Claimed by a Demon King (20 page)

She didn’t want her best friend to think she was a freak.

Olivia’s face fell and she quietly said, “Okay.”

Thorne looked at Sable.

Sable couldn’t bring herself to face him either. He had seen what she had done and she had hurt him when he had tried to touch her. What if she would hurt everyone who touched her now or that strange urge came over her again? She shuddered and moved another step away, trying to distance herself from everyone.

“We should take the injured back to the castle,” Loren said.

Bleu reached out to grab her arm. Sable slapped his hand away and clutched her wrist to her chest, her heart pounding at a sickening pace. Hurt filled his purple eyes and she shook her head and looked down at her feet.

“Maybe I can walk back,” she whispered to her boots and then risked a glance at her friends.

They all looked at her as if she had gone insane.

Thorne snorted, grabbed her and dropped into a dark abyss with her.

The moment they appeared in the courtyard of his castle, she shoved away from him.

“Have you gone crazy?” she barked. “I might have hurt you again!”

Thorne growled, grabbed her and pulled her back to him. She stared up into his crimson eyes.

“I went crazy the moment I set eyes on you, my little fated one.”

Sable struggled against his grip. “Don’t… not right now… I can’t take it.”

Because she wasn’t strong enough to fight him. All she wanted to do was rest her head against his chest and ask him to hold her and tell her that she had imagined everything that had happened at the battle, that she had been knocked out and dreamed all the craziness.

He released her and cold swept through her.

“True friendship is rare, and you have it with Olivia. Do not push your friend away because of this. Olivia will understand, even if you do not.” He sighed and his tone softened, and she didn’t stop him as he brushed the backs of his claws across her cheeks, sweeping her tears away. She looked up into his eyes and fought the urge to ask him to do more, to hold her. “Rest, Sable. You will be safe here at my home while I oversee proceedings at the border.”

He disappeared before she could respond.

Now she knew how Olivia felt whenever Loren did that.

Furious.

Alone.

CHAPTER 12

S
able roamed the cold, silent corridors of the castle, slowly wending her way downwards, beneath the sleeping quarters, in search of the kitchen.

At least she had been at first.

Unable to sleep, she had wanted a drink of water to quench the burning in her throat, needing to rid herself of anything that reminded her of what had happened and what she had done.

Her tattoo had reacted to those demons and she had felt compelled to kill them.

To kill Thorne.

She shuddered, shoved that memory out of her head, and trudged onwards, following the quiet hallway. She hadn’t seen anyone since leaving her quarters on the first floor. Everyone had retired to their rooms to rest after arriving back from the battle and she had avoided the main courtyard in her search for the kitchen.

Now, she wasn’t sure where she was beneath the castle, but the hallways were growing narrower and gently sloping downwards, and she didn’t have the energy to change her course. She walked onwards, her mind wandering as much as her feet were.

She had burned that demon to ashes.

She had hurt Thorne.

Sable wrapped her arms around herself and stroked the bandage around her right biceps. She couldn’t believe she had hurt him. She hadn’t meant to.

She looked down at the leather cuff still strapped around her right forearm. Her wrist had been hurting ever since she had entered this region of Hell and now she had a strange power, the ability to incinerate a demon with nothing more than a touch. Why?

Maybe she should turn back and find the kitchen after all. A healthy dose of demon grog would knock her out and she wanted to sleep, to escape this nightmare and lose herself in Thorne. She wanted to pretend nothing had happened and she was the same woman she had been barely a few days ago, a hunter with a gift, an ability to sense fae and demons.

A lamp cast pale flickering light ahead, revealing the end of the corridor.

A room.

Sable reached the threshold and paused, her breath hitching in her throat and heart clenching.

In the middle of the dark stone room stood a pure white marble statue of a couple.

A huge male demon looked down at a petite female, his expression filled with love and devotion as he gazed upon her. The woman nestled against his chest, her own gaze turned downwards and a soft smile playing on her beautiful lips. Her left hand hung away from her side, free of the incredibly detailed folds of her empire-line style gown.

