Page 21 of The Demon’s Collar (The Bard’s Demon #1)

B?k: A Simple Challenge

I hadn’t exactly expected the whipping to be a grand time—but I underestimated Colonel Astrada’s ire.

As I approached, a young officer stopped my progress toward the sight of the spectacle-to-be and guided me into a tent at the edge of the field.

Although the young man’s face was carefully expressionless, his fingers trembled on my arm—and his desire to let go and run was palpable. I offered him no reassurance.

Colonel Astrada waited inside. I stepped in and noted the immediate silence. A sound barrier.

“Explain,” she ordered, dropping the careful stoicism she’d held at the fire. “Now.”

I met the colonel’s eyes, appreciating once again the tight spot she was in. To lead a company of individuals with varying strengths and abilities—many that physically far outstripped her own—knowing that one of them could turn on her at any time. I, chief among them.

“She’s from Finchton,” I said. “Lord Austvix is no closer to?—”

“Explain the collar, B?k.”

I assessed her. I hadn’t exactly hidden the artifact, but neither had I advertised it before tonight.

In truth, I hadn’t thought much about what anyone else would have to say about it.

I shrugged. “The bard was with the Huntress party. We need information that she can’t be trusted to provide without?—”

“That’s a thin excuse,” Colonel Astrada interrupted impatiently. “A truth serum would achieve the same results. As it stands, the bard is a weapon you can point at whomever you like without facing contractual consequences. She’s a loophole.”

I scratched the back of my neck. I could have explained that I hadn’t actually known my kitten was capable of much harm until I’d witnessed the scene tonight.

I could have denied the desire to find a loophole in the first place and reiterated my dedication to the Fated.

Instead, I shrugged again. “Wendlin was owed a trial, but he deserved what he got. I’m sure Ero wasn’t the first initiate he attempted to take advantage of.

” I arched my eyebrow. “I didn’t know him from Haz before tonight.

I have no intention of using the bard to cause problems.”

“But you could,” Colonel Astrada said. “And Lord Austvix will be warned. I only wanted to communicate as much to you. You may go.”

The stiff nod toward the tent flap, the hard eyes, the tight jaw—none of it could mask the primal fear that hid just beneath the surface of her words.

If I decided to push limits, I could destroy her.

Sure, I would face consequences. But that wouldn’t help her.

She knew it. I knew it. What she didn’t know, and I did, was that I had no desire to harm her.

A good leader with a level head was difficult to find.

And as far as leaders went, I found her among the most tolerable of them.

I left the tent without another word.

Only to find Aelith standing next to the hooded man who awaited me by the whipping post…coating his cane in holy water.

Fuck.

Colonel Astrada wasn’t that scared after all. This was a choice. I begrudgingly toasted her in my mind. Scared perhaps—but brave.

I donned my dampeners and let them get on with it.

I woke before dawn with my face in the mud and a soft melody scratching at my psyche like nails on slate. I groped blearily for the source of the music, but even that slight motion lit my shredded back on fire. I groaned into the mud.

“It’s working,” my kitten said quietly. “Just a little longer.”

I gritted my teeth. The music was marginally less awful than the boiling wounds—which wasn’t saying much. I closed my eyes. The dampeners were still on. My shadows pooled angrily beneath my skin. The post and the crowd were gone. They’d gotten their show.

Ero’s song was the only sound in the dark.

I tried unsuccessfully not to slide back to Hell, tormented by my own foolishness.

For minutes or hours—I couldn’t begin to guess—flashes of that fateful chase riddled my jittery mind.

The hollowness after. Being destroyed by ill-timed empathy. By a bard. By?—

“I’m going to take them off,” Ero said.

I reached to stop her—knowing that I wasn’t ready.

But no screaming pain answered the motion.

I twisted at the waist, testing the raw skin.

It didn’t feel good, but the wounds were no longer bleeding or burning.

I stilled, and she retrieved the key from my neck and unlocked the manacles one at a time.

My connection to my higher senses surged back to life. The skin on my back—aside from the parts where remnants of holy water still lingered—began to knit together and smooth over.

When my body settled, I sat up.

Ero watched me, something unreadable in her expression. Her green eyes pulsed with unmanageable thoughts. Even her desires were a tangled mess I couldn’t discern.

“Why are you here, kitten?”

Her nerves flared to life when I held her gaze.

Despite her colorful cloak and the way she effortlessly commanded a crowd with her songs, it struck me that a bare moment of focused attention was enough to undo her.

Did no one ever look this closely? As if to prove my observation true, she slid her lute onto her back and looked down, ostensibly to adjust the strap.

But when her eyes darted up again—a quick check—I was still watching and waiting. She swallowed.

“It was supposed to be me,” she said, looking away again, unable to meet my eyes. “I just…”

I waited, but she didn’t finish. She felt guilty. The irony of that considering what I’d done to her—and still planned to do—was delicious.

“Look at me, kitten.”

