Free Tempted By the Night by Elizabeth Boyle

of an animal, sharp and dangerous. “But I’ve come to help you,” he said, his words coming out in a lazy purr, only emphasizing his tawny, leonine features.
    “Help me? Help yourself, would be more like it. As you have been for the last few months.”
    The evil lord before him stilled. “What do you mean? I haven’t been—”
    Rockhurst waved his hand, dismissing whatever the creature had to say as more lies and deceptions. “Haven’t been what? Feeding? Of course you have. What about the girl from the other night. Or have you gotten so corrupt and aged, you can’t remember?”
    Taking a step back, Melaphor studied him, his fair brows drawn across his pale features in a taut line. It was almost as if he were weighing these accusations for the first time.
    The disquiet that had weighed on Rockhurst earlier resurfaced. There was something wrong about all this. But like the scent of apple blossoms, he shook off such deceptively distracting thoughts.
    For it had to have been Melaphor—or at the very least, one of his minions. For who else could have wrought such horrors?
    The fiend tipped his head and studied him. “How dull of you to natter on about my age. As for a girl…” He gave a negligent shrug of his narrow shoulders. “Was she pretty? I tend to remember the pretty ones more readily.” He chuckled, but his laughter held no playful humor but a deadly reminder of the horror he wascapable of. “And now that you mention it, I am rather hungry. Indulge me, my friend. Look the other way and I shall reward you. Just this once—a small child perhaps, or some bit of gamine untried flesh. A reward for not killing you a few moments ago.”
    “If you could have killed me, you would have,” Rockhurst said, keeping Carpio pointed at the creature’s black heart.
    “Truly, would you honestly miss one of these insignificant little mice you call your subjects?”
    “I have none to spare.”
    “Such a poor kingdom for a prince, don’t you think? I rather pity you—for we are much alike I think. Desirous of a life beyond our own, shall we say, tedious obligations.”
    “We are nothing alike,” Rockhurst replied. He settled into his boots, his footing regained and his confidence coming to the forefront.
    If only he could shrug off the notion that there was somebody behind him. Most likely it had been one of Melaphor’s tricks, but then again…
    “Nothing alike? Don’t fool yourself, Paratus. I kill for pleasure—as you do.”
    “I kill to keep my people safe, and I will kill you if you take one more step into my realm.”
    “Kill me?” Melaphor’s eyes narrowed and lips drawn into a sneer, “I think not. For if you did, my entire family would follow me here to feast—”
    “What? In celebration of your removal from their midst?”
    Melaphor shrugged. “Amusing, but crude. Do youreally think you can kill me, Paratus?” He paced a bit to the left and the right, smoothly and sleekly like a tiger in a cage, testing the boundaries of his prison. “Do you know how many of your kind I’ve killed? Eighteen. I’ve left them just alive enough to watch me take my pleasures with their wives and daughters before I ended their servitude in this wretched world of yours. Really, I was doing them a service, one that I would be more than happy to offer you.”
    “You can try,” Rockhurst told him, feeling the surge of power that came just before a fight.
    “Not yet, youngling. You haven’t mated yet, haven’t produced an heir.”
    “Who’s to say I haven’t?”
    “Oh, you’ve rutted your way through this city of yours, but you haven’t mated. Found that one woman to tempt your lily-pure heart. If you had, I would be able to smell it on you—like the scent of fear.” Melaphor paused and studied him. “And I will take great pleasure in killing her, if only to see the pain it will cause you for denying me what I want.”
     
    This is a nightmare, Hermione told herself, pinching her arms and hoping she