Page 77 of Thane's Demon
His arm came up again, higher this time, the promise of violence in the tightening of his jaw. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the blow, my entire body trembling with dread and anger and grief I had been holding in for far too long.
But the hit never came.
Instead, a sharp, strangled gasp filled the air.
I opened my eyes slowly and felt the world tilt.
My father’s arm was suspended in the air, the muscles bulging as he tried to move, but it was held completely still in the unyielding grasp of a large, pale hand. Thane stood behind him, his expression carved from stone, dark and deadly and somehow calmer than I expected. He looked entirely human again, but the cold fury in his eyes told me the demon inside him was very much awake.
“That…”he said, his voice low and ice-smooth,
“…is the very last time you ever raise a hand to your daughter.”
My father’s breath came in short, shocked bursts as he tried to pull away. Thane didn’t let him. He squeezed just enough to make him drop to his knees, the pain obvious in the way his face twisted.
“The only reason I am not going to kill you where you stand…” Thane continued, leaning closer, his voice dark enough to drain the blood from my veins,
“…is because Alora would not want that. But know this. If she ever gives me permission… and I very much hope that she doesone day… know that your death will come, and when it does…it will not be swift.”
My father’s face went sheet white.
Thane let go, and my father’s arm dropped uselessly to his side. Thane did not spare him another glance. Instead, he moved past him with quiet, controlled purpose, bending to pick up my fallen duffle bag. His other hand reached out to me, palm open, offering not a command but a choice.
“Come, Alora”he said softly, his voice shifting, gentler now but still threaded with that unbreakable determination.
“You do not belong here… you belong with me.”
I stared at his hand, then at my father, whose expression twisted with impotent rage and something else… fear.Real, genuine fear.It was the first time I had ever seen it on his face. For a heartbeat, I hesitated, torn between the life I had always known and the one waiting beyond the door.
Thane’s fingers brushed mine and instantly,
I took his hand.
Without looking back, he led me toward the door, duffle bag in his other hand, his body a barrier between me and the man who had controlled my life for far too long. As the door shut behind us, something inside me closed with it.
Something heavy and hollow and old.
I was not going back.
And wherever Thane was taking me, whatever future waited beyond the night,
I knew it was no longer mine to choose…
It was my Demon’s.
32
HOME
THANE
Violence rose in me the way storms rose from black oceans, swelling from the depths with a pressure so immense it warped everything inside me. When the first intruder burst through my apartment door, gun raised and breath sharp with desperation, the demon did not hesitate. It surged forward with a hunger I could not control, flooding my veins with fire and instinct so primal it tore through the fragile human lines I tried to draw around myself.
Shadows bent around me as though gravity itself bowed to the creature clawing its way to the surface
‘PROTECT HER!’
The command drowned out everything else. It roared through my skull, vibrating with an authority older than language, older than man. My horns curled from my temples with a sickening crack, their weight familiar and foreign in equal measure.
