The Demon Lord (A Demon Outlaws Novella) (Entangled Edge) Read Online Free PDF Page B

chattered at the ground. Otherwise, the woods were silent.
    “You think I don’t understand love?” the priestess finally asked. The long scar marring her face became less pronounced beneath the gentle radiance of her wistful smile. “With age comes wisdom, but the goddesses are ageless. You live in the moment without having to give thought to future consequences. Think of them now. I’ve known love of every kind, and it’s never easy to part with. Hold onto it as long as you can.” Desire pressed her fingers again. “I wish you nothing but happiness in your future. It’s no more than you deserve. And as long as you need me, for as long as I live, I’m your servant.”
    Desire was right. Allia had never thought of her own future beyond her immediate requirements before. As an immortal, she’d had no need.
    A twinge of unease trembled through her, leaving doubt in its wake as she wondered what else she had failed to consider.

Chapter Four
    He waited for her in their usual place. She was late, and he was impatient. The passage of time chafed at him.
    He had thought of a gift for her, one that would express his love and make her smile for him in return. Flowers bloomed in the basin of the dried pool of goddess rain, and he’d crafted a demonstration for her.
    A noise in the cottonwoods caught his attention. He turned, ready to fight.
    The only thing that saved the gnarled little woman was her shaved head. He recognized her as the priestess who had been spying on him for quite some time now, and he thought at first she might carry a message for him from Allia.
    She kept her head down, with her eyes fixed on the cool, dew-dampened grass beneath her bare, misshapen feet, and waited for him to speak first. He wondered how long she had been watching him before she approached.
    He was becoming too careless. Allia consumed his thoughts to the exclusion of everything else, particularly here in a place that was theirs alone, and he did not like this intrusion.
    “Why do you spy on me, Priestess?” he demanded. “And what are you doing here, so far from the goddesses’ temple and its protection?”
    “My name is Mamna, and I wish only to serve you,” she said. “You have been betrayed.”
    The Demon Lord did not want to believe her or the story she told. He was used to women wishing to serve him. They would do or say anything to win his favor, and the priestess’s was not the first head to be turned by false hopes. No mortal could resist the allure of a demon.
    Allia would not plot against him. She was his. She loved him.
    He loved her.
    This was some trick of her sisters.
    “Watch and see,” Mamna declared. “She will offer you a pendant, a small mountain stone of no obvious beauty or value, with all of the colors of the rainbow. She’ll tell you it’s a symbol of her love for you. She’ll tell you it offers immunity against the goddesses, just as the amulet you gave her protects her from demons. But it is the same stone the goddesses give to their favored mortal men. It is meant to enslave you. It will bind you to her as surely as it binds them.” Mamna held out her hand, raising her eyes to his. She had a handful of the same colored stones, some set in pendants, others as yet unpolished. “Have you seen these before?”
    He had. Allia wore one herself, yet he had not seen it on her the last time they were together. Dread mixed with anger, to swirl like acid in his stomach.
    “If you are lying, you’re dead,” he said to her.
    She did not recoil from his anger. Beneath her ugly exterior he recognized a solid core of ruthless courage and determination. She reeked of ambition. “I’m telling the truth.”
    She lied. Allia would not betray him.
    And yet doubt niggled at him.
    You forget what we are. You’ve pursued goddesses both inside and outside of time. Across the entire universe. And yet I’m the first to be caught. You shouldn’t forget that either. Or what happens when prey becomes cornered.
    He