“No.” Kain looked at him, ensuring he had his full attention. “I’m going to help her disappear.”
The demon blinked twice, his mouth parting in shock. “What? Kain—have you lost your mind? If you do this?—”
“I will be a traitor to our kind. I know.” Kain didn’t blink, keeping their gazes locked. “You once swore a blood oath to me, my friend, to follow my command through eternity, but that is not why I’m asking you to help me do this. I am asking you because I trust no one like I do you. I will not command you in this, Thomren—but I will ask. Will you help me?”
Thomren looked at him for a long time. Finally, he breathed out, the frown on his forehead smoothing. “This is about your mother.”
Kain broke their gaze, forcing down the swell of anger and despair any thought of her always brought. Very few people knew that story—and of those, exactly one he would let live for mentioning the Breeder who’d borne him.
That one person was Thomren, the man who’d brought his pregnant mate to his Lord Protector’s home because he’d needed Selma to see that some demons could be trusted to keep a Breeder safe. Content.
“It’s about not dooming a woman and the children she’ll bear to an eternity of misery,” he said, voice low. “Her introduction to our world has been too violent. She’ll never accept a forced mate bond. And the thought of her enduring rape and torment because I followed the fucking rules, and sent her to an auction?”
Thomren clasped his hand on Kain’s shoulder. When their gazes met again, there was understanding in his second’s eyes. And pity.
“When I first saw Meredith, the thought that someone else might win her made me sick with rage and sorrow. And I know had I not won her bid, you would have done anything in your power to ensure she’d still become mine. So I will do this for you, my friend. If making her disappear is what you can do to protect your Breeder, I will help make it so.”
“What about my things?”
“They are in the trunk. Thomren got them out before dumping your car in the river,” Kain said, keeping his focus on the road ahead.
A small, indignant gasp sounded from the passenger seat. “You dumped my car? I spent a quarter of my savings on that!”
He refrained from mentioning that, according to his underling, that moving pile of junk was better suited for the bottom of the river than transporting anyone around. “It was too easy to track. If your Procurer is following you, he’ll have a harder time tracking you this way.”
“Will this… this sanctuary truly stop him?” She looked at him through fanned lashes, the intensity of her gaze making him glance at her out the corner of his eye. She looked so vulnerable his instincts reared up hard, desperate to soothe, to prove to her that she’d made the right decision when she put her faith in him to keep her safe.
“The contract he made me sign… he… thinks he owns me.” She shuddered.
Kain’s looping thoughts came to a screeching halt, his eyes widening as he whipped around to stare at her. “You signed a fucking contract? Fuck!” He slapped both hands against the steering wheel so hard the car swerved before he caught it again.
“Is… is that very bad?” she squeaked.
Only the spike of fear in her scent made him take a deep breath before answering. “You signed a contract with a demon! Yes, it’s bad. Dark skies above! What exactly did this contract say, Selma?”
“T-That I… That my soul is his,” she whispered. “You don’t understand… I had to sign. It was my only chance at escaping him. I?—”
“I understand,” Kain ground out. It suddenly made a lot more sense why a demon as old and crafty as Marathin had let a Breeder he wanted to claim out of his sight long enough that she could escape. A contract on her soul meant he’d be able to track her—and that he most likely was.
“What happens now?” she asked, the tremble in her voice more than evident that his reaction had alerted her to how completely fucked they were. “Can… Can you not help me after all?”
Kain rubbed the bridge of his nose. No. He couldn’t. Nothing and no one could break a contract, and there was no escape. Even if this sanctuary turned out to be more than just his mother’s desperate pipe dream, the magic in any contract made with a demon was binding and final. Somehow, some way, she would end up in the hands of her captor.
He could break the law and help her disappear—but even a demon Lord couldn’t break contract magic.
But if he abandoned her now…
He glanced at her again, and clutched the steering wheel at the ache blooming in his chest at the desperation in her brown eyes.
He knew what demons did when a human tried to break a contract. He’d carried out such punishments himself more than once.
But what was he supposed to do? Kill an ancient demon and start a war in a doomed attempt to right a wrong that could never be undone anyway? Saving this little thing would not bring back his mother.
But as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, saw her scared face and smelled her fear at the memory of the man she’d run from, he knew he would try, consequences be damned.
Fucking pheremones.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” he said softly. “I’ll find a way.”
