“Please…”

He cursed and pulled his face away from her hair. “What’s your name, little one?”

He was trying to fight the pull of her scent, she realized. She knew what it was doing to him, had learned the hard way what a male demon would do to get at her once the magic from her cursed ring had been activated. And still he was fighting it, trying to distract himself with conversation.

Marathin would have fucked her in that warehouse, not caring that she was injured and scared out of her mind.

“Selma.” Perhaps she should have lied—Marathin might have put whatever the demon version of a missing person’s report was out on her—but in that moment, high on hormones and magic and the knowledge that this man was fighting his base instincts for her, she didn’t have the mind to. “I’m Selma.”

“Selma,” he repeated softly, as if testing the feel of it on his tongue. “I am Kain, Lord Protector of this city.”

Lord Protector.

There were many kinds of demons, she’d learned, and the rulers among them—the biggest, the most dangerous—were the Lords.

And yet in Lord Kain’s arms, she felt safer than she had her whole life.

4

Kain

Thomren's nostrils flared wide the second he stepped out of the car, even before he spotted them in the shadows.

Kain let out a low, warning growl as he stepped into the light from the lonely street lamp on the deserted corner. Selma’s scent had only grown stronger while they’d waited for Thomren, her breathing turning to small mewls and pants as her body surrendered to the magic of her ring.

He would have trusted few of his underlings in the presence of a wet and willing Breeder, even when she was under his protection, but Thomren had a mate at home. He’d still react to her, but he’d be less tempted by the beguiling scent drifting from her sweet little pussy so tauntingly close Kain could practically taste it.

“Blackened stars, man!” Thomren took in the sight of the woman's whimpering form before he stared wide-eyed at his Lord. “How have you not…?”

Fucked her to death was the obvious end to that sentence, but the man wisely held his tongue. The smell of a Breeder in heat was not the only scent perfuming the air; Kain could feel the testosterone boiling in his blood, and the tight leash he'd been keeping on his raging libido was threatening to ignite his fighting instincts instead. It took all his willpower not to explode out of his human disguise, shred the other male to pieces, and fuck the Breeder on the dirty ground until she broke.