Page 58 of Prince of Demons (Demon’s Mark #2)

Kesh

T he European king didn’t flinch.

He stood tall on the marble platform, one hand still loosely gripping the gold chain dangling from between Georgia’s legs. Kesh didn’t let his eyes follow to where it was tethered. Rage pounded in his temples and pressed at his skin, his bones, his teeth at the sight of her naked and trembling.

“What a dramatic entrance,” the King said, voice smooth as glass.

His eyes gleamed with nothing but dark amusement as he took in Kesh’s dust-covered figure, standing amidst pieces of the broken ceiling.

“But alas, need I remind you, you stand before me defeated, youngling? As you well know, the Breeder was surrendered in exchange for my mercy. Don’t come here now, cloaked in borrowed fury, and pretend that wasn’t the deal you struck. ”

Kesh narrowed his eyes at the lying king, so haughty on his platform, clearly entirely confident in his belief that Kesh posed no threat.

That he didn’t possess the strength to take back what had been stolen.

His guards and the lords in the room shifted, restless with the intrusion, but none of them moved.

None of them interrupted. They thought the king’s lack of concern signaled they were safe.

They were mistaken.

Kesh didn’t look at the king. He looked past him to the tiers of stone seating above. The demon lords who now sat silent, watching. Waiting. Weighing power.

His voice, when it came, was low. Steady. Sharp enough to cut flesh.

“He’s lying.”

A murmur rippled through the chamber.

“Those of you who’ve met us on the battlefield—those of you who’ve bled beneath our blades—you know the truth. We are not losing.” His gaze swept the crowd. “We are winning.”

He took a step forward, smoke curling off his shoulders.

“I would never surrender my female. This Breeder is mine. Aragalan stole her from my court, just as his brother tried to steal the last Pure. This—” He motioned toward the platform, toward the chain, the shackles, Georgia’s trembling frame.

“This is not a show of strength. It’s a farce. ”

Silence.

“You think he intended to let any of you win her? That this auction is anything beyond theater?” He scanned the rows of watching lords. “Stay out of my way, and you will keep your territory. Your title. Your bloodline.”

His magic pulsed, slow and dark.

“Stand against me—and you’ll die with the false king and his spawn.”

Kesh turned back to the platform, his eyes flicking to Georgia before he could stop himself.

Naked. Shackled. Collar gleaming at her throat. Ankles spread just so. And between her legs, the gold chain—still held in the King’s lazy grip—running taut to the ring that encircled her clit.

Everything inside him locked. Every instinct, every tether, every inch of restraint.

Her eyes found his. Blue, wide, wet with tears she hadn’t let fall.

Her lips moved, and though no sound passed them, her words still reached him.

You came.

The disbelief in her wet eyes sank deeper than his own fury. The fragile hope. The grief. She didn’t think he could win. Not against all of them.

She didn’t believe he would survive this. That he could save her.

His gaze shifted—to the male still holding her leash.

The king looked smug, prepared to speak again, to gloat again.

Kesh didn’t let him.

“You’re out of time.”

The magic erupted from him like a detonation—black and vicious and absolute—with no warning and no chance for the King to react.

One moment the ancient ruler stood haughty and sovereign, hand still wrapped around Georgia’s leash. And the next?—

A blast of shadow slammed into him, ripping through flesh, through bone, through centuries of entitlement and rot.

Blood and ash sprayed the platform, coating Georgia’s bare skin, her shackles, the marble beneath her feet. A hunk of something—part of a rib, maybe—hit the golden railing and skidded away.

There was a sound, wet and final.

The king was gone.

The leash clattered to the ground, chain swinging limp, one of the king’s fingers still attached by scorched flesh welded to the metal.

For one breathless second, there was only silence—the kind that follows a cataclysm. Thick. Stunned. Disbelieving.

Then chaos cracked the stillness open.

A roar split the air, and Prince Aragalan launched from the stands with a burst of power, his black magic already coiling in thick, oily ropes around his arms.

