Page 20 of Demon's Bride

“Okay,” she says, breathless and still trying to calm herself down. “Okay. What happens now?”

My lips curl up in a cruel, hungry smile. “Now, little witch, you run.”

Chapter 9

Allie

Eren disappears between one heartbeat and the next, shooting skyward in a graceful ascent. Banking sharply, he disappears over the treetops.

I’m all alone.

Even while some small sliver of my rational mind can understand what’s happening, the largest part of it is simply blank. No thoughts, only pulsing need and the faintest edge of hysterical disbelief.

Is any of this real?

This morning I woke up in my efficiency apartment and drove my beat-up Subaru to work. I ate a turkey sandwich for lunch. I had plans to binge-watch the new season of Love is Blind tonight.

Now, I’m alone in the demon realm, about to be hunted and claimed and fucked by a male with glowing red eyes, horns, and wings. And a knot, apparently.

And if all that weren’t impossible enough?

There’s just the small, inconsequential fact that I’m so, so into it.

Absently, I consider the possibility I’ve had a full break from reality.

An owl hoots in the distance—or, at least, what I assume is an owl, a demon owl?—whatever it is, it startles me back to the present. Somewhere out there, my demon is waiting. I hear nothing, can barely see through the shadowed underbrush, but I know he’s there.

I take off through the trees, careening blindly into the thick forest. Beneath the cover of the pines, the ground is relatively flat and open, but there’s no true path. No, there’s nothing around me but an endless dark forest. I know I should be more horrified by the situation, but with each passing moment all I feel is a growing sense of electric anticipation.

What will it be like when he takes me? How will he catch me?

Fear and lust spike painfully in my veins, a potent combination that feels somehow completely foreign and yet… natural. Like some dark, primal part of me knows I’m meant to be Eren’s prey.

Pine boughs snap at my arms as I run, trying to pull me into their darkness. Shafts of silver moonlight from the realm’s two strange moons cut through from above, but the rest of the world is shifting shadows and danger. Any number of demon creatures could wander these woods, laying in wait for their dinner.

And the most dangerous one of all is after me.

I run without thinking, without pausing to try to figure out where I am, where I should go next. It’s only when the trees break around me and I come to a skidding stop at the edge of a high cliff with my heart thundering in my ears that I take a moment to look around.

The demon realm is beautiful.

Washed in moonlight, the valley below the mountain is a sea of dark pines framed by more high, distant peaks. In the silver glow, I can see the snow dusting the mountains where they jut up into a soft bank of wispy clouds. The sky above is a wonder, scattered with a million burning stars. Even in the most remote places I visited back in the human realm, I’ve never seen stars shine so brightly.

I’m so caught up by it that for just a moment I forget I’m being hunted.

My mistake.

I get no warning before I’m pulled skyward.

Plucked off the cliff like I’m no more than a field mouse picked off by a hawk, Eren’s arms wrap around me in an iron grip. A mighty flap of his wings and we’re airborne, soaring out over the valley below.

I scream in surprise and fear, and Eren just chuckles.

“You left the cover of the forest, little witch,” he says with a cruel edge in his voice. “It’s like you wanted to be caught.”

My hands scramble over his arms, desperately clinging to him. I try not to look down. I’ve never been particularly afraid of heights, but there’s sure as hell a difference between sitting safely on an airplane and dangling over a thousand-foot drop with nothing more than a demon’s arms to keep me from falling to my death.

“You won’t fall, Allie,” Eren murmurs, voice incongruously gentle given the circumstances.

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