The Blood Demon's Collar (Demon Daddy) by KD Ellis

Author:KD Ellis [Ellis, KD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LGBTQIA Romance Fiction
Publisher: Totally Entwined Group
Published: 2024-01-08T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Raving Rory/Ruairi

The city is burning.

Screams and smoke and people racing around like ants, and none of it concerns me. The city is always on fire, people are always screaming, and I am, now and always, on the sidelines—waiting, watching.

But the shadowy figure stumbling into the alley—my alley—that’s another matter entirely.

He concerns me.

The Black man is bleeding.

I stand safe in my shadows, watching him stagger along the alley. One hand drags along the dirty bricks like the wall, seemingly the only thing keeping him upright. Considering the shape he’s in, it might be.

I’ve seen him before.

I know this the same way I know that the grass in Omaha is green, even though I’ve never been there. The memories are there, but I can’t feel them. They’ve been hidden away behind magical plexiglass. I can watch them like a movie. Hear them, even. But the emotions are…missing.

Nowadays, the man goes by some silly name. Apollo, or…Aries, that’s it. A name not fit for a fae prince who passed his infancy long before the Greek myths were even born. When I knew him, he went by Aodhan. Of course, he’d never trusted me with his true name.

I’d trusted him with everything.

My body…my heart.

He’d broken both.

Now, he’s the broken one. I see the blood staining his neck and hands blue, so different from the scarlet they’d painted me. Why is he here? This is my valley. Mine. I mapped each crack in the mortar, pressed fingertips against each brick.

The mural that Aries stumbles into was conceived in my dreams and painted by my hand, with pigments I ground myself and mixed with my own blood, with runes to bind the memory.

Aries—such a stupid name—breaks the Binding with one careless brush of his blue-tinged hand. The memory slams into me with the force of a freight train, and my knees buckle.

The smell of honeysuckle.

Grass silk-soft under my soles.

Windchime laughter on the autumn breeze.

I shake away the painful memory. Seeing his face is hard enough without the memory of his lips brushing mine fluttering around in my head. Hesitation dogs my steps, keeping me in the shadows until Aries stumbles again.

He catches the wall and starts to sink down. After everything, I should back away—retreat through the tunnel I’d painstakingly dug behind the dumpster for easy access into the basement squat I call home.

Instead, I step into the moonlight and stare down at his unconscious body. If he opens his eyes, he won’t recognize me—not now, not like this. This body is older, if not wiser.

And not stronger, I notice as I try to lug his heavy, muscle-bound body over my shoulder. I fail quite epically and resort to dragging him instead. He takes a nasty fall as I shove his limp frame into the tunnel and lose my grip. His body bounces against the cracked cement below, and I cringe.

At least the Fae are resilient…

I slide down after him, landing softly in a crouch on my bare feet. Pressing my head to his chest proves his heart is still beating, if a bit slower than I’m used to.

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