The person on the other end must have answered in the affirmative, because the demon hung up without another word, quickly stuffing the phone back into his pocket before he wrapped his arm securely around her again.
“Where are you taking me?” she croaked.
“To my home, Breeder,” he said, not sparing her a look as he strode through the empty back streets, eyes scouting for more enemies in the shadows.
His home.
He had saved her from death, but in the end, her fate would be exactly what she had sacrificed everything to escape.
Dread and sorrow warred with the excited twinge in her abdomen at the thought of surrendering to this powerful male. It was too much. Everything she’d been through, the constant running, the torture, the humiliation—it swelled up in her throat and came out in loud, ugly sobs.
The demon jerked, his face whipping toward her.
“Shh, little one.” His voice pitched in startled concern and he pulled her closer to his heated body. A moment later one of his hands, the palm of it the size of her face, curved around her cheek in a surprisingly soft caress. “Don't be scared. Shh, it's all right. Come, look at me.”
Gently he tipped her head up—and up—until she finally saw his face. His eyes were still black, but somewhere behind her grief she realized his irises were naturally that color.
He looked at her as he walked, supporting her body mostly with the arm not cradling her cheek. Concern colored his now perfectly human features, the absence of anger removing the visual cues of what he was.
“You’re safe,” he soothed, clumsily stroking her cheek. “No one will hurt you again, I swear it.”
Slowly his soothing words and warm touch calmed her shaking form so that she could gasp in a few deep breaths, quelling her anguished cries. Without thought to who and what he was—simply needing the comfort his large hands and deep eyes promised—she leaned in and rested her forehead against his broad chest, willing her body and mind to release its pent-up tension to his heat.
“Good girl,” he muttered above her, strong hands caressing her face and tangled hair again and again in an obvious effort at keeping her calm. “Just breathe. I'll take care of the rest.”
When he came to a stop a little while later, she had gotten enough of a hold of herself that she dared another look up at him again. His scent and his warmth made her pussy pulse hotly, the ever-growing ache making it hard to remember that she couldn’t stay in his arms—and that, come the morning, she would regret her easy surrender.
“Please. Let me… Let me go. You didn’t take me before, in the bar...”
A rumble of displeasure thundered in her ear and his arms constricted tighter around her.
“I can't,” he gritted. “If I’d taken you in the bar, none of this would have happened.”
“Please, I don’t want?—”
“I know what you don’t want,” he snapped, his tense features softening when she flinched in response. “Even if I let you leave now, your scent will draw every demon within a fifty-mile radius. I am the Lord of this territory, and your well-being is my duty. I will care for you tonight. But after…”
“After?” she whispered, the reluctance playing across his features allowing a seed of hope to sprout somewhere past her fog of need.
He stared down at her, mouth set in a grim line. “I have no desire to force an unwilling Breeder into an eternity of service.”
She knew he could be lying—that he probably was. Lying was like breathing to his kind. She knew his words, as beguiling as they were, didn’t promise her freedom. But right now, they were enough. She didn’t have the strength to fight anymore, not tonight.
Closing her eyes against the fear and pain radiating in her body, she pressed her cheek against his leather-clad chest and surrendered to the fog promising blissful oblivion.
The demon stroked a thumb over her exposed cheekbone and she felt him bend his body around her, encapsulating her in his hard muscle to shield her from their harsh surroundings. His mouth and nose nuzzled at the top of her head, causing her pussy to throb, and a rumble rolled through his chest in response.
Selma mewled and pressed in closer, rubbing her face against him. Now that she was no longer fighting it, her magic-induced need burned hotter than ever, making her yearn for release. She pressed her thighs together, rubbing them to alleviate the throbbing, but it only worsened.
“Please…”
He cursed and pulled his face away from her hair. “What’s your name, little one?”
He was trying to fight the pull of her scent, she realized. She knew what it was doing to him, had learned the hard way what a male demon would do to get at her once the magic from her cursed ring had been activated. And still he was fighting it, trying to distract himself with conversation.
Marathin would have fucked her in that warehouse, not caring that she was injured and scared out of her mind.
“Selma.” Perhaps she should have lied—Marathin might have put whatever the demon version of a missing person’s report was out on her—but in that moment, high on hormones and magic and the knowledge that this man was fighting his base instincts for her, she didn’t have the mind to. “I’m Selma.”
