Page 51 of Demon Queen
Was there any way to compel them to swear fealty to Dorian without biting them? I couldn’t intentionally put my mouth on one of those rotting things. The Zombie Queen had eaten them, leaving them with no energy to siphon. Was there any way to reverse that? I was demon. I couldn’t get infected. Unless that was all just the White Rabbit spinning lies.
I shoved my forearm into a zombie’s mouth as it opened to chomp on Wilkie. It’s jaws clamped down, and then I was in its head.
So tired. Hungry. Hopeless. The Queen will let us go home. No she won’t. She never lets anyone go home. Except for sometimes.
The pain from his teeth made me forget what I was doing for a second, but then Dorian roared, and I remembered. Right. He was going to take the head off the zombie, but what if…
“Kneel to your king,” I whispered, like the moans and growls wouldn’t keep anyone from hearing me.
The zombie exploded.
Right in my face, just exploded, and then there was Regis, and the sky was full of demons. It didn’t take five minutes for the world to be perfectly free of zombies.
Dorian’s hand came around my arm, cutting off the blood and pain. His eyes flickered with rage as he swept me into his arms, his very large arms, leaving me feeling so deliciously smalland delicate. Although he was just so big, of course I felt small. Also covered, absolutely covered in demon ick.
I shuddered. All of that had been a big bad end, and I was starting to feel kind of weird. Maybe because Dorian shot up into the air like a rocket, leaving me curling up into him while he tucked me under his chin and the world rushed around us. He landed on my roof and then walked off the edge, curling his clawed feet and swinging upside down before dropping inside my bathroom window.
He turned on the water in my shower without putting me down. With a rumble in his throat, he ran his massive hand over my hair, leaving a trickle of delicious heat over me.
“Queen of my heart, it seemed to me that you intentionally put your arm in the zombie’s mouth,” he rumbled, molten lines flaring brighter in his dark red skin.
I swallowed hard. “Did it? Why would I do something that crazy? I’m such a stable, normal, boring person who wouldn’t ever…” I squeaked as he dropped me, then caught me by the waist so my legs swung down and I was standing in my bathroom looking up at the enormous creature of darkness. Steam came off him in evocative swirls, like this was really and truly the end of the world.
He touched my cheek, his hand silky soft with a side of velvet that had me shivering. “Why did you put your arm in the zombie’s mouth?” His eyes flickered steady, bright, so super bright, and I sighed heavily, slumping my shoulders.
“I thought maybe I could get in his head so he’d swear fealty, you know, like Frisco.”
“Frisco bit you?” His dark brow rose over glowing eyes. That gleam was positively scary.
“No, of course not. I bit him. I just thought that zombies it might work the same but opposite.”
He frowned as he studied me. “You bit Frisco to get into his head, and then you thought it would be the same if you let a zombie bite you?” He knelt on the floor of my bathroom, which was actually a fairly large room, but when Dorian knelt with his wings out, it seemed very small. He touched my face with the back of his hand, just a brush, but it sent a shiver through me.
“I’m so sorry that everything’s been so overwhelming for you. Please, please don’t intentionally let a zombie bite you. I’m going to shower you and then I’m taking you to the Grand Master, the Vampire King, Hazen. He should be able to stop the infection, keep it from spreading.”
He was giving me a shower? I was covered in zombie ick. Surely that was the most logical next step, except that if he was in my shower, no way I’d be able to resist him, particularly the way I was starting to panic. I wasn’t supposed to let anyone know I was an angel. The White Rabbit had been very clear, but wouldn’t the Grand Master know what I was if he started treating me for a zombie infection? I was almost positive I couldn’t get infected, but Dorian didn’t know that. He didn’t have to know. I could just drown in the shower with him and forget about everything else.
No, he wouldn’t let me turning into a zombie slide. And if I didn’t tell him what I was, wouldn’t that make me as bad as he’d been back when he let me fall in love with a demon who had no intentions of keeping me or telling me why he was so wrong for me?
I grabbed his king spikes, the ones over his silky hair. Maybe he’d kill me with them.
“Dorian, I’m an angel,” I said. “I don’t think I can get infected.”
His brow furrowed as he studied me and my heart stopped beating. “Doing an angel with the demon for your Halloweendisplay will be nice, add a little forbidden romance to it. We’ll talk about it later.”
He ushered me into the shower and then proceeded to wash me with my clothes still on. He washed those too, and the next thing I knew, we were out of the shower, and then he ran his hands over me and the water was gone, clothes, hair, everything.
I blinked at him while he picked me up and carried me into my bedroom, then down the winding circular stairs to the main floor. My duchess display was so grand.
A sharp knock sounded on the front door, and there was Lucy’s husband on the other side of the glass, curlicue bars a show of barriers that wouldn’t do anything to actually keep out the vampire. Unless he really couldn’t come in without being invited.
Drigo opened the door, still holding me in his arms, and the vampire stepped through, carrying a case with him. No invitation necessary. Scary.
“We can do this in the kitchen, if you’d like,” he said, smiling like a normal human who was mostly bored with this situation. Certainly not worried or intimidated by Dorian’s hulking steaming demon form.
“It’s not necessary,” I started to say, but then Dorian whirled around and carried me to the kitchen where he set me down on a bench, hovering while Hazen set up on the end.
“How are the kids?” I asked, feeling awkward, because fifteen minutes ago I’d been in a zombie war.
