Kesh opened a wooden door, revealing a rather large bedroom with a plush carpet and antique-looking furniture.
“Wait…” Selma paused as she realized what that sentence meant. “You… You were there?”
Her mate’s brother had seen her naked—had seen them have wild and obscene sex in front of a bunch of strangers. Heat flushed her face and she had to fight herself not to hide it in her hands. Fucking demons and their fucking barbaric customs!
“Yes.” He walked into the bedroom, pulling her with him before shutting the door. “I heard Kain would be attending and I was… curious. Of course he was going to save you—I should have realized there was some noble motive behind it. He always did have a soft spot for vulnerable women, after…”
He fell silent for a moment, but then seemed to gather himself with a deep intake of breath. “But he got you pregnant, you say? I bet that came as a nasty surprise to him.”
Hurt and some oddly protective instincts made her press a hand against her stomach to shield the small life growing there.
“He was happy,” she said, more than a note of frost in her voice. “Scared, but happy. Don’t you insult him, or me, by insinuating anything else.”
A wry smile pulled on Kesh’s devious lips, offsetting his look of mild surprise. “You really are a little firecracker, huh? Back-talking a demon Lord mere days after your claiming. Is that why he chose you?”
In truth she had no idea why Kain had fallen for her, but she didn’t feel like telling this stranger anymore of their private business. He may have been Kain’s brother, but she was done talking about Kain when he wasn’t here. If Kesh hadn’t heard about his brother’s decision to attend the auction directly from him, they obviously didn’t have a close relationship.
Selma set her jaw. “Instead of worrying about that, maybe you could tell me when we’ll go get Kain?”
“As soon as we’re able. My father isn’t wrong—it’s a rather delicate situation, and we, at the very least, need to know where he’s being kept before we can act. But this is not something you need to worry about, Breeder. I will take care of it—you just need to rest.”
Great, another overbearing male who’d decided she was too delicate to do anything but nap.
She was pretty exhausted, though, and that four-poster bed did look pretty inviting—and despite how annoying Kesh’s assurance that she didn’t need to worry because he was in charge now was, some embarrassing part of her responded to his self-assurance by letting go of her anxiety and fear. Somewhere along the line, her hormones had evidently gotten the upper hand, and she now instinctively trusted big brutes who said they’d take care of everything so she didn’t have to.
It was infuriating.
Annoyed with herself as much as with him, Selma turned toward the bed. However much she wanted to throw a fit, she needed to sleep more than she needed to assert herself right now. Tomorrow, however, was another matter entirely.
Determined to climb in and disappear from the world under what looked to be extraordinarily thick and fluffy blankets, she kicked off her shoes and unzipped and removed Kesh’s leather jacket—and was halted by a sharp intake of breath from the demon behind her.
“I want the name of the one who did this.”
Selma blinked at his angry tone, then remembered what state Marathin had left her clothes in.
“Oh. It’s… a bit of a long story. One of Naharan’s accomplices chased me down when I fled.”
She pulled uncomfortably on her ruined shirt, ensuring that she wasn’t flashing him anything inappropriate, then finally climbed into the bed. It was soft and heavenly, and she felt her muscles relax into the mattress on contact. She didn’t want to think about Marathin and what he’d done to her, or even what she’d done to him.
“Who is he?”
The low growl from the end of the bed had the small hairs on her arms standing on end. Selma cracked her eyes open halfway to look at the demon Lord.
“He’s dead. I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay? I’m so tired.”
Kesh grunted an assent, though he still looked rather scary and angry as he hovered by the end of the bed. When she let her eyelids slide closed again, she heard him move quietly around the room, undoubtedly to turn off the light and ensure that everything was safe for her.
She sighed. As infuriating as it was to be treated like a china doll, there was still something rather endearing about these big brutes’ obsessive need to care for the women whose scent drove them loopy.
Besides, the somewhat familiar pattern reminded her of Kain, and she dozed off with a feeling of being safe in the hands of people who would help her save her mate.
33
Selma
The pleasant scent of male musk slowly penetrated her consciousness as sleep released its hold on her. She was warm and comfortable, and the feeling of hard, sculpted flesh by her side made her feel safe. Home.
Selma nuzzled in closer against her mate and was rewarded with a sleepy rumble that sounded just like it should, but also… not.
