Page 53 of Prince of Demons (Demon’s Mark #2)

Kesh

T he doors barely survived whens Kesh shoved them open. The corridor around him was empty save for the pounding echo of his footsteps. His magic clawed under his skin, demanding release, demanding blood—but he kept it leashed. Had to.

Until she was safe. Until she was back.

The two guards in the surveillance room jolted upright when he slammed inside, all heat and barely controlled rage.

“Footage. Storage corridor. Mallorn. Now.”

“Mallorn? Why?—?”

Kesh’s snarl cut off the demon unwise enough to question his instructions.

Fingers fumbled at keyboards. A monitor flickered. After a moment… there.

Mallorn, with her.

Something ached below his ribs, like a wound. He leaned forward on both hands and stared at the feed until they disappeared into an old office—one of the few rooms in the building with no camera.

On-screen, Mallorn stepped out again a few seconds later, alone. His face was blank. But not empty.

“Slow it down. Half-speed.”

The demon at the console slowed the feed. Kesh leaned closer. Mallorn’s mouth was flat, but there—left eye twitch. Eye ridge movement. Again.

Three glances.

To the side. As if checking something. Or someone.

And then?—

A brief moment with the guards at the exit. Mallorn approached without urgency. Said something too low for the cameras to catch. Tapped the clipboard Yerren held. Waited for a nod. Walked out.

He didn’t hurry.

Didn’t fidget.

Didn’t look back.

Kesh moved.

The hallway blurred past in peripheral streaks. The door to the old office cracked when he shoved it open.

Silence.

He stood on the threshold, breathing shallowly.

His power stirred, reaching without his command.

There was… something just beyond sensation. Like the edge of a dream. Like reaching in the dark for someone who had just left the bed.

Not scent. Not magic. Not memory.

Presence.

It wrapped around his ribs like the ghost of her body in his arms. She had been here.

He growled low, chest tight, then stormed out.

Outside, Yerren and the other guard jumped when Kesh approached.

“You let Mallorn pass. Despite my orders to let no one out,” Kesh barked. “Tell me why. Now.”

Both guards flinched at the barely controlled smolder of their prince’s volatile temper.

Yerren swallowed. “He claimed he had urgent business for Lord Kirigan. He said it had been cleared. W-was that not?—?”

Kesh didn’t let him finish. “Where did he go?”

“He walked straight out to the alley,” the second guard said quickly. “Got into his car. Headed east, toward the ninth turnoff.”

Kesh didn’t wait for further directions.

He reached the alley within seven seconds.

The air was thick with motor oil and old brick dust, but beneath it, beneath everything, was her. Twisted and fading, but real.

And Mallorn’s car had gone east.

Kesh’s breath stalled in his throat.

That route.

The route to Hell.

He took her back to the brothel.

Back to Jimmy.

Back to enslavement.

His Second. His most trusted.

The betrayal struck like a blade to the spine. Not just a theft. Not just treason.

He had delivered Georgia.

To that place.

To that fate.

The air around him crackled with his darkness.

Minutes that seemed like hours passed in blur that felt like drowning, then the doors to Hell were giving way beneath his hands, slamming open with a groan that echoed through the dark.

Kesh stepped into stillness.

No lights. No movement. No scent of blood or sex in the air. Just cold, abandoned silence.

But she had been here.

That tether deep inside him pulled taut. Not her scent. Not her magic. Something else. Like the memory of her fear stamped into the walls.

He forced down the rage clawing at his throat. If he let go now, if he gave in before he had her?—

She would be gone.

He moved deeper into the brothel, past empty booths and overturned beds. No bodies. No women. No demons.

Each step made it harder to breathe.

Then—

A sound.

Small. Muffled. From the back of the building. Jimmy’s office.

Kesh stilled.

Heat bloomed under his skin, quiet and lethal.

He turned toward the door. And walked in.

The office door, unlocked and undefended, creaked open under Kesh’s hand.

Inside, Jimmy stood with his back turned, crouched over his desk.

A large suitcase lay open on the floor, glittering with jewels, and gold, and something small and wrapped in velvet that glinted in his hand—an artifact, maybe. Irrelevant.

The demon froze when he heard the door. Turned.

“Your Highness,” Jimmy said, too quickly. “I didn’t expect?—”

Kesh’s hand closed around his throat before the last syllable hit the air.

The room lit up with magic, raw and scorching. Power curled through his fingers like black fire given shape.

“You get one chance,” Kesh said, voice low and lethal. “Where. Is. She?”

Jimmy’s eyes bulged as he clawed at Kesh’s wrist. “Wait—wait, please—just listen—” The velvet-wrapped artifact clattered to the floor as he thrashed. “I didn’t hurt her! I didn’t touch her—I swear on my blood?—”

Kesh said nothing. Just watched. His grip didn’t tighten, but the magic did. It seeped through Jimmy's skin like acid, slow and deliberate. The pimp gasped as steam curled off his neck. The skin around Kesh’s hand began to blister, then split. Muscle smoked.

The stench of charred flesh filled the room.

Jimmy screamed.

“I’ll talk—I’ll talk, please?—”

Kesh tilted his head, his fury held perfectly still in the iron grip of his hand around the slithery demon’s oozing neck.

“She’s gone,” Jimmy sobbed. “Europe. Prince Aragalan. He’s taken her back to put her up for auction for the lords who support the old royal bloodline?—”

More skin peeled away beneath Kesh’s palm. Jimmy shrieked.

“Please! It wasn’t my plan! It was Mallorn—Mallorn brought her to me. Said you were going to kill me for whoring her, kill him for challenging you. That this was our only way out?—”

Kesh’s magic surged, and Jimmy choked on his own scream.

“Where?”

“Rome! To the palace! She’ll be mated before nightfall tomorrow. Please, just—just let me?—”

The words dissolved into howling when the magic dug into his flesh, flared like a pulse.

Kesh’s breath stuttered in his throat.

Rome.

The palace.

Not just enemy territory. The poisoned, beating heart of the enemy that wanted him, his family destroyed.

Auctioned.

They wouldn’t delay; they would want her secured to one of their supporters as swiftly as possible. No time for strategy. No window for siege.

And if the auction began?—

He knew what they were like. The Europeans followed the old ways. A woman subjected to that would not come out the other side with the light in her eyes still intact.

Something broke inside him; dark and violent and powerful.

The ground shuddered beneath his feet, the floorboards splitting with a thunder crack. Jimmy’s scream cut off mid-breath as he disintegrated, body turned to dust in a flare of heat and raw energy.

Then the room exploded.

Not outward. Not upward.

Every atom of the building detonated in every direction at once.

The blast hit every surface; stone liquefied. Metal screamed. Fire rose in a column a quarter mile high.

Hell was gone.

All of it. Reduced to a crater still glowing at the edges, ash spiraling into the air like smoke off a funeral pyre.

At the center, Kesh stood alone.

Breathing.

Barely.

Eyes burning amber with only one thought left in his mind.

Save her.