That hand was worn and shiny, as if someone had slipped theirs into it many times.

Sable moved closer, entranced by the woman.

Her cheek shone in the light of the candles burning on the shelves around the walls too, as if someone had caressed it often.

Yellow roses lay at their feet in varying stages of decay. Some were completely dried and withered, brown and crisp, but others still had colour and softness.

Sable edged closer still, until she stood before the couple, and stared at them.

She had never seen such a beautiful statue before. It radiated love and tenderness, and sorrow so deep that it brought tears to her eyes.

Thorne’s parents.

Loren had told her about them, that they had died almost two thousand eight hundred years ago, killed by Kordula and Loren’s brother, Vail, and that Thorne had been young for a demon, only around seven hundred years old.

Sable’s gaze drifted down to the woman’s left hand and she reached out to it, imagining a young Thorne doing the same as he looked at his mother and father, the parents that had been taken from him.

A heavy thump echoed down the hallway behind her, followed by another, growing in volume.

Sable drew her hand back and looked around, searching for another way out. She didn’t want to be caught here, in such a private place. Her heart sped up when she realised there was no other exit.

No escape.

The footsteps drew closer and with them came dread. What if it was a guard or, worse, one of the vampires? No one would find her down here.

The footsteps stopped.

Sable swiftly turned to face their owner.

Thorne stood before her, bare-chested and bedraggled. The strained lines of his face soon turned towards anger though as he looked between her and the statue behind her.

“What are you doing in this place?” he barked and frowned as he moved into the room, making it feel even smaller than it had a moment ago. “You should not be in this place.”

Sable looked over her shoulder at the statue and then down at the roses.

It wasn’t just a room.

It was a tomb.

Thorne had buried his parents here and still came to them often. To smooth his mother’s cheek and hold her hand? To speak with his father?

Tears rose into her eyes again and threatened to spill.

She blinked them away. She had no reason to feel sorry for him. At least he had known his parents. He’d had centuries with them.

She had never known hers.

Sable looked back at Thorne and his expression softened.

“I did not mean to shout at you,” he said in a gentle tone. He thought he had made her cry.

She shook her head and pinned her gaze on the floor.

“I’m sorry.” She kept her head bent and hurried past him.

Thorne caught her arm and he was surprisingly gentle. She stilled, keeping her back to him, her heart beating in her throat as she waited for him to speak.

“Why were you here?”

Sable stared at the corridor. “I couldn’t sleep. I was looking for the kitchen to grab some water… or maybe some booze… and I somehow ended up here. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Silence fell, as oppressive as it had been when they had stood together on the balcony. Was Thorne trying to think of something to say? Was he angry with her?

He released her and sighed. “You should not wander the castle alone when so many males are present.”

She had figured that out for herself when she had thought he was a vampire come to attack her or one of the demon guards.

Sable looked over her shoulder at him. He had his back to her, his gaze on the statue. He walked over to it and she felt she should leave, but she couldn’t convince her feet to move.

He seemed so different tonight.

Lonely.

It made her feel lonely too.

“Why did you come down here?” she quietly said and his shoulders heaved with another sigh, his muscles expanding and relaxing, calling to her. She wanted to step up behind him and smooth her palms over them, to rest her head against his spine and hold him, because she knew that if she did, she would find her balance again.

When had she started relying on him like that? When had Thorne become her anchor, her pillar of strength? When had she become so weak?

“I could not sleep. Too much weighs on my mind.” He remained with his back to her. “So I came here… to speak… you will think me a fool.”

“Not at all.” She turned to face him. “You came to speak with them.”

She could understand that. He had probably talked to them often when they had been alive, sharing whatever burden weighed on his heart. She had done something similar a few times with Olivia and it had felt good. She wished she had been able to talk to her parents, to tell them her problems and hear them tell her that everything would be alright.

“You are sad… why?” Thorne looked over his broad shoulders at her and his revelation didn’t shock her.

