“Have it placed on a stake, along with her body,” Kobal commanded.
Before anyone could reply, Kobal strolled across the blood-drenched ground toward me. I forced myself not to recoil from him, though everything in me wanted to get as far from him as possible right then. What he’d just done never should have happened. It didn’t matter if he was a demon.
I somehow managed to keep myself from screaming when he slid his hand around my elbow; it felt as if ice slid through my veins. I’d encountered pure evil in my dream last night, and while I didn’t think Kobal was evil, his actions certainly hadn’t beengood.
My knees quivered, and my feet felt like lead weights beneath me as I tried to keep up with him when he propelled me across the ground. Blood dripped from my hair, making nausea churn more insistently within my stomach.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I managed to croak out before we reached the tent.
“Yes, I should have,” he replied brusquely. “No one is going to harm you and get away with it,ever.”
He’d done it to protect me, but the ruthlessness with which it had been done, the reason she’d attacked in the first place, were allwrong.
“She was wrong, but so were you!” I gasped when we arrived at the tent and he pulled the flap up.
His eyes were remorseless when they met mine, and he gestured for me to go inside. I shook my head no.
“Get in,” he commanded.
“Kobal—”
“Get inside, River!” he didn’t shout at me, but something in his tone of voice made it seem as if he’d bellowed the words for all the world to hear.
He’d never hurt me, but I sensed an unraveling within him I’d never expected to see or had experienced before. The simmering explosion waiting for release had me ducking into the tent. He followed behind. Before I could open my mouth to speak, he spun me around, clasped my cheeks, and seized hold of my mouth in a kiss that stole my breath from me.
I tried to keep myself held back from him. I had just witnessed a decapitation by his hand, but when his tongue swept in to taste me and his arm locked around my waist to lift me against him, I also wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. His hand cupped hold of my breast, kneading my flesh through my shirt and bra.
His other hand slid over my shirt, brushing briefly against the torn fabric and the scratch beneath. The reminder of what had caused that slice caused reality to crash over me with the effect of water being dumped on my head. I twisted in his grasp, tearing my mouth away from his and shoving my hands against his blood-soaked chest.
“Stop!” I yelled and pushed at him again.
“I need you.”
“No, not like this, not in her blood.”
“What does it matter?”
I shuddered at the stark reminder of how different we were from each other. I’d been living in this fantasy world where the demon was tamed and he was more like me than not. I’d been an idiot. Her life had meant nothing to him. Though she would have killed me, she hadn’t deserved what he’d done.Noneof it would have happened to begin with if he hadn’t slept with her and completely forgotten about her after.
I didn’t fit into this world of death and Hell and the Devil’s offspring. I’d lived in a fishing community with my brothers and had a simple life of work and survival.
I couldn’t deny what I was, would not turn my back on what I had to do, but Lucifer’s words rang in my head. There had been no love in that man, no caring; I couldn’t let myself become like him, and I felt as if I were slipping down the slope toward it if I condonedthisin any way.
CHAPTER 42
River
“Let go of me!” I shoved angrily at his massive chest again.
He remained standing before me, not at all fazed by my pushing. “River—”
“I’m covered in her blood, and it matters tome!” I practically screeched at him.
He finally released me and took a step away. “I’ll take you to shower.”
“Her life meant more than the little regard you showed her.” I sounded insane for defending the woman who had called me every nasty name in the book and tried to fillet me like a fish, but he had to understand it wasn’trightto rip people’s heads off. That I found myself trying to explain this to him seemed as completely ridiculous to me as defending Eileen’s actions did. “You can’t do that to people.”
He pivoted to follow me as I edged further away from him. I wasn’t entirely sure I could resist him if he kissed me again. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want when it comes to keeping you safe.”
