Kiss of a Demon King

The long-haired male asked, 'Wait, what happened after that burial?'

'Things got much, much worse,' Sabine said dismis-sively.

The crying female cried harder. 'H-how could it get worse than dying so much?'

Sabine dryly answered, 'They met Omort the Death­less. He was a sorcerer who could never know death's

kiss, and so he was instantly smitten with the girl so well acquainted with it.'

Lanthe met her eyes. 'He'll be wondering where we are.'

'But he knows we'll always return.' Omort had controls in place for the sisters. Sabine gave a bitter laugh. Had they actually once thought they'd be safe with him?

Just then, Sabine heard the sound of wings outside.

'They've come.' Lanthe's eyes darted to the cham­ber's high window. 'We run, run for the tunnels beneath the city, and try to find our portal above.'

'I'm not in the mood to run.' The building began to rock-or it appeared to-with Sabine's anger.

'When are you ever? But we have to.'

Though Sabine and Lanthe were nearly as fast as the fey and were notoriously dirty fighters, the Vrekeners' sheer numbers were unstoppable. And the sisters pos­sessed no battle sorcery.

Lanthe's gaze swept over the room, searching for escape. 'They'll catch us even if you make us invisible.'

With a flick of her hand, Sabine wove an illusion. Suddenly she and Lanthe both looked like patients. 'We'll create a stampede of humans and run out into the night with them.'

Lanthe shook her head. 'The Vrekeners will scent us.'

Sabine blinked at her. 'Lanthe, have you not smelled my humans?'

1

 Present day

The Tongue and Groove Strip Club, Southern Louisiana

A lap dance for the sexy demon?'

With a firm shake of his head, Rydstrom Woede turned down the half-clad female.

'With a lap like yours, I'll make myself at home,' another told him. 'For free.' She cupped one of her breasts upward and dipped her tongue to her nipple.

That got him to raise an eyebrow, but still he said, 'Not interested.'

This was one of the low points of his life, surrounded by strippers in a neon-lit Lore club. He was on edge in this ridiculous place, feeling like the worst hypocrite. If his ne'er-do-well brother found out where he'd been, he would never hear the end of it.

But Rydstrom's contact had insisted on meeting here.

When a pretty nymph sidled up behind him to mas-

sage his shoulders, he picked up her hands and faced her. 'I said no.'

The females here left him cold, which confounded him-since he needed a woman beneath him so badly. His eyes must have darkened, because the nymph quickly backed away. About to lose my temper with a nymph? Getting angered at one of her kind for touching him was like scolding a dog for tail wagging at the sight

of a bone.

Lately, Rydstrom had been a constant hair trigger's turn from succumbing to rage. The fallen king known for his coolheaded reason, for his patience with others, felt like a bomb about to explode.

He'd been experiencing an inexplicable anticipa-tion-a sense of building, a sense that something big was going to happen soon.

But because this urgency had no discernible source or alleviation, frustration welled in him. He didn't eat, couldn't sleep a night through.

For the last couple of weeks, he'd awakened to find himself thrusting against the pillow or the mattress or even into his own fist, desperate for a soft female below him to ease the strangling frustration he felt. Gods, I need a woman.

Yet he had no time to woo a decent one. Just another conflict battling within him.

The kingdom's needs always come before the king's.

So much was at stake in the fight to reclaim his crown-from Omort the Deathless, a foe who could never be killed.

Rydstrom had once faced him and knew from bit-ter experience that the sorcerer was undestroyable. Though he'd beheaded Omort, it was Rydstrom who'd barely escaped their confrontation nine hundred years before.

Now Rydstrom searched for a way to truly kill Omort forever. Backed by his brother Cadeon and Cadeon's gang of mercenaries, Rydstrom doggedly tracked down one lead after another.

The emissary he was to meet tonight-a seven-foot-tall pus demon named Pogerth-would be able to help them.

He'd been sent by a sorcerer named Groot the Metal­lurgist, Omort's half brother, a man who wanted Omort dead almost as much as Rydstrom did. Groot was little better than Omort, but an enemy of my enemy . . .

Just then, a demoness dressed in black leather with cheap makeup on her horns gave Rydstrom a measuring look as she passed, but he turned away.

He was . . . curious about wicked females, always had been, but they weren't his type-no matter what Cadeon occasionally threw in his face when they fought.

No, Rydstrom wanted his queen, his own fated female, a virtuous demoness to stand by his side and grace his bed.

For a demon, sex with one's female was supposed to be mind-blowing compared to the random tup. After fifteen centuries, he'd waited bloody long enough to experience the difference.

He exhaled. But now was not the time for her. So much at stake. He knew that if he didn't defeat his enemy this time, his kingdom and his castle would be forever lost.

My home lost. His hands clenched, his short black claws digging into his palms. Omort and his followers had desecrated Castle Tornin. The sorcerer had set himself up as king and welcomed Rydstrom's enemies, granting them asylum. His guards were revenants, walk­ing corpses, the dead raised to life, who could only be destroyed once their master died.

Tales of orgies, sacrifices, and incest in Tornin's once-hallowed halls were legion.

Rydstrom would die before he lost his ancestral castle to beings so depraved, so warped he considered them the most revolting beings ever to walk the earth.

Gods help anyone who crosses me this eve. A ticking bomb-

At last, Pogerth arrived, teleporting inside the bar. The pus demon's skin looked like melted wax and smelled of decay. The gauze he wore under his clothes peeked out at the collar and cuffs of his shirt. He wore rubber boots that he would empty outside in regular intervals, as was polite.

When he sat at Rydstrom's table, it was to a squish­ing sound. 'My lord and master seeks a prize so rare it's almost fabled,' he began without preamble. 'In return for it, he'll deliver something just as fantastical.' Switching to the demon tongue, he asked, 'What would you be willing to do for a weapon guaranteed to kill the Deathless One?'

Castle Tornin The Kingdom ofRothkalina

When a severed head bounced wetly down the steps from Omort's throne dais onto the black runner, Sabine casually sidestepped, continuing past it.

The head belonged to Oracle Three Fifty-Six-as in the number of soothsayers that had been in office since Sabine had come to Tornin.

The scent of blood cloyed as revenants mindlessly cleaned up the matching body.