Claimed by a Demon King (7 page)

“You will change,” he commanded with a wave of his hand down her body. “I will give you a dress and you will wear it.”

The way her eyes narrowed and her lips compressed into a mulish line warned that he had made a terrible mistake and was about to pay for it.

“No, I damn well will not. I like this dress… it was
given
to me, not forced upon me. I’m not one of your court whores who will do as you please without question and service your desires.” She looked him over, huffed and shoved past him, heading back towards his room.

Not his room, he realised as he looked beyond her to entrance arch of the stairs up to the first floor.

“Where do you go now?” He turned on his heel to follow her.

“Home,” she spat that word with such force and determination that it hit him like a punch in the gut, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending his head and heart reeling. “I’m going home. Screw your war. Screw you!”

Thorne snarled. There was no way in the seven realms he was going to let her slip out of his grasp again. He couldn’t. He needed her here with him. He stomped towards her with long-legged strides, easily catching her before she could reach the stairs. He grabbed her, twisted her in his arms, ducking his head to one side to avoid the punch she aimed at him, and tossed her over his shoulder.

Sable flailed, kicking and punching, landing hard blows. “Put me down. Where are you taking me?”

The fear in her heartbeat and the tremor in her voice warned that she believed he was about to take her to his room, most likely to ravage her. Foolish female.

“Stop struggling.” He grappled with her, trying to keep hold of her, determined not to let her go. “You will fall and hurt yourself. I do not mean you harm.”

He turned with her, heading back along the corridor towards the great hall. She settled at last.

“Where are you taking me?” she whispered and pressed her hands against his lower back, pushing herself up. He trembled under the heat of her touch and struggled to keep his focus.

“To the feast.”

He sensed the relief that flowed through her and he muttered an apology in the demon tongue. He hadn’t meant to frighten her, but she had threatened to leave and he had reacted on instinct, driven to stop her.

“Please put me down… because you are hurting me.” She sounded strained, hoarse. The metalwork of the corset pressed into his shoulder and no doubt bit into her supple flesh.

He cursed the elven dress and the bastard who had no doubt given it to her, carefully set her on her feet and went down on one knee before her. She remained still as he checked her over, needing to see she was unharmed to calm his turbulent emotions and keep control over his darker instincts.

Thorne stopped with his hands on her waist and looked up into her eyes.

His female was beautiful with her black hair tumbling around her shoulders but there were tears on her lashes. From the pain of the corset or fear of him?

He curled his fingers into tight fists. He wasn’t sure what to do to make things better.

As an heir to a realm and later as a king, he had been trained to take action and command those below him to obey without question, demanding their fealty and expecting no argument from them.

But she was not below him.

Even a king had those above him, those he should seek to please, not command to obey his will.

The words rose up from his heart and slipped freely from his tongue this time. “I am sorry for frightening you. Would you stay… please?”

She blinked and didn’t draw away as he lifted his hand to her cheek. She allowed him to brush the backs of his claws across her silky skin and it humbled him.

Sable stood silent and still for long minutes. He found it hard to wait, to remain patient and not press her for an answer. He wasn’t used to being kept waiting for anything. She raised her hand, as if to touch his where it lingered against her cheek, and then lowered it to her side.

“Apology accepted. I’ll stay.”

Thorne released the breath he hadn’t realised he held.

His female was kind too.

He smiled and rose to his feet, and paused to watch her walking ahead of him, back towards the banquet.

His queen.

He would do everything in his power to win her.

She would be his forever.

CHAPTER 4

S
able kept her head down as she entered the great hall but it didn’t stop her from feeling everyone turning to stare at her.

Olivia lifted the skirt of her long dark purple dress and hurried to her. “What on Earth… why did you go dashing off after Thorne?”

She wasn’t in the mood for her friend’s teasing right now, but then, Olivia sounded shocked and concerned. She lifted her gaze to meet Olivia’s rich brown eyes and saw the worry she had caused in them. Olivia had feared Thorne would hurt her. Sable had known better. She had known in her heart that he wouldn’t hurt her, even in the deepest of his rages.

Bleu’s gaze bore into her and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. He had tried to stop her when she had gone after Thorne and had looked mortified when she had told him to leave her alone and that she had to go. She hadn’t meant to upset him, but it seemed she had done just that.

And she had upset Thorne too.

“I needed to apologise for whatever it was that had upset him… I thought I had done something wrong and was going to get us all kicked out.” It sounded stupid when she said it aloud, but at the time, she had felt compelled to go to him and calm him, and make everything all right again.

Loren stepped forwards, a black scowl knitting his eyebrows and turning his purple eyes dark. His fangs flashed between his lips as he spoke. “It was not you who caused the king to rage.”

He slid a pointed look at Bleu and she finally glanced at him. Bleu was still staring at her, barely leashed desire in his eyes.

How had she failed to notice it before?

She recalled what Thorne had said to her. Bleu had attempted to claim what was rightfully his.

Thorne believed she was his fated one.

Sable ran a hand down her face and remembered how startled he had seemed when his eyes had first fallen on her the day they had met at the Archangel facility, and how she had shivered under the scorching intensity of his gaze. Her body had come alive, as if recognising him as her counterpart, her other half.

Holy hell in a hand-basket.

Olivia and Loren were right. She had a demon king for a mate and the way he had kissed her, had looked at her with fire burning in his eyes, warned that he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than eternity with her.

The familiar burn went through her and the room hushed. Sable swung to face the doors in time to see Thorne enter.

He clapped his hands, the sound sharp and startling in the silence. “To the tables.”

The room erupted in murmured conversations and she couldn’t help but wonder how many of them were about her and Thorne. She caught the gazes of several of her hunters as they walked to the long bench tables set out near the door to the sleeping quarters and had no doubt that they would be talking about her behaviour over dinner too.

