Chapter
Seven
Leda
The sound of a crackling fire woke me. I knew where I was immediately because I’d dreamt about being taken from my home by imps off and on all night.
Still, I hadn’t expected to sleep at all.
I also realized I was alone in the bed, and the room was once again toasty warm. A faint splashing sound had me cracking open my eyes. Then, they nearly bugged out of my head. Bokkan’s broad,very naked, back and shoulders faced me from where he lounged in the bathing pool set in the center of the bathroom. He’d left the double doors wide open.
What the hell?
As I watched, he shifted forward, the bulging muscles of his shoulders and lats flexing when he pushed away from the wall. Then, he stood up and stepped onto the ledge he’d been sitting on, reaching for a towel. Watching this made me fear that my eyes would absolutely pop out of my skull becauseholy shit. He was built like a god of war, but on a massive scale. His skin was the same deep, reddish bronze all over. I knew because I could see every inch of it from his shoulders to his calves. No tan lines for him.
And he had a freaking tail!
How had I not noticed the tail before? It couldn’t be that I’d been fighting for my life every moment since. Apparently, I needed to give myself some credit.
Black tattoos covered his upper body in a beautiful, complex pattern. The ink seemed to shimmer even after he ran the towel over his shoulder and arm, as though it was still somehow liquid.
Then, he turned toward me. Thank God, he didn’t look at the bed because I couldn’t stop staring at him. Like his back, his pectorals were huge slabs of muscle covered by smooth, hairless skin.
His abdominal muscles were four thick blocks, and the vee of his iliac furrows stood out in sharp relief. My eyes followed the line of his Adonis’s belt to the base of his dick. I blinked rapidly when I realized that his penis was definitely proportionate to the rest of him. Maybe even a little larger than I expected.
I was so distracted by the thick length of his cock that it took me a few seconds to even notice that he didn’t have pubic hair.
Holy shit, he was even better than the demons described in the smutty romance books I sometimes read. I had an excellent imagination, and the images it had conjured up had nothing on him. He was ten times hotter. And bigger. I knew he could pick me up and haul me around as though I weighed nothing. The idea of him doing that in a sexual way ratcheted my body temperature up a few degrees.
His head lifted, turning toward me, and I managed to slam my eyes shut before he could see that I was staring at him like he was a piece of steak I wanted to devour.
Oh, this was bad. So, so bad. My entire body was tingling, and my heart thumped a wild drumbeat as I fought to keep my breathing even.
I could not be attracted to the daemon. I couldn’t. He was essentially holding me captive here. This wasn’t a lark or oneof the monster romances I secretly read. That was fiction, not reality. I was trapped in a literal other world, unable to get back home.
At some point, I would either meet the right person, figure out the right escape route, or earn enough money to buy my way across the veil. There had to be a way because there was a way to get me here. There had been at least fifteen or twenty other human women being auctioned on the stage the day I arrived. And, due to some things Bokkan’s soldiers said, I knew there were other humans in this realm, too. Humans who were nothing more than slaves or pets to be used and abused at their owner’s convenience.
I couldn’t live like that.
If Bokkan hadn’t intervened yesterday, I would have killed his soldier. And then I likely would have died when the rest of his men converged on me. I would have fought until they were forced to kill me, not because I didn’t want to survive whatever they had planned, but because a red haze of absolute rage had descended over me. The fact that those males thought they had a right to my body. That I would have no say in how they treated me. I’d spent years teaching other women how to avoid dangerous situations and what to do if they couldn’t.
The helplessness I’d felt yesterday had morphed into vicious fury. I could barely remember what I’d said and done, only that I would kill the first male that touched me. And anyone I could when they realized I had fighting skills and tried to overwhelm me with numbers. I knew my actions were practically suicidal, but I’d had no control over myself. No control over the incandescent rage.
Bokkan was utterly silent, and it took every ounce of willpower not to slit open my eyes and see what he was doing. I heard the faint whisper of the wardrobe door opening. Then a drawer. Both were shut just as quietly.
Once again, I found myself thinking he seemed to be an honorable man…daemon.He might have gone about it in a way I didn’t like last night, but he’d made sure I didn’t freeze to death. Now, he was creeping around his bedchamber in near silence, so he didn’t disturb my sleep.
God, I really didn’t want to like him, but I found myself doing it anyway. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d dated a man who’d given me even half of the consideration this daemon had shown me in less than twenty-four hours. And he wasn’t even in a romantic relationship with me!
I waited, eyes closed and breathing slow and even, until I heard the door leading to the hall open and shut softly. Then, I waited a little longer. The room felt… emptier somehow.
I knew Bokkan had left it.
With a small sigh, I opened my eyes and stared at the bathing pool in the center of the bathroom. The bathing pool that had held a giant, naked daemon only a few moments ago. The image of his nude body was all but seared into my brain.
What in the hell was I going to do now?
As tempting as it was to remain wrapped up in the deliciously warm fur blankets and do nothing, it wasn’t me. I always had to be doingsomething. Even if I was sitting still, I had a book in my hand, a craft in front of me, something interesting on television, or a game on my phone. Especially if I was stressed out. The only way out of my anxiety spiral was distraction.
