Page 7 of Prince of Demons (Demon’s Mark #2)

Kesh

“ T here’s a demon at the gates who insists on seeing you. Says it’s urgent.”

Kesh sighed deeply, pulling his attention from the war map he’d been trying to update with the latest news of their enemies’ movements.

“More urgent than stopping the Europeans from taking Maine?” Kesh asked, his voice deceptively gentle.

Mallorn, accustomed to his lord’s ways, took a slight step back, bringing him out of arm’s reach. “I said you were busy. I more than hinted at what happened to the last underling who claimed an emergency and found you disagreed. He still insists.”

Kesh growled, scrunching the map in his fist as irritation flared hotly. “Do these fools not realize the importance of what we’re doing? How fucking close we are to annihilation? Why must they pester me with their petty squabbles? Who do I have to disembowel to get some peace?”

“Weight of the crown, I’m afraid,” Mallon said, infuriatingly uncowed by his lord’s anger. “He’s waiting outside the throne room.”

Kesh shot him a glare and straightened up. “Fine. Take five troops to Maine. Tell our warriors I’m sorry I can’t help take down the invaders—I have a fucking contract dispute to settle, or whatever the hell it is this time.”

The throne room still looked like the casino it had been up until recently.

His men had done a decent job at taking out the gambling tables and slot machines, but the bar still remained along the eastern wall, and the stains of alcohol and stench of desperation weren’t coming out of the carpet no matter how many times Mallorn had had it dry cleaned.

Kesh strode to the throne—and imposing chair bolted to the hastily constructed dais—and slung himself down, propping a foot on one armrest as he drummed his irritation into the other.

This was the part of the job he hated the most. If he’d known how much time he’d have to spend playing referee for minor demons bitching about someone screwing them over in contract negotiations, or listen to some lord or another wax poetic about how he thought the Kingdom should be run—or, stars forbid, try to curry favor with the prince—there was no way Kesh would have helped his brother claim the Americas.

“Right. Send him in,” he growled, motioning for the man guarding the door to open it.

The guard obeyed, pulling the painted-over glass door open with more pomp and circumstance than the situation required. Kesh swallowed his annoyance—the guy was doing his job. Ceremony was part of the illusion needed to claim a kingdom.

The man who entered looked like your standard low demon, more muscle than true power. Not exactly known for their interest in contracts. And one hundred percent not capable of having the sort of problems that’d be worthy of Kesh’s attention.

“What do you want?” Kesh growled, staring holes through the demon’s skull as he imagined hanging him from the rafters by his tongue.

“I… I bring you a gift, your Highness.” The slight quake in his voice betrayed his unease at standing before the prince.

“A gift?” an outraged voice squawked. “What the hell do you mean, a gift?”

Kesh blinked, focusing on the human girl he’d barely noticed when the demon first entered. She was tall, for a human female, with unkempt dark hair, dark circles under her eyes and something between terror and fury plastered across her pale features.

“A gift?” he parroted, turning his attention back to the demon. “You demand an audience with the Prince of Demons to give me a human? Have you lost your mind?”

“She’s a Breeder, Highness,” the demon said. “I wouldn’t have disturbed you from your important work if she wasn’t in desperate need of your protection.”

Kesh blinked again, his gaze turning back to the female. “A Breeder?”

“Yes, my lord.” The demon pushed the girl forward, despite her obvious reluctance. “I… found her. She sees us for what we are.”

“And you didn’t keep her?” Kesh arched an eyebrow, but kept his gaze on the girl, who was staring back at him, chin thrust out in defiance despite her wide eyes betraying her terror.

“N-no, my lord. That would be treason. I would never?—”

Kesh silenced him with a raised hand. He knew the fucking laws—his brother had written them.

A Breeder.

He sent his Breeder sister-in-law a less than grateful thought. She might be the new queen, but she was also a gigantic pain in the ass. And the reason for the whole bloody war.

But of course, Selma was a Pure Breeder—the only human females capable of not only surviving sex with a demon lord, but also carrying his spawn. This sorry little thing might be exactly what he didn’t need to deal with right now, but at least she’d be out of his hands soon enough.

If she even was a Breeder.

“If you consider me worthy, Your Highness, I would be most grateful to be considered among her suitors,” the brawny demon said.

“I’m sure you would.” Kesh sighed deeply and scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing his idiot brother hadn’t rewritten the laws concerning Breeders, and motioned for her to step forward with a flick of two fingers. “Come on. Let’s have a look, then.”

The girl didn’t move—only kept her blue eyes locked on him, the stubborn set of her chin wobbling.

Kesh narrowed his eyes at her disobedience. He leaned forward on the throne and ground through gritted teeth, “Come. Here. Now.”

She stumbled a step forward, as if jerked along by a chain, and Kesh leaned back, his smoldering temper calming ever so slightly.

The girl paused for a second, but the command in his gaze made her continue forward and up the dais, one hesitant step at a time until she stood in front of him.

Her body shook ever so slightly as she stared at him, and her fear wafted against his nostrils, stirring a delicate sensation of unrest in his gut.

Ugh . Not a promising start.

Kesh pushed his foot off the armrest and reached for the girl. She might be taller than most human females, but she still only came to around eye-height with him when he was seated.

Her eyes went impossibly wider at the approach of his hand, and she tried to jerk away with a startled squeak, but she wasn’t nearly fast enough. Kesh wrapped his fingers around her throat and brought her closer, ignoring her clawing to get out of his grip.

He pushed his index finger up, forcing the girl’s head up and to the side, and buried his nose in her exposed neck.

