Claimed by a Demon King Read Free Page A

his spell and unable to form a response.
    She had forgotten just how gorgeous he was and how his presence lit her up inside like fireworks on November fifth.
    “Well?” Thorne cocked his head to one side and a hank of wild red-brown hair fell down onto his bloodstained brow.
    Sable slowly shook her head and forced words up her dry throat and past her lips. “I was trying to help.”
    A smile worked its way onto his firm lips and he flashed short fangs. “That is very kind of you… but I do not require your assistance to spar with my men.”
    Spar?
    Sable inched her gaze towards the demon males to her left. They had all stopped and were staring at her. She looked to her other side, at her team and the elves, and cringed. None of them had moved. She alone had leapt into the fray.
    A blush burned up her cheeks before she could stop it. Thorne canted his head again, raised his free hand and lightly brushed the backs of his short claws across her left cheek. She shuddered under the gentle caress, her pulse quickening for a different reason as the heat burning inside her exploded into wildfire. She had to get a grip. This was a mission.
    “Did you believe me to be under attack?” he husked in a low, quiet voice that sent a fierce shiver through her, cranking up her temperature another thousand degrees.
    She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She nodded, and admitting it left her feeling like a fool.
    “And you came to my aid?” Had he moved closer to her? His breath washed over her cheek, moist and hot, smelling faintly of something sweet and the coppery tang of blood.
    Sable nodded again.
    “You are but a little mortal female… yet you desired to fight all these demon males in order to protect me?”
    When he put it like that, she couldn’t stop herself from blushing harder. She had reacted on instinct but the tone of his voice and the way he drew her closer still, until she could feel his heat rolling off him and over her, told her that he thought she did it because she felt something for him.
    Desired him.
    She cleared her throat, finally locked down her emotions and found her voice again, and even the courage to lift her gaze to his. “Not out of favouritism or anything. I’m here on a mission and that mission entails protecting you and your kingdom from demons. I saw you battling a score of demons and I did my duty.”
    She twisted her hand free of his grip and hated the sharp disappointed edge his eyes gained. It made her feel like a bitch. She grabbed her blade from the dark stone pavement and jammed it into its sheath, and then snatched up her crossbow and checked it over, taking her time about it, stewing under the intense heat of his gaze.
    Sable kept her head bent and holstered her crossbow and the unused explosive dart. Thorne continued to stare at her. So did everyone else. She was not going to blush. She racked her brain, trying to think of something to say to make everything go back to normal, and diligently kept her gaze away from Thorne.
    She had also forgotten how impossibly tight his dark mahogany leather trousers were. They clung to his muscular thighs, stretched over them like a second skin, held closed by criss-crossed lacing over his crotch.
    Not staring. Not staring.
    Her eyes betrayed her, leaping to the impressive bulge in his trousers, and she forced it upwards before anyone noticed. Thorne’s gaze locked with hers again, holding her immobile.
    “I’ll need my blades and bolts back now,” she muttered, not quite with the world or aware of what she was saying.
    Thorne nodded. “Of course.”
    He signalled his men and Sable realised just what she had asked, and felt dismal as the men immediately tore the barbed darts and throwing knives from their flesh without giving a single grunt or revealing a flicker of the pain they must have experienced.
    They came forwards and placed the weapons into Thorne’s outstretched hand. He wiped the blood off them on his leather trousers and then