Page 5 of Prince of Demons (Demon’s Mark #2)

“You can’t be serious.” The protest left her on a wheezing exhale.

Her lungs constricted painfully, making it hard to breathe.

It didn’t get any easier when she forced her eyes from the bench to the rest of the room.

An array of devices hung on the wall and lay spread out on a wooden tabletop pushed up against the far corner.

They looked like something out of a medieval dungeon. Of the especially awful variety.

“It’ll be over soon,” Irral murmured, the softness of his voice a sharp counterpoint to his grip on her arm. He pulled her forward, and when her legs refused to move on their own and she stumbled, lifted her with a grip on both her biceps and carried her the final few steps.

“No.” The word escaped before she could fully form the denial in her mind. “I don’t want this. Not… not this.”

“I thought you wanted your brother to live?” There was a taunt in Jimmy’s voice.

He gestured to the two other demons, then turned to the table in the corner.

“Besides, this is a great honor. Only my most valuable whores get ringed—and they have to work long and hard to earn it. You , my golden goose, get one from first fuck. Sure, there’ll be a little pain now, a little humiliation, but I suspect you’ll be grateful soon enough.

Horny demons can get a little, shall we say, enthusiastic.

I’m given to understand that bedding one can be rather unpleasant without a ring. ”

She did want Larry to live. More than anything.

But when Irral held her still so Loyt could pull off her jeans and underwear, and they then lifted her onto the bench, there was nothing she could do to keep back the tears.

She stared straight up into the ceiling, blurred by her tears, and the single lightbulb illuminating the room while they tied her wrists above her head and forced her legs wide.

The stirrups pushed into her insteps as they restrained her ankles.

When they tightened the leather straps around her thighs, she bit down on her cheek until she tasted blood.

For Larry. For Larry, for Larry, for Larry.

“Fuck, Jimmy, she’s crying,” Loyt growled. He reached for her just-bound wrist as if to undo the strap, but flexed his clawed digits above the leather instead. “This ain’t right.”

“Of course she’s crying,” Jimmy sighed. “She sold her cunt. Don’t tell me you’re growing a conscience, just because the little twat’s a Breeder. The last whore you broke in sobbed like a baby while you were on her—didn’t seem to give you any pause then, hmm?”

“Jimmy, come on, man.” Irral made an agitated gesture at her teary face. “We’re not like you. We can’t fucking help it. She’s a Breeder. If she cries, we’re fucking hardwired to stop it!”

“Satan’s tits,” Jimmy growled. He returned from the table, entering her field of vision as he stepped between her and Irral.

“That’s what I get for surrounding myself with primitive idiots.

Get out. Go put your dicks in a bucket of ice water if your pea-sized brains need the blood supply.

She’ll be ringed and begging for it soon enough, and if you two breathe another protest, you won’t get a single go on her.

Understood? You want a taste of Breeder cunt, you get the hell out. Now.”

Both goons hesitated, their dark eyes darting from her to their boss. Finally, Loyt whispered, “You’ll let us have her? Truly?”

Jimmy rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh.

“Of course. You know how I operate. You stay loyal, you get a share in the profits. But if you’d rather trade your yearly bonus for a one time lay with my little prize sow, then I won’t stand in your way.

After she’s taken a few hundred paying customers, of course. ”

The two of them looked at each other, looked at her. There was a flicker of regret in both their gazes, but it wasn’t strong enough. Without another word, they left.

That moment’s hesitation should have filled her with some semblance of hope.

If they didn’t like her crying, perhaps they could be persuaded to help her escape.

But it seemed whatever sense of discomfort they had in the face of her fear, it wasn’t stronger than the desire to take their share of her.

If they could be convinced to free her, it wouldn’t be before they’d had their payment.

A few hundred customers. Would there even be anything but an empty shell left to save?

“Well. I’ll grant they’re not my cleverest subordinates, but they are loyal,” Jimmy said.

He gave her a smirk, as if they were sharing a joke.

“It’s possibly not surprising that’s a rare thing in our world.

I can put up with a few primitive instincts for that.

” His smirk turned sharper. “Ridiculous as they may be. It’s not as if those two idiots would have had any clue what you are, if they hadn’t been told.

They can’t smell you—it’s all in those empty noggins of theirs. ”

“Smell me?” She wasn’t entirely sure why she asked. She didn’t want to know any more about their depraved customs, but he was holding something in one clawed hand that gleamed metallic. Any distraction from the horrors that were about to befall her was welcome.

Jimmy waved his empty hand in a dismissive gesture. “Awakened Breeders smell irresistible to male demons. It’s part of the magic in a blinding mark. To amp up your natural pheromones and ensure you get mated frequently and produce plentiful offspring. "

He saw her horrified expression and gave her a thin smile.

“Don’t worry—I’m not about to let anyone knock you up, little goose.

And there will be no blinding mark either.

Your pretty cunt’s all the encouragement these idiots need to part with their coin—too much and they might start getting ideas about claiming themselves a mate.

Then I’ll have to kill them, and I’m down a customer…

You see how that’s bad for business, right? ”

Georgia didn’t answer.

“Well, best get on with it.” He smiled a little wider, showing off small, yellowed fangs when his words made her squirm against her bindings. “Now, now. You’ve got nothing to worry about, little goose. I’m not gonna feed on you. It’s just a small pinch.”

Her racing heart didn’t calm down at his syrupy tone, nor when he opened his hand to reveal what he’d picked up from the table: a wicked-looking metal clamp.

What on Earth ? —?

Her panicked confusion came to a sharp point when the demon stepped in between her spread thighs, that evil smirk growing.

He reached out with his empty hand and trailed a claw up the inside of her leg, from her calf, up over the strap keeping her knees locked to the stirrups, and along her inner thigh.

