“Listen, you little whore,” he snarled. “You’re going to give me what I want or you’ll never get a piece of the Healing Lattice! This is your one and only chance to earn it so you’d best behave!”
Elli felt sick.
“You’re disgusting!” she said, her voice shaking. “And ungrateful! You never could have gotten near Demon—let alone ridden him—if I hadn’t helped you!”
“Ah, Demon—you really care for the big brute, don’t you?” The Crown Prince sneered at her.
“Of course I do!” Elli exclaimed. “He’s got a lot more honor than you,” she spat, glaring at the man advancing on her. She was still backing away, though there was really nowhere she could run. The back doors of the stables were locked and only the head groom had the key.
“Well if you really give a damn what happens to him, you’ll give me what I want,” the Crown Prince snapped. “Otherwise I’ll have him shot right in front of you. How do you like that?”
“You wouldn’t!” Elli was filled with horror. How could she have so misjudged the Tenebrian monarch? She’d thought him a fop—a foolish man who cared more for his vanity more than anything else, but harmless nonetheless. Now she saw he was a monster—but the realization had come too late. He had her cornered and there was no way out.
I’ll fight him! she thought fiercely. I’ll never let him do what he wants!
But even if she fought the Crown Prince off, then what? He was holding the life of the old Priestess Superior and Demon’s life over her head like a threat. Both of them would die if Elli didn’t give him what he wanted. But she couldn’t just let him rape her, could she?
“You know I would,” he said now, advancing on her again. “I’ll kill the big brute and you’ll never get a piece of the Healing Lattice unless you raise your skirt and spread your legs like a good girl to earn it!”
He lunged for her again and Elli gasped and tripped backwards, knocking into Demon’s stall door. The loose latch rattled at the impact and Demon snorted from inside.
Before she could right herself, the Crown Prince used Elli’s moment of weakness to his advantage. Gripping her by the shoulders, he smashed her to the ground, right outside the huge zorel’s stall, and climbed on top of her.
“No! No, stop!” Elli shouted at the top of her lungs. Now that it came to it, she found that she simply couldn’t let herself be raped. She kicked and fought, screaming for help as loud as she could—help that she knew would never come because Roke was back in the palace and everyone else was too afraid to stop the Crown Prince from taking whatever he wanted…
Suddenly Demon’s stall door rattled alarmingly and then banged open with a hollow boom as it hit the door beside it. One good kick had broken the loose latch and given him his freedom.
Out of his stall, charged the huge zorel. Pawing the ground with his long foreclaws, he roared his displeasure at seeing Elli in danger.
“Demon!” Elli gasped. “Demon, help me!”
“What? What’s all this then?” The Crown Prince looked up.
He had been so busy trying to push Elli’s voluminous skirts up and get his own stubby member out of his golden breeches that he’d barely noticed anything until Demon roared. Now he looked up at the immense zorel, his bulging eyes going wide with alarm.
“Steady now, boy,” he said, holding up a hand to fend off Demon, who was glaring down at him with red eyes. “Just go back in your stall now, there’s a good fellow.”
“I think you’d better get off me now,” Elli told him, her voice shaking with emotion. “Demon isn’t one of your servants you can order around. He won’t like it if he thinks you’re hurting me.”
At her words, the huge zorel snorted menacingly and took a step forward, pawing the ground again.
“How dare you!” The Crown Prince looked both frightened and angry as he glared from Demon to Elli and back again. “How dare you threaten me with my own beast?”
“Demon isn’t yours,” Elli said clearly, glaring back at him. “And neither am I. Now get off me before I tell him to flame you, Your Majesty.”
“You little bitch!” His fury overcoming his fear, the Crown Prince struck her, hard across the face. “How dare you deny me!” he shouted in Elli’s face as she gasped and clutched at her hurt cheek. “How dare you—”
And that was when Demon roared with fury and a stream of flame hit the Tenebrian monarch squarely in the chest.
Forty-Six
“Warrior, the one I sent you to protect is in danger! Go to her now!”
The urgent words caught Roke by surprise. For the past half hour he’d been having a nagging, worried feeling about Ellilah but he had pushed it away and kept packing. He was sure it was just his own conscience telling him that he had treated her wrong and he told himself she didn’t want to see him any more than necessary. So he had ignored the feeling, though it continued to grow until at last the Goddess—for it must be her—actually shouted at him.