He could sense her feelings.

She felt a growing connection to him too, and it frightened her.

“Sad for you, I suppose,” she lied and looked away when he frowned at her, as if he knew. She searched for another topic of conversation and found it in Thorne’s left hand.

A single yellow rose.

“How often to demons honour their ancestors?” She had heard that most demons brought offerings of the ancestor’s favourite brew or sacrificed something living to honour them.

Thorne looked down at the rose in his hand, raising it at the same time.

“Yearly, on the day of their birth and the day of their death,” he said and twirled the rose stem in his fingers, slowly enough that it barely shifted the green petals and didn’t affect the closed bud at all.

Sable looked at all the blooms. There were too many.

“And you only offer a single rose?” she said and he nodded. “So how often do you honour your mother?”

He was silent for a moment, and then quietly stated, “Monthly.”

He cast his dark crimson gaze over the drying roses.

“More recently… I have honoured her weekly. I have needed my parents’ counsel.”

The lines bracketing his mouth and his eyes were visible signs of the stress he was under. Only a month had passed since she had first met him, but he seemed so different.

Weary and tired, quieter and troubled.

A little like her.

Sable edged closer to him and he lifted his gaze to her. She hated the look in his dark eyes. Her heart throbbed heavily at the sight of them glittering with so much pain, fathomless and searing, burning him up inside.

She wanted to take it all away, even when she knew she couldn’t, just as he couldn’t take away her hurt and her fear. He couldn’t remove it but he could make her forget it for a while. He could shove the rest of the world and all of her worries aside with one single heated caress, a touch that would burn away all reason and leave her a slave to sensation and need—a slave to him and the connection blossoming between them.

He had that power over her, and a deep, longing part of her wanted him to use it. She wanted him to draw her into his thickly muscled arms and kiss away her fears, and that was a dangerous thing to desire.

Thorne heaved another sigh, his broad chest expanding with it, and then went down on one knee before the statue.

Sable watched in silence as he laid the rose at his mother’s feet, looked up at the woman and spoke to her in the demon tongue. She wished she knew what he was saying as he quietly talked to her, and to his father. He gazed up at the tall male and then lowered his head. His shoulders tensed.

She moved closer to him, drawn to comforting him and unable to deny that desire, and reached out to lay her hand on his back. His head shifted towards her before she could and she withdrew her hand as he rose to his feet, standing as tall as his father.

She had to say something to break the silence before it became strained again.

“Your mother was beautiful,” she whispered and he turned his head a little towards her, enough that she saw the slight smile that curved his lips.

“I have never seen a more beautiful female.” He fell quiet and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and she knew that he wanted to say more but feared how she would react if he told her that he thought her beautiful too.

She smiled to alleviate his nerves. “What were your parents like?”

“My father was brave, strong, and led this kingdom in an era of peace because of that strength. He taught me much… how to lead men… how to fight… how to do what is right, no matter the consequences. If I could be but a tenth of the male he was, the warrior he was… the king he was… I would be happy.”

But clearly he thought himself less than even that small amount. Because his kingdom was at war? Loren had also told her that Thorne had been through many wars in his centuries as the Third King, and the surrounding realms constantly challenged his reign because he had been so young and inexperienced when he had ascended the throne.

But the man before her now wore the scars of those battles on his body and on his soul. He was strong and brave, and led his kingdom well, even if he couldn’t see it himself.

She wished that he could or that she could make him see it.

“My mother was beautiful, and delicate, and raised me while my father dealt with the kingdom. She would walk me around the castle and laugh as I tried to fight the guards or lecture the captains and commanders. She would smile at me as I prattled on about the day I would go into battle at my father’s side and we would win a great victory, and she would tell me that my greatest victory would not be a battle… it would be love.” He cast his gaze down at his boots. “Sentimental, yet her words offered me comfort in our time apart. When I lost my parents, all I had to keep me going were the lessons they had taught me, the affection they had shown me, and their belief in me.”