From the book

1

Present day

The Tongue and Groove Strip Club, Southern Louisiana

A lap dance for the sexy demon?"

With a firm shake of his head, Rydstrom Woede turned down the half-clad female.

"With a lap like yours, I'll make myself at home," another told him. "For free." She cupped one of her breasts upward and dipped her tongue to her nipple.

That got him to raise an eyebrow, but still he said, "Not interested."

This was one of the low points of his life, surrounded by strippers in a neon-lit Lore club. He was on edge in this ridiculous place, feeling like the worst hypocrite. If his ne'er-do-well brother found out where he'd been, he would never hear the end of it.

But Rydstrom's contact had insisted on meeting here.

When a pretty nymph sidled up behind him to massage his shoulders, he picked up her hands and faced her. "I said no."

The females here left him cold, which confounded him -- since he needed a woman beneath him so badly. His eyes must have darkened, because the nymph quickly backed away. About to lose my temper with a nymph? Getting angered at one of her kind for touching him was like scolding a dog for tail wagging at the sight of a bone.

Lately, Rydstrom had been a constant hair trigger's turn from succumbing to rage. The fallen king known for his coolheaded reason, for his patience with others, felt like a bomb about to explode.

He'd been experiencing an inexplicable anticipation -- a sense of building, a sense that something big was going to happen soon.

But because this urgency had no discernible source or alleviation, frustration welled in him. He didn't eat, couldn't sleep a night through.

For the last couple of weeks, he'd awakened to find himself thrusting against the pillow or the mattress or even into his own fist, desperate for a soft female below him to ease the strangling frustration he felt. Gods, I need a woman.

Yet he had no time to woo a decent one. Just another conflict battling within him.

The kingdom's needs always come before the king's.

So much was at stake in the fight to reclaim his crown -- from Omort the Deathless, a foe who could never be killed.

Rydstrom had once faced him and knew from bitter experience that the sorcerer was undestroyable. Though he'd beheaded Omort, it was Rydstrom who'd barely escaped their confrontation nine hundred years before.

Now Rydstrom searched for a way to truly kill Omort forever. Backed by his brother Cadeon and Cadeon's gang of mercenaries, Rydstrom doggedly tracked down one lead after another.

The emissary he was to meet tonight -- a seven-foot-tall pus demon named Pogerth -- would be able to help them.

He'd been sent by a sorcerer named Groot the Metallurgist, Omort's half brother, a man who wanted Omort dead almost as much as Rydstrom did. Groot was little better than Omort, but an enemy of my enemy...

Just then, a demoness dressed in black leather with cheap makeup on her horns gave Rydstrom a measuring look as she passed, but he turned away.

He was... curious about wicked females, always had been, but they weren't his type -- no matter what Cadeon occasionally threw in his face when they fought.

No, Rydstrom wanted his queen, his own fated female, a virtuous demoness to stand by his side and grace his bed. ...

Author: Kresley Cole
Bio:   KRESLEY COLE is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the vastly popular Immortals After Dark paranormal series. The first IAD novel--A Hunger Like No Other--won the 2007 RITA Award for Best Paranormal Romance, and Kiss of a Demon King topped the New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. Kresley Cole has also written five award-winning historical romances.

A master's grad in English and former competitive athlete, Kresley lives in Florida with her husband and far too many pets.

Visit her website at www.kresleycole.com.