Free Tempted by a Rogue Prince by Felicity Heaton Page B

it when she wasn’t sure whether it was food that was two days old or freshly delivered today. The demon’s grip on her arm tightened. She took the hint and the bowl, closed her eyes and grimaced as she swallowed the thick lumpy liquid, choking on it.
    The demon snatched the bowl away and tossed it onto the floor, knocking over the others and spilling their contents across the flagstones.
    “Come.” He dragged her with him along the corridor, mercifully away from the torture room.
    Following the dark crimson stain that formed a trail towards the elf.
    Was she to heal him? She didn’t dare ask the demon. They didn’t like it when she questioned them. It normally earned her a trip to the rack and she wanted to see the elf. He would be healing by now, but she didn’t have the heart to carry out her threat and leave him to suffer. She would heal whatever injuries remained.
    The demon stopped outside his cell and Rosalind stared in horror.
    The elf hadn’t healed at all.
    He lay on the stone slab, as nude as the day he was born, left there for everyone to see. His eyes darted around behind their closed lids and he muttered things beneath his breath in the elf language. He was in that strange state again, trapped inside himself just as before.
    “Heal him. King Bruan wishes to speak with him.” The demon shoved her into the cell and locked the door behind her.
    The king wanted to see him again, after he had subjected him to such vicious torture? Why?
    Rosalind walked to the elf where he lay chained to the stone slab, bent and tore a strip of material off the bottom of her black dress, bringing the hem up to above her knees. The chain between her manacles swayed and clinked as she draped the piece of material over his hips, covering him with it and giving him back some of the dignity the bastard demons had stolen from him.
    He growled.
    “It’s okay. It’s just me,” she whispered but the sound of her voice only made him worse. He struggled against his restraints, rattling the chains that fastened him in place, splitting open several of the gashes across his chest and arms.
    “Out,” he snapped. “Leave.
Witch
.”
    Her heart sank. She hadn’t been very nice to him during their last encounter and hadn’t expected him to be thrilled to see her, but for some reason it hurt that he was back to wanting her away from him.
    She drew in a deep, fortifying breath. “I hate to remind you, but I don’t exactly have a choice here. Either I heal you, or they do to me what they have done to you.”
    He stilled, tensed and then growled again, darker this time, a rumbling sound that sent a ripple of danger through the air and rang her internal alarm bells. He was gearing up for a fight.
    The question of the day was did he want to fight her or the demons?
    He had tried to protect her before. Was it that same desire that made him growl now? Was it the thought of her being tortured that upset him?
    “I’m healing you, whether you like it or not.” She moved around the other side of him, allowing the light from the corridor to wash over his body and help her with her task.
    She began with a visual inspection, not wanting to risk enraging him by laying her hands on his body until it was necessary.
    The incubus prowled around his cell across from her, his bare feet silent on the stone floor but his movements still a distraction, together with the unsettling feeling of his intense green gaze fixed on her.
    “Bloody annoying git,” she muttered in the fae tongue, knowing he was listening, and brought all of her focus onto the elf.
    Her visual check came to an abrupt stop when she hit his knees. A soft gasp escaped her and she covered her mouth.
    His knees were bruised and swollen, spotted with red beneath his tight skin. The demons had broken them. She bent and hovered her free hand above them, her heart going out to him. Her healing power warned her that it wasn’t only his kneecaps they had broken. There were several fractures