Her struggle fascinated me. I could have said it again—ordered it—but watching her warring emotions play out was so much sweeter. Finally, she looked. I caught her chin before she could drop it again .

“Wendlin deserved what he got,” I said slowly so each word could sink in. “And you were magnificent.”

The flare of alarm in her eyes told me her turmoil wasn’t just about me. She’d seen a side of herself tonight that she wasn’t sure she liked. Pleasure seeped into me like a tide drawn by her existential strife. When she bit her lip, uncertainty etched in every detail of her expression—I pushed.

I leaned forward, pressing my lips to hers.

Her desire rolled in like a spring storm—sudden and fierce. I chuckled against her lips. She was so eager, so nervous. I sucked her bottom lip into my mouth and bit down until her alarm added to the sweet melody. I didn’t draw blood, but I let her wonder if I would.

My body ached for a release. The night had gone sideways, sure, but she was right here, begging for it—and I wasn’t going to deny myself now.

I pushed her back on the ground, drinking in her wide eyes and the protest she almost but didn’t quite utter.

She didn’t want to deny herself either. She just thought she should.

And she was probably right…but I took away the temptation with another kiss.

Her lips parted eagerly, granting my tongue entry.

I pushed my hand down her pants, swallowing her gasp when my fingers slid through her arousal. Then I pulled them out, wrenching my mouth from hers and holding the glistening fingers between us. “Is this for me, kitten?”

She whimpered, looking away. Her lips parted, drawing in a breath.

She wanted to run. Shame and embarrassment clawed at her, pulling her desires in several directions.

I smiled, trailing the fingers around her kiss-swollen lips so she could taste herself, then wrenched her chin toward me and forced her to look me in the eye.

“Open your mouth,” I said, low and guttural .

To my surprise, she obeyed. I pushed the two fingers inside, pressing them to her tongue. Her lips closed. She sucked them clean without having to be told.

But she also closed her eyes.

My dark chuckle was her only warning. I pulled my fingers out of her mouth, lifted my weight off her, and flipped her over in one quick motion. She tried to move, but I held her face to the ground.

“No, no, you don’t want to look at me,” I taunted.

Her alarm spiked. Her desire did too. Like twins, riding the hills together.

I yanked her pants down and freed my cock, sliding into her before she could catch up.

She cried out. She also sank back into me, forcing me deeper.

I groaned. This would not be the drawn-out ordeal my cock craved.

There would be time for that later. It was nearly dawn, and we were out in the open in the middle of camp, and for once, our desires were aligned. I would take it while I had it.

I slammed into her, once, twice, fine-tuning with each thrust to answer her wordless desires until I found the spot that reduced her to a whimpering mess and hit it mercilessly.

She came apart, pulsing around my cock. It was enough to push me over the edge.

I didn’t bother to withdraw, filling what I’d claimed.

She deflated beneath me, sinking into the soft ground.

I could taste her languid assumption—but I wasn’t finished.

I pulled out, pressing my cock to her thigh, and trailed my finger through the mess we’d made.

I kept going, sliding back until I reached her ass.

I traced the tight ring and smiled when her whole body stiffened.

Then, I shoved one finger in up to the knuckle.

“B?k!” she cried.

The protest tugged a smile out of me—because the aromatic hints of lemon and clove exposed her. As always. Her desire, now underscored with a heady new undertone of forbidden want.

“Are you ready to talk about the holy water now?” I whispered against her ear.

The spike of her panic soothed the last of the night’s frustration away. Pleasure burned low in my gut. I pressed in just a little farther, teasing her fear to a fever pitch.

“B?k! Please!”

I trailed kisses from her ear to her jaw and back, biting down on her earlobe before I spoke again. “Who do you belong to?”

“You!” she cried—too quickly, too easily.

“I don’t think you believe that yet.”

I teased a second finger through the mess dripping out of her, and she tried to twist under me. I held her still.

“Please,” she whispered.

I don’t think even she knew what she was begging for.

I let the moment linger. Let her feel every second—her fear, her longing, her fullness. Then I withdrew the sunken finger and let both rest on her ass in warning.

“Tell you what, kitten. You did so well tonight, I’ll give you a chance.”

Her frantic breaths—her spark of hope—made me smile against her hair. She was so na?ve.

“Obey without questioning me for one day, and I won’t punish you for conspiring with Aelith. How does that sound?”

She nodded, accepting the terms without thought. A trait I quite liked, actually.

“Use your words, kitten.”

“Yes,” she mumbled. “Yes, please. ”

I flattened my hand on her ass, removing the immediate threat of invasion, and traced gentle circles on her soft skin. She relaxed again—right before I lifted my hand and delivered a vicious smack.

“Clean up and come to bed,” I told her. “We’re still in the lead tomorrow.”

With that, I stood and put myself together, leaving the bard panting in the clearing, confident knowing that she would learn—sooner rather than later—what it really meant to be mine.