living thing, making it difficult to breathe. “Let me go.”
She tried to jerk her hand free, but Demian simply drew her closer. His other arm clamped her to his body, and it was like being pressed against the cool weight of stone. His silver hair stirred in a sudden breeze.
“I want you.” It wasn’t a statement. It was a declaration of intent.
A demand.
Is this what he’d meant when he’d appeared to her that night on a quiet London street? The Demon King’s eyes were glittering, just like they had then.
“I am well accustomed to getting what I want,” he added.
“Too bad,” Donna said, trying to catch her breath in the vice of his arms.
“I will have you,” he said. His expression was impossibly arrogant.
“You don’t want me,” Donna said, as panic fluttered in her stomach. “You only want my power.”
“Semantics,” he said. “You hold the power, therefore I want you.”
“Want? You want? What about what I want?”
Everything felt too intense, too real.
But if it felt real to her, hopefully that meant it felt just as real to Demian. She wouldn’t let him take what he wanted without a fight. She was way better than that.
The Demon King loosened his hold on her. Just a little. “Perhaps I am not only talking about your power. Perhaps I speak of something … more.”
“Like what? Love?” The temptation to laugh was rising dangerously. Donna swallowed it down and tasted bile in the back of her throat.
“If that is a word that means something to you,” Demian said.
She met his inhuman eyes. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about love.”
“And you, child, don’t know the first thing about me.”
“‘Child’? Right. A child. So … you want to be with this ‘child,’ do you? Sounds kind of twisted to me.”
His eyes narrowed and his hand tightened on the back of her neck. “It is just a word. You are much younger than I, therefore you seem childlike to one such as me.”
“Exactly. So why not go find someone your own age?”
His lips twisted. “What you don’t realize, Donna Underwood, is that the very thing that gives you your power—that sliver of first matter that resides in your soul—is older even than I am.”
That little revelation hit Donna like a slap in the face. What did it mean? Was it true?
Demian moved one of his hands so that he could touch her face. “I see ages-old wisdom in your eyes. Not your wisdom, of course, but the ghost of something ancient that lives in this human shell. With you by my side, I would be truly immortal.”
“See? It’s not about me at all. And, for the record, I will never stand by your side.”
His lips curved. “Never?”
Donna ignored the hunger in his eyes. “Never.”
“Never is a very long time,” he replied, his voice suddenly deadly serious.
“So you might as well give up now.”
“I am a patient man,” he said. “I waited for my freedom for two centuries.”
Donna shivered. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’ll be long gone by then.”
“Perhaps.”
“Let me give you a tip, Your Majesty. If you want to get the girl, you might try not grabbing her and forcing her to do your bidding.”
“I grow tired of your arguments.”
“And I’m sick and tired of everybody in my life treating me as some kind of weapon. Now I can’t even die in peace—I have the King of Hell trying to use me.”
Demian’s eyes narrowed to onyx slits. “Don’t pretend you wanted to die. You knew that the blade would not truly kill you. You were like Inanna, beating at the very gates of Hell and demanding we grant you entrance.”
Donna didn’t know who this Inanna was, but she liked the sound of her. “I didn’t know, not for sure. I had a feeling.”
“And what do you think gave you that … feeling?”
She met his gaze, trying not to shake under its heat. “My female intuition?”
“The prima materia guides you, and even now you try to deny it. You make jokes rather than face the reality of your power.”
Donna slipped her right arm out of his embrace, hauled back, and punched him as hard as she could. In the face.
Even with all the iron covering her human flesh and bone, she felt as though her whole fist had just shattered. And the result of her punch was sort of comical: Demian took a single step back while she fell to her knees, tears of pain filling her eyes.
“Shit,” she whispered, glancing down to check that