“Look at me,” Vagach growled, his hot breath somehow overpowering the wood stove threateningly close to my position on the floor.

I stole a brief moment to gauge the distance between my position and the doors that led to the gardens.

Too far to run.

Swallowing, I faced my husband. Flaming garnet eyes stared down at me, burning with so much hatred that I wondered for the thousandth time why he married me in the first place. I offered him a similar glower in return. “Maybe it’s you that’s the issue, and not me.”

He was on me in an instant, hand wrapped around my throat and shoving me harder into wood slats.

Please kill me.

“How dare you. After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?” His fingers tightened, making stars dance in my vision. My eyes fluttered, and my vision tunneled in on a pinprick of dark—my way out. I raced toward it, grasping for the freedom it offered.

At this point, I would take anything.

Vagach lifted me by my neck, forcing me to look into his eyes. Then, with a sound of disgust, he released me. My skull bounced against the floor, and the world went black before returning blurry. A groan slipped out of me unbidden.

Priestess Anara’s chair scraped against the floor, and then her footsteps approached me. I didn’t need my vision to be clear to know that the cane came with her. “You must obey your husband, Assyria. The Weaver laid out a great path for you to marry a Kormánzó. You must serve him. You must snuff out this spirit of yours, for that is why the Reaper has cursed your womb. In all your years under my care, I never managed to accomplish the task, so now Kormánzó Vagach must. Apologize to your husband.”

Vagach was the Kormánzó of the largest vidék in the southernmost part of the Demon Realm and the head of House Olmuth. Which apparently gave my noble husband the right to use and abuse me as he saw fit.

Blinking, I stared at the two cruel figures above me, trying to smother the anger inside me that wanted to burn this fucking house down with the three of us in it. “I’m sorry,” I managed to bite out, smothering the wince that came with movement in my ribs. I fucking hated that I was apologizing again; some of the emotion was directed at myself, but my husband bore the brunt of it. Perhaps we were meant for each other with the abhorrence stretched between us like a tightrope.

“You’re always sorry. When are you ever going to learn?” Vagach sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. A strand of hair escaped the band of leather that bound it at the nape of his neck. He tucked it behind his severely pointed ear before lifting his head again. “You know I hate doing this to you. Why do you make me hurt you?”

The words I wanted to say screamed through my mind, but instead of unleashing them, I slipped on the mask I knew all too well. Widening my eyes and sticking out my bottom lip, I tried to make myself look as innocent as possible. “Thank you for teaching me a lesson. I will pray harder to the Weaver and the Giver for a child, while begging the Reaper for forgiveness.”

That seemed to appease Vagach, because he rose and backed away, choosing to lean against the countertop as he studied me. His tunic was rolled up at the sleeves, displaying his forearms and the white knuckled grip he held over the elegant stone beneath his fingers. The shirt stretched across his belly, swollen from years of overindulgence. A half-empty bottle of liquor sat behind him, though the evidence wasn’t needed to know he was roaring drunk.

Gingerly, I tucked my feet beneath me, managing to sit upright without crying out. Priestess Anara didn’t offer me any help as I crawled to a nearby chair to hoist myself to my feet. The world swayed, and I sucked in a sharp breath, immediately regretting it.

“Clean yourself up and prepare for our coupling. With Priestess Anara watching over it, the Fates should shine their favor on us this day,” he snarled.

Ice shattered through my veins, sending my stomach plummeting to my knees. With trepidation crawling its way up my spine, I looked between the priestess and my husband, trying to figure a way out of the situation.

Fates, not now. Please, not now.

A slow smile spread across his face; he knew he had won and I was at his mercy. Even if I wanted to slip out of one of the arched windows, my injuries would make it impossible, a fact I was certain he knew. All Demons possessed an innate healing ability, which gave us such long lives, but injuries this severe took hours, if not days, to heal.

Swallowing down the rising panic, I gripped either side of my long skirts and attempted to curtsey, pain flaring as I did so. “Yes, sir,” I replied, dropping my chin to my chest and turning to exit the kitchen, trying to keep my steps light and even when all I wanted to do was bolt like a frightened deer.

Down the long, ornately carved hall I went until I reached our sleeping chamber, closing the door behind me before entering the attached bathing room. I shut that door too, if only to put a hair’s breadth more space between Vagach and me.

The deep stone tub called to me, and I avoided glancing in the mirror as I passed it, certain I would not like what I saw in my reflection. Perched on the edge, I turned the taps to open the flow, staring into the waterfall as if it were a crystal ball that held all the answers I sought.

Answers like, why did my husband choose me if all he wanted to do was abuse me?

His first wife died nine summers ago, and the next, he had decided I was to be his new bride. When Vagach appeared on the doorstep to our humble abode in the middle of a field of corn, my father, barely managing to feed our family, had readily accepted his proposal.

Perhaps it was my burgundy eyes, one of the most powerful Demon colors, or my long hair, or my body toned from years of working the fields with my mother, father, and sister. Perhaps he thought our impoverished state would make me more submissive to his whims. Perhaps it was none of those things.

Fates, how I wished I’d died in the plague that swept through the Demon Realm the past winter, claiming my parents, sister, and nearly a quarter of Stryi, the primary city in the vidék. The healers said the illness was brought back from the front lines of the war, some sort of curse or concoction the Angels had set on the Demons in an attempt to turn the tide in their favor. Priestess Anara said it was a warning from the Weaver that we needed to bear more children for the Kral’s mandate to exterminate the Angels and conquer all of Keleti.

Whatever the cause, I was still grief stricken; the mere thought of my bubbly, bright sister’s ashen face as she coughed the last bit of blood from her body would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my millennia-long life.

Warm water now filled the tub, and I stripped off my veil and dress, biting down on my lip as the overhead movement sent a twinge down my left side. One by one, I placed my feet into the water, sinking into its welcoming embrace and letting it soothe my injuries. Tucking my knees into my chest, I rested my head on them, silence enveloping everything but my thoughts.

Vagach’s determination to impregnate me was disgusting, but that was what females were for—bearing as many children as we could for the Demon cause. My husband was a social climber, and having multiple powerful offspring would raise his station and catch him more attention in Uzhhorod, the capital of the Demon Realm. The Kral might even offer him the title of Nayúr, which came with privileges like a set of apartments in the palace.

There wasn’t anything left for me here, so it wasn’t like it mattered whether we stayed or went. Besides, my body was no longer my own. I was nothing more than a brood mare for my husband, just as Priestess Anara had taught me to be.