Instantly, his senses were alight with a wash of scents, smells of other demons, hospitals. Human decay and chemicals clawed at his throat. But behind that…

Kesh closed his eyes and drew in another deep breath, his skin prickling with the sensation of her hair brushing against his face.

Her fear was the strongest of the scents that belonged to her and not other pollutants she’d come across.

It was thick and acrid and made him growl before he could stop himself.

She whimpered at the sound, and he huffed with irritation and breathed in again.

There was warmth underneath that fear. Something sultry and rich, tangled with something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Mindlessly, he sniffed her again, pulling her closer to his body to find the source of that enthralling scent.

She whimpered again and pushed against him, babbled some unimportant words of protest, and he smothered his annoyance at her resistance by wrapping her closer to his body, quelling her squirming with the strength of his arm around her back.

She was soft and warm against his chest, the press of her breasts and the small gasps of her breath sending fissures of excitement through his skin.

He breathed her in, taking in greedy gulps, wishing he could wash away her terror so its scent wouldn’t disrupt those beautiful notes underneath.

It was disturbing, her fear—making unease spread from his gut to his blood, until all he could comprehend was how he needed her to be content.

“You’re safe,” he rumbled, his lips brushing over her skin and raising goosebumps along the slender column in his grip. Mindlessly, he loosened his grip on her throat, brushing his hand along her back to calm her.

The girl spluttered, outrage tingeing the sounds—and then, without warning, sharp pain bloomed through his arm.

Kesh jerked back, more from surprise than anything else, and blinked down at the little creature in his grasp. Her blunt teeth were still firmly lodged in his forearm from where she’d bitten him.

What…?

It was only then he realized what he’d done. He stared down at the woman in his arms in horror, sick dread clenching in his gut. He’d wrapped himself around her body like a fucking meat shield, the urge to protect and soothe still thundering in his blood, making his temples throb and his cock ache.

“Shit,” he muttered, pushing her off his lap hard enough to make her stumble a few steps backward, nearly tripping down the two steps of the dais.

Yeah. She was a Breeder, alright. One of the few human women capable of bearing a demon’s offspring. And so fucking valuable, even the war would have to wait while he prepared her for a mate.

There’d been a time, before his brother took control of the Americas, when specialized Procurers would seek out and train these women, then auction them off to the highest bidder.

But since Kain had met Selma, that was no longer how things were, because stars forbid anything be simple.

His brother had literally gone to war with the previously reigning family to protect his mate—and by extension, the whole sub-race of sweet-scented little cunts she was part of.

These days, any potential Breeder was to be brought to the nearest lord, who would then be responsible for gentling the woman into her new life and finding a suitable mate for her.

And Prince or not—Kesh was the only lord within a fifty-mile radius.

He scrubbed his face with both hands, trying to steady himself from the onslaught of her scent as he gathered his thoughts.

He’d have to ring and mark her, find some unlucky sod who be more than willing to spend the rest of eternity getting mind-fucked by her pheromones, somehow persuade her to allow a mating, and at the same time, while he was preoccupied with playing matchmaker not lose the entire fucking eastern coast to the European king.

He should have left his brother to rot in the old queen’s prison.

Of course, then he’d have been responsible for Selma.

Kesh suppressed a shudder at the thought of claiming his brother’s mate as his own and refocused on the current clusterfuck at hand.

The girl was huddled at the edge of the dais, seemingly too scared of him to try to run away, yet clearly not in any hurry to get closer either, and when he tore his gaze from her to address the sorry demon who’d brought him this nightmare, he found the rest of the throne room empty, save the guard.

“Where the fuck did he go?” he snarled at his guard, getting to his feet to take up pursuit. The Breeder stumbled another step back at the sudden movement, lost her balance—and fell down with a hard thump.

Without thought, Kesh took the stairs in one leap, kneeling by her side to cradle her head in his hand as he ensured she wasn’t hurt.

“Don’t touch me!” she hissed, cringing away from him. She pushed herself along the rug, scrambling to put distance between them.

“He left, your Highness,” the guard said.

“I can fucking see that,” Kesh growled, irritation flaring in his veins, both at the renewed smell of the Breeder’s fear and his own inability to hunt down the demon who dropped her off. He had questions —but the girl was obviously not in a good state. And his first priority was to calm her down.

“Curse it all,” he muttered, finally straightening up and taking a couple of steps back, putting enough space between himself and the girl to hopefully calm her down.

If she was an unmarked Breeder, she’d be able to see his true form.

Even if she’d been among demons before—which her scent suggested—he knew he would be frightening, his features much less human than most lowly demons’.

“Is she truly a Breeder, my lord?” the guard asked, the note of longing in his voice unmistakable. Kesh rolled his eyes—at least it’d be easy enough to find a man willing to mate her.

“Yes,” he bit out. “And you will tell no one. Understand? We don’t need the entire territory to be distracted.”

“I would never,” the man said, sounding more than a little aghast at the suggestion he might betray his prince.

Kesh sighed, shooting him a glance over his shoulder. He’d hand-picked every single man in his service. He knew they would never betray their loyalty to him.

“My lord...” the guard began.

“Once she is settled, I will put you on the list of potential suitors, Sefron,” Kesh said, returning his focus to the girl still huddled on the floor.

“Now, go. Bring food to my private residence.” He wrinkled his nose as he looked the Breeder over, for the first time noticing how grimy she was. “And draw a bath, too.”

“At once, my lord.”

The sound of the doors closing behind Sefron echoed through the throne room, leaving Kesh alone with the Breeder.