Reclining on the bed in his lavish chambers, Sian held a looking-glass—not to see his own reflection, never his own—but to spy on Kari. In hell, he could use mirrors to view any scene in the present.
He’d observed her as she’d first investigated her surroundings. She’d appeared to be freezing in her flimsy lingerie.
And Sian cared not at all.
She’d crossed to the balcony and surveyed his lands, her eyes growing stark at the sight.
He didn’t care.
Ashy wind had gusted into the tower; as she coughed, she’d brushed up against another fire vine.
But he could not care less.
When she’d sat at the wheel, she’d looked shell-shocked. Good.
Though his instincts screamed at him to protect her, warm her, clothe and feed her, he refused. He’d once followed his instincts with her, and look where that had left him.
With the help of his hell-change aggression, he buried those impulses deep, deeper—until a filter seemed to cover his gaze, red from his hatred.
Crimson haze in place, he didn’t even see her as his mate. She was simply a desirable prisoner.
Once she’d spun all of the webbing he’d provided, she rose and warily approached another large cobweb. Dark gods, that body. Her curves were graceful, her form proportionately flawless.
Her long, light-brown hair had dried into loose, shining curls. The dainty points of her ears poked out through the heavy fall of those tresses.
He still couldn’t believe Kari was here in his keeping. Under his control. He wondered yet again if he was dreaming.
Considering N?x’s involvement, he’d likely pay for this pleasure.
His prisoner reached for the webbing. When it stuck to her hands and wrapped around her arms, she gave a cry, and the tips of her ears flattened against her head.
He’d once been fascinated by her ears, had never seen anything like them. The tips had twitched whenever she’d been unsettled and had flattened on the few occasions she’d been anxious—such as when he’d been about to kiss her for the first and only time.
That kiss. Her sweet lips had slain him, and he was still trying to recover.
Kari returned to her wheel and resumed spinning, her movements hypnotic. As he stared, his thoughts spun as well, tumbling back millennia. . . .
Sian swept Kari around the ballroom during yet another tedious function. He had to fight not to clasp her close to his body.
Could her hands be any softer? Her scent any more alluring?
He might have questioned why a large hell demon like himself would be paired with such an airily delicate mate—if her body didn’t heat his blood like nothing else.
Since he’d laid eyes on Kari, his adolescent desires had only ratcheted up. He’d experienced the most powerful culmination of his life—with her stolen silk shift around his member.
Yet he craved her not only for physical reasons. His female’s mind was a mystery greater than any of the ones in the magical realm of hell.
If only he could read her thoughts! Right now, her mind seemed a million leagues away. She danced with him, but she wasn’t looking at him.
“What are you contemplating, Kari?” he asked, knowing she’d never tell him. He hated it when her gaze grew distant. Though every one of his thoughts revolved around her, she lived in a world kept separate from him.
“This and that,” she murmured.
She was leading him to insanity! At times she encouraged him to woo her, only to turn around and snicker at him behind her fan with her toadying friends.
But whenever he doubted her feelings, she would tease him or allow him some new liberty, such as pressing a kiss to her wrist or holding her closer while dancing.
“Will you confide your musings to me, princess?”
Finally she gazed up at him. “You’re soon to leave us.”
Not without you. If he could teleport in this realm, he would be tempted to steal her. “Does the idea of us parting aggrieve you whatsoever?”
She shrugged.
Shrugged! He inhaled for calm. Sian had only so long before he was dispatched back to hell—and before she was wed. The king of the Draiksulian elves pursued her hand ardently.
Sian scowled in the male’s direction. The king was tall and fair-haired, an ideal elven specimen. Sometimes Kari gazed at him as if she were infatuated.
Sian scarcely prevented himself from baring his fangs at the male. But Kari grew appalled at his every loss of control, deeming these displays “savagery.” She’d once told him, “You’re as unthinking as a red-eyed vampire.”
“Demon, your grip.”
His hands had tightened on her. Easy, Sian. She was a fragile elf, and still vulnerable to harm. “Pardon me.”
He’d been racking his mind for a way to win her affections. He’d never told her she was his mate—she’d taken his explanation of demon matehood . . . poorly—but perhaps ’twas time to confess all?
Or mayhap he should try seduction? As a handsome prince of hell, he had scant experience coaxing a female to bed—he’d always been plagued with females pursuing him—but how difficult could it be?
Kari would become fully immortal soon and must be needing a male’s touch to see her through this time of transition. After he claimed her and they shared that pleasure, she would never doubt they were fated to be together.
He told her, “I myself would be deeply aggrieved if we were parted. Which is why you’re coming with me to Pandemonia.”
She sighed. “Oh, am I?”
He drew her closer. “You will be mine, Kari. For all time. I will never be separated from you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are infatuated with me, young demon. It will pass once you return home and surround yourself with fawning demonesses.”
“What I feel for you is no mere infatuation.”