When he reached her groin, and she drew in a sharp breath and strained harder against the bindings, he paused.

“I know what you fear, Breeder,” he murmured. “What you all fear. Will it comfort you to know that I have no interest in fucking you? True, many lowly demons think with their genitals, but sex has no appeal to me.”

“You’re a pimp.” The words came unbidden, her focus scattered between the crawling sensation of his touch and the evil-looking clamp in his hand.

Jimmy gave a low laugh. “Yes, I suppose I can see how that might be confusing. Do you know what my kind needs humans for? Why we make bargains and bind you in servitude?”

“You’re evil,” she said. It came out as more of a whisper than she’d meant.

He barked another laugh. “Perhaps. But, while I do admit that there is some amusement in torment for its own sake, mostly we need to feed. And that precious energy you all are stuffed so full of just so happens to be our primary food source.”

“Our souls.” She swallowed thickly and tried not to flinch when he drew his thick claw up over the seam of her closed labia and rested it against her hooded clit.

“Sometimes,” he agreed, his gaze flicking from hers down to his claw resting intimately between her thighs.

“Some demons do feed on souls. Nasty creatures—give all of us quite an unpleasant reputation. Most of us find other ways of extracting what we need from your pitiful flesh. Your good friend Lewin prefers fluids and organs. My tastes are more… refined.”

A sharp sting right against the hood of her clit made her jerk hard—and immediately freeze when his claw scraped painfully over the very tip of her center of nerves.

“I take my nourishment from anguish… misery. Not so much pain, per se. Too crude.” Without taking his eyes off her nether region, he ever so slowly moved his fingers along her trembling flesh, forcing the protective hood back to expose her clit.

“What I crave is the bitterness of terror and regret.

Right now, your fear for what I might do to your pretty cunt is pouring out of every orifice in your body…

and most especially from that trembling hole between your legs.

“Females give so much more than males, because right here…” He squeezed his fingers together, trapping her clit and making her hiss with the pain of it.

“Right here is where the richest source of human energy lies. No matter how we take it, no matter that we could choose to extract your life force in so many creative ways, this is what we want: your helpless little cunt. Lewin delights in sucking moon blood straight from the source, incubi feast on the pleasure they extract, others need torment and torture… I take my nourishment from the horror my whores feel while they are forced to take demonic cock for the rest of their miserable existence. So no, my golden goose, I won’t rape you. I don’t need to.”

And with that, he pried open the clamp and brought it down on her bared clit, letting the metal squeeze tight before she’d fully processed his plan.

Pain exploded through her pelvis, bright and brutal.

Georgia screamed—screamed until her voice broke and bile filled her mouth and she gagged to keep from suffocating. Nothing had ever hurt like this, hurt so much she wanted to peel her own skin off to escape the torture of that wicked clamp biting down on her most sensitive bud.

But slowly, so, so slowly, the agony ebbed until it was a dull throb echoing through her body with the pulse drumming through her veins and she could finally breathe again.

“I know, it pinches a little.”

Jimmy’s voice, laced with false sympathy, made her force her eyes open.

Her vision was blurry with tears, but the sight of him still standing between her forcefully spread thighs made bile rise in her throat again.

The orange lightbulb illuminating the room cast his face in sinister shadows, emphasizing every demonic feature—and that cruel smirk.

“You’re a disgusting pig.” The words came unbidden, anger forced out from the agony of his torment, surpassing terror, if only for a moment.

His smirk thinned into a smile. Dark amusement sparked in his eyes.

“Such language. But, you’ll come around to thanking me.

Eventually.” He reached into the pocket of his pinstriped suit and pulled out a small circle of metal.

“If I am to ring you, your clitoris needs to be good and swollen. And trust me, you want me to ring you. Or you should. Once it’s fitted, one little-bitty twist and any reluctance you may or may not have about our gentlemen callers will just, poof, vanish.

You’ll even enjoy every last one of them. ”

Enjoy it? He thought there was any way a woman could enjoy being taken by a monster?

Her disbelief must have been written all over her face, because Jimmy chuckled and held up the ring, letting the low light gleam off it.

“Have you ever been so thirsty, you’d do anything to quell it?

So hungry, you’d eat dirt just to fill your belly?

That’s what this nifty little trinket will do for you.

And yes, sure, it might sound like less of a gift than it does a curse, but let’s just say there’s a reason my more experienced whores will do anything to earn one of these.

Everyone would like to enjoy their work, after all. ”

She didn’t respond. The picture he was painting was too gruesome, any fire brought on by the pain withered to horror-flecked numbness.

The demon smirked at her silence. “Ready to finish this?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. With a jerk of his hand, he yanked the clamp off her trapped flesh, not bothering to open it first.

If she’d thought the pain had been unbearable when he put it on her, it was nothing compared to the agony when her blood rushed back into her clit, forcing the sensitive pearl to swell.

She tried to scream, but all she could do was dry heave, her muscles locked too tight to thrash against the leather straps keeping her tied down for him. The dim room turned red at the corners, then fully black. And still, for an eternity, all that existed was the pain.

Mercifully, the come-down was faster. One second, her entire body was alight with agony—the next, waves of relief washed it away to a low throb of tender sensation.

Georgia sagged against the bench, breathing raggedly.

“No more. Please. No more,” she gasped between gulps of air.

Cold metal touched her engorged flesh was the only response she got.

She managed to open her eyes just in time to see Jimmy slip the ring on her clit and twist.

“No!”

This time, the pain was accompanied by a sick wave of arousal.

It rushed through her trapped center of nerves, deep into her pelvis, and forced her body to contort in a pleasureless climax so brutal, her vision faded to black.

The last thing she felt before her mind finally snuffed out was numb relief she wouldn’t be conscious for whatever torture still lay ahead.