Page 123 of The Prince of Demons

Should not have tormented them? The same tormentors of animals?

“Yes, you should have. And you didn’t answer my earlier question. Where are we?”

He laughed darkly. “I am rubbing off on you. You weren’t always this vicious.”

I resisted the urge to wander the room. I was feeling antsy, uncertain. In the corner of my eye, a window had nothing but darkness and silver trees outside.

“Where are we?”

“We are in my palace,” he growled. “I was going to destroy them. I was going to flay their skin from their bones and boil them alive in their own blood. And I was going to lose my entire reputation as the Reaper, and all the privileges of my power, just to avenge you.”

He heaved a ragged breath. “I had to get myself out of there. I had to take you somewhere safe. So I brought you here—to my home. Your worst nightmare. Go on. Fight me. Tell me how resentful you are of our relationship. That everything I do, I do because I am a worthless immortal.”

“You are not worthless,” I whispered. Tears slid down my face as I recognized the decorations in this room matched the ones in my dorm. I was in his home. He brought me to his palace.

He chose me.

Did you know that once a demon brings his lover to his home, he can never love another?

“You are my… best friend. And you are the Prince of Demons. I know you have the instincts to defend. And to punish. And to seek justice, always. But don’t push me away because you think I despise you! Because of how others are treating me! Let it be my choice whether or not I want you in my life!”

Night swelled around him, billowing like ribbons of storm.

“But is it really your choice?”

“Yes—”

“I know that,” he rasped. “But do you know how the rest of our worlds would see it?” Reaper’s hands trembled like they contained barely leashed agony. “I am the Prince of Demons, here to steal an innocent bride. I am the irresponsible, reckless fool who brought a soul with an expiration date to live with an immortal. I am the monster, the succubus, the beast that corrupted the gentle and good to take home to himself based on his own selfishness.”

My people think I am a rather young and foolhardy prince. He’d admit that to me over cards.

But his anguish sparked a chord in me, forcing me to respond. “And what about how I see you?” I asked plainly. “What should it matter what other people—even other demons think? Is my own opinion of you not enough?”

“And what is your opinion of me?”

I held my tongue, gazing out into the Beyond. I hadn’t decided yet how I felt about the immortal being so devoted to me. Although with the frequency of tears slipping down my cheek, my body already had.

His response was sour, sharp. “You are in denial still. And if you can’t admit you like me, who would even believe it?”

“What about your denial?” I fumed. “I might not be able to admit anything, but neither have you. Where’s the ‘I love you?’ Where’s the dating? The romancing? You have been fighting me just as much as I have you. You haven’t admitted yet that I am not your enemy! Because what would happen if you did? Then we would have to face the consequences together… and you aren’t man enough.”

He recoiled.

The demon strong enough to break bones recoiled. And I knew that I had messed up.

I was too honest. Too spot-on with his flaws.

Or his perceived perception of his flaws.

“Reaper—”

In a split second, I saw the decision cross his face.

“Let your presence here be by your choice alone,” he said.

His strong, capable hands—a prince’s hands—held my neck, and I felt the wrath and warmth from my neck bond dissolve into fragments of nothing.

It left me like water rushing out of a dam, fast and dangerous and wild.

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