“He was the head psychiatrist there,” Selma continued, forcing down a shudder at the memory of her time at Ravenswood House. “He… tricked me. Said the ring was a treatment, that my… visions… were a hormone imbalance. I… I should have known that the ‘treatment,’ that how he put it on me, wasn’t a legitimate medical procedure, but I… wasn’t in a good state.

“And after—I thought it’d worked. That I was cured. I didn’t notice the mark before I looked in a mirror later that night.” She brushed a hand over the silver circle marring her forehead, biting her lip at the memory of the horror that came after.

“You can see the mark?” Kain said, a frown drawing down his brows.

A spike of anxiety made her eyes flick to his. Stupid!

Marathin had discovered what she was after she’d seen the mark he’d placed on her forehead. A normal Breeder wouldn’t have been able to detect it; the magic in the sigil was supposedly invisible to them, unless they possessed the qualities of a so-called Pure Breeder—the women who could resist most of their magic.

The women a demon Lord could mate.

Kain might have fought his instincts to take and dominate last night, but she wasn’t keen on her chances if he found out she could withstand his rutting.

“I thought I did,” she lied. “So I freaked out. I thought I wasn’t cured. It was just a smudge, but I didn’t realize until it was too late. I ran to him and I found his notes about… about what I was. About the auction he was planning on sending me to.

“He saw me. Knew that I knew. He demonstrated what the ring does to keep me in line. And then he raped me. He made me beg for it. But after… after, he was… different. Possessive. He said if I wanted to escape the auction, I could. I could stay with him.”

Kain’s gaze blazed with anger, his free hand curling into a tight fist on the counter, but when he spoke his voice was soft.

“For a Procurer to betray his responsibilities, he would have wanted to claim you as his mate. Why is his mark not on you?”

Selma looked down at his hand anchored on her knee. “He was going to… but we were interrupted. There was a nurse. She tried to save me, but he… killed her. I escaped while he was busy covering up the traces of her murder.”

“What’s his name?” Kain brushed his hand from her knee to her chin once more, and though the contact was light as a feather, it kept her frozen as surely as if he'd grabbed her.