Olivia took her arm and squeezed it, offering a consolatory smile.

“You were meant to stop me from making another idiot of myself,” Sable muttered as they slowly approached the huge rectangular table on the semi-circular platform, following Loren and Bleu. Dread knotted her stomach and she glanced at the men settling themselves on the left side of it. Vampires and werewolves. At least she would be seated away from them, at the opposite end of the table.

“I didn’t really get a chance. Besides, you didn’t exactly make a fool of yourself… or did you? What happened between you and Thorne?”

Sable wasn’t ready to admit that anything had happened so she kept her head down. She was going to keep it down until the feast was over and she was back in her room. That way, she couldn’t possibly make a tit of herself and she definitely wouldn’t upset Thorne or Bleu, or any other male who decided that she was a prize catch he just had to have.

Loren took Olivia from her, led her to the table and drew her seat out for her. He took the seat next to her at the end of the table. It all seemed rather civilised again until Sable went to sit between her friend and Bleu. Thorne loomed behind her and pulled her chair out, and she thought he meant to help her sit, but then he grabbed her arm in a bruising grip. He marched her along the length of the table, past all of his commanders, who stared in amazement together with the rest of the room.

Thorne growled at the male seated next to his kingly throne and the demon obediently moved along one place, forcing everyone else to do the same and making Bleu have to move next to Olivia. Thorne hauled the chair out and she half-expected him to shove her onto it.

He didn’t. He towered over her, waiting.

Sable looked to Olivia, Loren and Bleu, lovingly eyeing the spot he now occupied. Her spot. A safe spot, away from the madness, where she could just keep her head down and count the minutes until she could return to her room and reflect on how insane her life had just become.

She sighed and sat on the chair. Thorne grunted something in the demon tongue and carefully eased her up to the table.

She kept very still as he took his seat beside her.

The doors burst open and servants poured in, carrying huge silver trays crammed with what she presumed was food.

Sable took a chance and leaned forwards, peering down the length of the table to Olivia, throwing her a silent plea for help.

Olivia shrugged. Loren didn’t look as if he could help her either. Bleu just looked as if he wanted to kill something as he stared directly ahead, the muscle in his jaw working overtime and his ears more pointed than she had ever seen them.

The noise level in the room rose as people began helping themselves to the food as the servants set the trays down on the tables. The conversation around her was certainly flowing smoothly, which would have been a wonderful distraction from her thoughts, except they were all speaking in the demon tongue.

She didn’t think Thorne or his commanders would appreciate her insulting them so she kept quiet and occupied herself by looking at the trays, finally able to assuage her curiosity about what demons served at a feast.

The servants were kind enough to fill the plates of those seated at her table.

Although, when she looked at the dark metal plate before her, she changed her mind and decided they weren’t kind after all. She peered at the questionable things on her plate. Brown things. Grey things. Lumps of something charred. There was a bone or two sticking out of some of them. None of them looked appetizing and one of them definitely resembled a hoof.

Sable swallowed the bile rising into her mouth and curled her lip in disgust, despair swiftly following that emotion.

Thorne’s deep rumbling voice disappeared from the conversation around her and she felt the heat of his gaze on her.

“You are not eating?” He sank his teeth into a limb of some sort and tore the dark pink flesh from it.

Sable covered her mouth, stifling her need to retch, and mumbled into her palm, “I’m not hungry.”

His smile faded into a heavy scowl, his dark crimson eyes darting between her and the plate before her as she pushed it away. He pushed it back. She pushed it away. Back. Away. Back.

“You need to eat. It is good.” He lifted one of the charred lumps towards her.

Sable shook her head and flicked a look of despair at Olivia, who was prodding a similar plate of meat.

Loren deftly plucked items resembling vegetables from the platters around them and offered them to Olivia. No one would do that for Sable. Perhaps Bleu would have but she really didn’t want him fussing over her, and not only because it would probably send Thorne into another rage. Could she do that herself?

Thorne shoved the plate towards again.

“No, thank you.” She pushed it away and risked a glance at him.

He was still scowling. He turned his frown on the servers. Was he going to blame them because she wasn’t eating? He looked close to growling again and his horns were curling. He radiated anger and it was all her fault, again.
Suck it up.
She swallowed to settle her stomach and then picked at the meat with her fork, hoping to calm him and spare his servants.

Thorne snatched the plate from her, scraped everything off onto his one, and set it back down in front of her. She stared at the empty plate. Oh. She guessed she didn’t get to eat after all. A low snarl escaped him and she almost smiled when she saw the frustration tightening his rough features as his crimson eyes darted around. He looked over her head towards the elves, paused and then set his jaw. Determined? To do what?

He grimaced as he skewered some things that were possibly vegetable in nature on his claws, very carefully plated them and gently nudged the plate towards her. He gave her a toothy smile when she looked up into his eyes and she had an absurd urge to pet him because he looked as if he was waiting to hear he had done good.

It was strange having a male see to her needs, let alone a king who was clearly used to not having to care for anyone in this way and was very new to it.

Sable smiled and his features softened with relief. She picked at the strange roots and greens, feeling his gaze following her every move, sensing his anxiety and anticipation. She blew out her breath and dared to nibble a grey root that could have passed for a sickly carrot.

It was surprisingly good. Definitely edible. Her smile grew.

Thorne’s did too and there was a spark in his eyes that set her blood aflame. He was satisfied and she knew it was because he had pleased her. Would he look that way if she confessed that his kiss had been just as delicious?

The thought of this man looking at her with heavy-lidded eyes overflowing with satisfaction after pleasuring her made her toes curl and she had to fight to push that image away before she gave him the wrong impression. His body was magnificent though, and his kiss had been electric, and the feel of his hands on her butt when he had hauled her over his shoulder…