Her face flashed with annoyance, her small shapely mouth pinching together. “That means I’ll go to the police, you know the authorities.”

God, maybe he had been wrong. She might just be daft after all. “Abbigail Krenshaw if you think your human police as you call them could ever contain me, you’d be very wrong.”

She started to say something, then slammed her mouth closed and leaned back against the wall with a defiant cross of her arms.

“Fine, continue your little story then.”

He stiffened as anger flowed through him. She thought to speak to him as if she had control of this situation? He took a deep breath as anger filled his blood thick and hot like syrup, warming his cold body. The rush of it went to his head like a bolt of lightning, quickening his senses. “You will kill my mother.”

“Why?” she shot back.

“To remove the curse that binds me.” He’d already considered the other part of the seer’s words and figured it better not to reveal the probable ending to the human’s life. Knowing she’d die in the process would not help her decision to join his cause.

“What kind of curse is it?”

Alrik jerked his sword into his lap and pulled out a smooth rock from his pocket. Bending over the blade in the firelight, he began pressing the stone to the edge of the blade and slowly dragging it down in long strokes. The soothing motion of sharpening his blade helped him to think. He hadn’t planned to reveal his curse to her. It brought about too many problems, problems he didn’t want to think about. His blade hissed over the metal.

“One that I must remove. That is all.” He left it at that.

She shook her head in disbelief. “Fine, but I’m not doing it.”

His gaze shot across the fire to her. She flinched. Good, he thought. “You might want to rethink your words, human. I know of someone very precious to you. Someone whose life I could take as easily as I stole you from your home.”

She shot to her feet. “My mother?” she yelled, her cry echoing off the walls.

Alrik let out a stuttering breath as her anger caressed him like a soft hand. His eyes fluttered closed, hand flexed over the hand of his blade. “Yes, I know who she is and where she is. If you are wise you will abide me on my journey. After, you can return to her unharmed both of you will live.” He let his lie hide beneath his dark eyes. He couldn’t stop from noticing the way her heavy breaths moved her quite full breasts up and down in the most erotic way. He jerked his gaze away and stared into the fire, focusing on banishing the unwanted, lustful thoughts.

“Let me get this straight, if I help you kill some woman I don’t know then you’ll return me to my mother?”

“Yes.”

“I’d sooner believe I could throw you through this wall than a bunch of horseshit like that.”

Alrik tensed. He needed her to believe him or this would never work. Standing tall, he stepped into her, backing her into the wall. Her chest flattened against his and he stifled a groan. Quite full breasts indeed.

Her gaze darted anywhere but at his face, but he stared down at her until finally, without a choice, she lifted her chin and met his stare.

“I do not lie.” Lie. “You do this with me and I’ll protect you every step of the way.” Truth. He needed her alive. “After the deed is done, I’ll return you to the earthen-realm and you’ll never hear from me again.” Partial-truth. She’d never make it back to the earthen-realm.

He tried to read her eyes—did she buy it?—but they revealed nothing other than a stony stare.

“Get away from me,” she said. Did his ears betray him or was that a tremble in her voice? His chest expanded and his gaze fell to her mouth. Her lips looked soft, welcoming. A soft sound caressed his ears…a hitch in her breath. A hot knot formed in his chest and shot down to his cock at the sound. Those shapely and pouty lips beckoned a man like a sin.

Before he did something to hurt his cause, he stepped back and took his seat by his weapons.

Picking up his whet stone, he scraped it hard across his blade. For the millionth time he wished things were different, that he was different, but he couldn’t change what was. Couldn’t change who he’d become. But he could kill his mother and hopefully right some past wrongs.

With an edge to his voice he said, “You will help me or I’ll slit your mother’s throat before your eyes. I’ll force you to help me anyway and kill you after the deed is done. You have your choices, now decide.”

The human pressed a hand over her heart. The pained expression on her face hit him strangely in the chest. For some reason the look didn’t fill him with a rush; instead, strangely, guilt ate at him. He didn’t have time to study the emotion he hadn’t felt in so long because he ruthlessly shoved it away.

The human straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and stared down at him with a loathing he welcomed over guilt. “I’ll do it.”

“Good choice.”

In a flash, the look on her face changed. Her arms flattened to her sides, fingers spreading open to the earth. He had only a moment to feel the magic swirl around him before he felt invisible binds wrapping around his body, locking him into place in less than a matter of seconds. Under different circumstances, he might have been overjoyed to see her magic skills used so well. She didn’t even need to speak a spell to cast magic, but he wasn’t overjoyed now.

His eyes flashed to hers and found her light green eyes shining bright like a light in the cave. The binds twisted tighter around him, binding his legs together, his arms to his side, snaking around his chest and squeezing just enough to make it difficult to breathe.

“Stop this, witch,” he warned, his own eyes beginning to glow.

Her body relaxed and she stumbled backwards hitting the wall. She winced, then ran up to him. He sucked in shallow breaths through the invisible binds as he brought forth his own magic. He started chanting the words to break the binds as she picked up one of his swords. She started to lift it but she’d underestimated how heavy demon steel was and dropped it back in the sand before taking off on a sprint.

The last of his spell left him and the binds loosened the magic around him. “Abbigail!” he roared.

He surged to his feet with blazing fury roaring through his veins as he charged after her.

Water engulfed her. Her mouth filled with it and she swallowed the fresh, cold liquid. The frigid temperature slowed her movements but still she slugged through it and thrust her arms through the water, kicking her legs until her muscles burned. Finally, she saw light above her and shot towards it. She burst to the surface and sucked in a breath of air. Her heart raced and she quickened her movements, paddling swiftly to the surface.

Her feet sank into sand as she stood and, without time to take in her surroundings, she rushed into the forest. It looked strange. The leaves too green, the flowers too pink and red on the buds. Not a tree she’d ever seen before. Aside from the gray and pinkish swirl of the hazy sky above her, the forest looked familiar and she stuck to it, her lungs burning with every breath she took.

She raced through the forest. He had magic skills she’d never witnessed before. Hell, the fact that she’d been able to bind him when she hadn’t used magic in years surprised the hell out of her. She’d just been so mad, so desperate to get away from the demon that some deep-seated magic had come forth.

It didn’t take long for her gait to slow and her muscles to burn. She didn’t run much. In fact, never. Her lungs felt like they were on fire but she couldn’t risk stopping to catch her breath. She could almost feel him right behind her.

The demon was insane. Straight up fell-way-off-the-tree crazy. How did he find her? Why her? Why did his mother curse him? These questions roared in her head with the need for answers.