, I don’t want to be a… a Breeder.” She nearly spat the word. “You don’t have to do this—I ran away from them. Please, just let me go—oh!”
Her pleas were cut short when she was shoved roughly through an open door and into what looked like a half-empty warehouse with sawdust on the concrete floor. She stumbled and nearly fell, but managed to catch herself on a wooden box.
Heart hammering in her throat, she turned around, swallowing thickly as the door closed. She was now alone in the half-lit room with what had to be three female demons. The still-drawn blade in the red-haired one’s hand shimmered ominously.
She’d been warned. The demon who had captured and branded her had told her about the females of his kind—about the war between them and the males, and how the males had turned to human Breeders to procreate. He’d told her this with reverence, as if Selma would be proud she was one of the few humans who could carry a demon’s spawn. As if needing his protection against the females dead-set on killing any Breeder they came across was a boon.
“God, please don’t kill me, please! I’ll do anything you want,” Selma begged. She hadn’t come this far, hadn’t escaped one monster only to be gutted like a pig in a warehouse in Nowhere, Minnesota.
“Yes. Yes, you will.” The one with the cold eyes stalked in a semi-circle around her, forcing her to twist in an attempt at keeping an eye on all three. “But first, little human… First, we want information. Who’s your master?”
“I don’t have a m-master.” Under any other circumstances she probably would have been offended at the notion, but at that moment, her terror was too strong to allow for luxuries such as indignance.
“That pretty little mark on your forehead says otherwise.” The blonde one—the one who’d come up behind her when she fell—took a few steps closer, and Selma drew up against the box again, pressing her back into it. It felt oddly good and solid—normal—in a world of nightmares made flesh.
“I ran away before anyone claimed me.”
“Oh, really now? And how’d you manage that?”
Cold Eyes fell in from the side, trapping Selma against the box. Panicked tears blurred her sight, and she blinked rapidly to clear her vision. If she wanted any chance at getting out of this alive, she’d have to keep her wits about her. Whatever they wanted, she’d give them. She had zero allegiance to any male demons.
“I… I tricked him. Dr. Hershey—Marathin Hershey. The demon who captured me. I made him think I…”
Saying it out loud was harder than she’d expected, and humiliation burned her cheeks. What she’d been made to do in her captivity… it would haunt her for the rest of her life. Which might not be all that long, judging from the hard looks on these females.