He struck hard and fast, driven by fury and panic, the certainty of bloodline collapse driving him forward.

Kesh met him head-on.

A second impact lit the arena, shadow clashing against shadow, sparks and smoke and the stink of raw magic flooding the space.

Guards surged from the outer ring, blades drawn. Some of the gathered lords rose too—most to fight, some to flee—but not all chose sides. Not yet.

Those who did hurled themselves from the stands like animals.

The arena descended into slaughter.

Kesh moved like fury made flesh, power pouring from him in waves that cracked marble and split stone. Every blow he landed left ruin behind—demons thrown, guards crushed, the scent of seared flesh thick in the air.

He tore through them.

Aragalan came at him again and again, relentless, and Kesh met him each time with the deep-seated knowledge that if he lost, Georgia would face eternity as this monster’s breeding slave. He could not fail her.

Not again.

He propelled his body forward and finally managed to catch Aragalan by the throat. Before the European prince could get free, Kesh slammed him into the ground hard enough to crater the arena floor. Blood trailed from his temple.

But there were too many.

Before Kesh could finish the job, magic exploded against his side. A sword found his ribs. Another slammed into his back. He staggered but didn’t fall.

Until he did.

A blast hit him square in the chest, ripping through shadow and armor and skin. He crumpled to one knee, blood slicking the ground beneath him.

Another strike. Then another.

The last burst of magic threw him backward, slamming his body into the shattered remains of the central platform. Columns collapsed. The ceiling cracked.

Stone rained from above as the palace began to break apart.

Dust settled around him. The stone beneath his back burned hot with dark magic, and his every breath was a blade in his chest.

Kesh pushed up on shaking arms. He had to move. Had to stand. He couldn’t fail her, he couldn’t?—

Before he could lift more than his shoulders, a black whip of magic slammed into his spine, forcing him flat. He snarled and tried again, but another lash struck, then another. Power lashed from every direction, from the surviving lords who’d chosen the Europeans’ side.

Aragalan limped into view, blood streaking his face, one arm held stiff, but his eyes burned with fury. Behind him, two more lords, hands raised, magic coiled and ready, closed in. Together, they bound Kesh down. Power wrapped around his limbs, his chest, pressing harder the more he fought it.

He snarled and strained against it until his muscles screamed and his veins burned. The marble cracked beneath his body with the rumble of his magic, fighting to break free, but the binds held. There were too many.

He’d lost.

Through the haze of blood and dust, his gaze found Georgia again. His heart ached more than his body ever could at her wide, sorrowful eyes, fixed on his. She hadn’t looked away during the entirety of the battle. Nor his defeat.

In her blue gaze, he saw everything he’d lost when he let fear and weakness reject the woman who’d shown him what it was to know love. If he’d claimed her, like every instinct in him had screamed to do, like even she’d known he was meant to do, none of this would have happened.

Instead, he would now die with the knowledge that his failure to protect the one who should have been his mate meant an eternity of debasement for her.

The magic pinning him tightened. A crack in his ribcage sent blinding pain through his bones, but it was nothing —nothing— in comparison to the rending of his heart as the final vestiges of strength bled from his broken body.

In the end, he didn’t get to tell her how bitterly he regretted his cowardice.

His vision blurred, and as she faded into the darkness, all he managed was to mouth the last, inadequate words that mattered.

I’m sorry.

The magic constricted. Kesh’s spine arched with the force of it, nerves blazing in white-hot agony. He heard Aragalan’s snarl—something guttural and victorious—and then the pressure grew sharp, focused. The unmistakable crack of vertebrae beginning to split.

This was it.

His body failed, muscles twitching against the stone, breath a thin whistle in his throat.

Somewhere beyond the noise in his skull, he heard it. Her voice. Desperate. Shattered.

“No!”

And then came the light.

Blinding, pure. It exploded through the darkness behind his lids like a sun bursting open, searing into what little consciousness he had left.

And then…

Nothing.