Page 43 of Vengeance and Vipers

The laugh.

It’s just like Dante’s in all of my nightmares.

I freeze, transported by the sound into Dante’s throne room to his stage at the moment he let the two supes rip off my clothes for the amusement of the others. He laughs darkly behind me while I struggle in their grasps …

I’m turned and held with my back against the cavern wall. I look up, lip quivering, breathing hard through my nose, but the demon holding me isn’t Dante. It’s Daemon.

My eyes are swimming, and my mouth opens. I’m trying to catch my breath, but I can’t. The hands that are gripping my upper arms tightly gentle a fraction.

‘Jules? Hey, it’s okay.’

I shake my head. It’s not okay. Nothing’s okay.

But in the next second, his concern turns to anger.

‘I can’t believe I almost fell for that,’ he growls. ‘Stop fucking with me. Stop playing the fucking damsel in distress. It might work with Jayce and Axel, shit even Krase, but it sure as hell isn’t going to work on me!’

He gives me a shake, which I know is meant to scare me but actually snaps me out of the nasty memory. I’m not in the Mountain. Dante can’t hurt me.

‘I don’t care if Krase is alive,’ Daemon continues. ‘The rest of them might forgive and forget, but I lost my clan for two years because of you. They were still sitting pretty after you fucked us and left while I was out on my ass and barely surviving! You don’t know what it was like, the things I had to …’

He breaks off and levels me with a venomous look.

‘We aren’t square, baby,’ he says quietly, gipping me hard again. ‘Not even close.’

He pushes me in front of him, but when I stumble, he doesn’t let me fall. He catches me, rights me, and makes me walk before him into another tunnel across the cavern that I couldn’t see from where we were.

He doesn’t say anything more as he marches me to wherever he’s bringing me, to the others, I assume … unless he’s planning to start making us ‘square’ now.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask as I wonder what his personal revenge is going to entail.

‘Back to the house,’ he grunts.

We reach some stairs, and I trip on the hem of the dress I’m wearing as I climb.

Daemon curses, stopping me from hitting the ground again.

‘Thanks,’ I mutter.

‘Pick up your fucking feet,’ he growls. ‘Where the hell did you get this thing, anyway?’

He plucks at the thin strap, and I feel his warm fingers brush against my shoulder blade. My skin wakens under his touch, making me shiver and my core pulse.

What is wrong with me?

‘Krase,’ I say breathlessly, and I hope he thinks it’s because of the exertion.

‘Krase justhad this dresslying around?’ he sneers.

He doesn’t touch me again, and I’m glad. I shrug, knowing he can probably see me with his demon eyes. ‘I guess.’

His chuckle has me turning on him with a scowl. ‘What?’

But he doesn’t say anything, just spins me back around and, putting a hot hand on my shoulder that feels like a brand, half-pushes me up the steps. Heat pulses through me like a battering ram, and I resist the insane urge I have to turn and kiss him, not understanding why I’m feeling this way and definitely not liking it.

I can just imagine his humiliating reaction if I did, his condescending sneer, the spiteful words he’d say to make sure I knew I wasn’t worth anything to him … tothem.

Those thoughts combat my unwelcome sexual thoughts like a mental bucket of ice water, and my body cools.