UNMASKED

CHAPTER 4

SALVADOR'S POV

"Demon and the heir of Nerraw are here. Demon is wounded."

The words hit me like a punch to the gut, and I immediately rushed down the hallway, my heart pounding. As I rounded the corner, there she was—Demon, peeling off her bloodied clothes, her body a canvas of fresh wounds. Some cuts were shallow, others deep, angry slashes. Her back, which had once bore a large scar, now carried the ink of a queen chess piece tattoo. Fitting for her, I suppose. Always the strategist, always in control.

"Prepare her bath and the medicine," Clyde ordered, standing beside her. Unlike Demon, he was unscathed, not a single mark on him. Anger flared in my chest. Did he just stand there and watch her fight alone?

Before I could voice my outrage, Clyde raised his hands in mock surrender, reading my expression perfectly. “Oops, before you jump to any conclusions, let me explain. She ordered me not to interfere, so I didn’t. You know how she gets when disobeyed.” He casually dropped onto the sofa, lounging like he hadn’t just let Demon fight a war by herself. “She went up against fifty armed men, and she fought them off. Unarmed.”

I clenched my fists, frustration boiling over. “You could’ve at least helped—”

"Conan died because he interfered too much in her plans," Clyde cut me off sharply, his eyes narrowing. “And I don’t intend to end up like him.”

Conan. My chest tightened at the mention of his name. Clyde was right, of course. Conan’s love for Demon had cost him everything. He’d stepped into her line of fire one too many times, always trying to protect her, and it had destroyed him. But still, watching Demon like this, bloodied and bruised, made it hard to keep quiet.

"You can't have Hyra," I said suddenly, the words slipping out before I could stop them. The moment they left my mouth, Clyde flinched, visibly taken aback.

His smirk returned, though. “You sure about that?”

I smiled darkly, stepping closer. “You’re not Conan. You’ll never be Conan, and because of that, you’ll never have her.”

I left him there, stunned, but I could feel his gaze burning into my back as I walked away. Clyde could play his games, flirt with the idea that Demon—or Hyra, as she used to be known—could ever belong to him. But I knew better. Demon was broken, shattered by the loss of Conan, and no one—*no one*—would ever fill that void.

As I approached Demon’s quarters, I couldn’t shake the image of Clyde’s painful expression. Poor fool. He didn’t understand. I had seen firsthand how Hyra went mad for Conan, the way her whole world revolved around him. Clyde thought he could fill that role, that he could somehow capture her heart. But he was wrong. Conan was the only man Hyra had ever loved, and he would be the only man she ever *would* love.

I knocked gently on the door before entering. Demon was already sitting on the edge of the bath, her body slumped in exhaustion as the steam from the water rose around her. Her eyes flickered to me, but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.

“You’re reckless,” I muttered, kneeling beside her to inspect the wounds up close. “Taking on fifty men alone? What were you thinking?”

She smiled weakly, the corners of her lips lifting ever so slightly. “I wasn’t.”

Typical. Demon didn’t fight for strategy or survival. She fought because that’s what she was—a fighter, a force of nature. And no matter how much she bled, no matter how many scars she collected, she’d always come back for more.

I soaked a cloth and began cleaning the blood from her skin. She didn’t flinch, didn’t move. It was as if she barely felt the pain anymore, as if she had long since become numb to it.