“Your responsibility, little queen, is to stay alive. It is my responsibility to ensure my son is not getting twisted up in instincts that will ruin him and the Breeder under his care,” he interrupted her, tone soft but brokering no argument.

“I need you to go to Maine first,” Kain said. The gratitude in his eyes for the diversion was not missed. He didn’t like telling his mate no—a sentiment Kirigan understood well. Now. They both knew the consequences of making a woman realize she had no agency over her life. Or body.

“Maine? What for?”

“The disturbance I felt in my Stone of Power—it may be connected to the attack in Maine that Kesh thwarted,” Selma said. “According to Kesh, the two lords that led the assault were much stronger than they reasonably should have been. If the Europeans have brought one of their remaining Stones of Power to our shores, we need to know. Urgently.”

“There’s no one strong enough to pick up a magical imprint like that, no one I’d trust not to attempt to take that power source for their own gain—except you.” Kain sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And if it wasn’t a Stone of Power, then we still need to know what it was, and what happened to it, so we can work out if the Europeans have access to more of them. We nearly lost Maine in this assault, despite Aran being one of the strongest lords on the Eastern Seaboard.”

The crown was a heavy weight on his eldest son. He’d known it would be, since before he claimed it. Kirigan glanced back at his daughter-in-law, still cradling his grandson to her breast. She seemed to truly love her demon child. And her demon mate. One day, she would realize the truth. The despair would set in. Hopefully, when that day came, she would be stronger than his sons’ mother. And if not… he would be there to ensure she couldn’t leave this world, and take his eldest’s sanity with her. His duty to his family’s survival wasn’t a light in the dark recesses of his madness, but it was the only thing he had left.

Stopping the Europeans from breaking them came before the foreboding clawing at the back of his skull, urging him to go to Kesh and the Breeder under his care.

With a silent nod, he strode out of the room, his focus turning to finding and securing the power source their enemies had attempted to use in their quest to bring down his family.

29

Georgia

Once again, she awoke alone in the prince’s bed. Yet unlike last time, it didn’t fill her with relief. That, however, filled her with dread.

Her memory of last night was fuzzy at the edges, but several things stood out in crystal clear definition. Such as the demon’s tortured expression when his self-control started to fray, and the understanding that if it’d snapped, her life would have ended.

There should be nothing but relief at his absence this morning.

Least of all disappointment.

“You are so messed up, Georgie,” she muttered, scrubbing both hands over her face as she pushed her legs over the edge of the bed.

There wasn’t any lingering wooziness when she got into the shower this time, nor did she feel wobbly at the knees like she had the last time he sucked her energy. Apparently, fighting an army of demons didn’t drain his power nearly as much as healing a single human did.

He’d laid out clean clothes for her. Another silky dress, black this time. Georgia ran her fingers over the soft material, luxuriating in the feel of it. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she would have thought a demon incapable of caring for another living being. But last night…

Last night, he’d let her see a glimmer of humanity she’d considered an impossibility before. And he’d said… such achingly tender things to her.

She hadn’t expected to find anything but hardship and misery in his hands, but after last night, one thing was abundantly clear in her mind: no one had ever made her feel like the Prince of Demons had last night. Like her life, her pleasure, was the most important thing in the world.

He wasn’t what she’d thought he was. Not entirely. There was gentleness behind his ruthless nature. Brutality and a flippant attitude toward the value of life, yes, but he wasn’t cruel for the sake of it.

Especially not with her.

A rush of unbidden pleasure filled her when she recalled what he’d whispered as her conscience checked out.

I’d sell my soul for you if I had one.

Words spoken in passion, no doubt, but in that moment, he’d meant them. She’d felt the truth of them sink into the core of her being.

It was funny, in a way. She’d never considered demons capable of containing a soul. But after last night? The way he’d cried in her arms over the traumatic loss of his mother? She could have sworn she saw his soul in the voids of his pained eyes. Felt it hum in tune with her own as he worshipped her body.

But he would know better than she about such matters. He was a demon, after all. Even if he didn’t trade in souls, she had no doubt he had a far better grasp on the subject than she.

She slipped on the black dress and sighed with pleasure as the silk wrapped around her body in a soft caress. Perhaps he didn’t have a human soul, but he knew how to care for a woman and make her feel safe. She couldn’t name a single human friend or boyfriend she’d had over the years who’d cared enough to treat her like the Prince of Demons did: like she was precious to him.

An uncomfortable stab spiked below her ribs when she thought that her mom had never made her feel particularly precious, either. Kesh’s derisive words about how she’d been trained to put everyone ahead of herself from a young age came back, dampening the bloom of warmth in her chest.

It’d been easier to ignore the jab when she’d thought him nothing but a monster, incapable of understanding complex emotion like familial love. But a man who cried for the loss of a mother who’d hated him knew the pain of rejection on an intimate level.

It had always been about Larry. Georgia’d never questioned it, because she loved him more than anything, too. It’d seemed natural that his needs came first.

But why had it been so natural for her mom?

And the time before he was born… Her memory from that time was fuzzier, but no matter how hard she tried to recall it, she couldn’t remember ever feeling like she was first. Not to herself, either.

It was only now, after Kesh challenged her, that she even paused to consider that perhaps that wasn’t so natural after all.

She brushed her hands over the silky dress again. They were trembling a little. She clenched them until the wave of sadness eased.

Since Lewin sold her contract to Jimmy the Pimp, she’d thought her life forfeit—sacrificed so that Larry could live. Kesh had shown her that while she would be serving demons for the rest of her life, it didn’t mean her life was over. Not with him.

It had only been a few days, and she had already learned more about herself in his company than she had for the past decade. Her gaze caught on the rumbled bedsheets, and a faint blush heated her face. Most notably that she was the kind of woman who’d ride a demon’s face to orgasm.

But as embarrassing as it was to remember grabbing his horns and pulling his head between her legs, she couldn’t deny how powerful she’d felt in those moments. How good it’d been to release all her fear and anxiety, to fully and completely focus on nothing but her own pleasure.

On cue, a pang traveled up her pelvis from her trapped clit swelling against its confines at the memory of Kesh’s tongue. Another thing she was learning about herself under his care: he wasn’t wrong when he’d called her a needy little slut—something that should have felt degrading, but didn’t. One upside to demons: a woman taking charge of her needs was a point of pride, not shame. He’d only made her feel beautiful and infinitely desired.