CHAPTER 2

His eyes narrowed as he stared down at me. He wasn't quite sure what to say to that. I supposed it wouldn't make much sense to him. He hadn't had everything stripped from him, like Neff had. He hadn't spent sixteen years watching his beloved kingdom crumble around him. And he certainly hadn't grown up poor and trapped like I had. Unable to reach the magic I was born with, fighting a curse that was slowly stealing the lives of those I loved.

No, he didn't know what ruin looked like. And he didn't know how to rise from the ashes. I'd make sure he never did.

Because I would be the bitch that burned down his whole world.

He pursed his lips and glanced at his minions behind him. "Take them to the dungeons. Around the side, mind. We'll need to do something about the stench clinging to her before any of the court can see her." He turned his attention back to me. "Clever of the dragon, to coat you in his scent. He is a conquered beast, but he still has his alpha legacy, it seems. But it won't protect you for long." Daniel studied me a moment. "Instruct the guards not to mar her face. I want my court to watch Beauty as she breaks."

"What about her arms?" asked the demon looming over Jandry. "What skin will be visible?"

"Yes, good point. Do not mar the arms, no. No neck, even though we will want to cover that ridiculous bite mark on her shoulder. Shifters," he spat. "So barbaric, marking their mates. Disgusting."

"And this?" The demon stepped forward again, kicking at Jandry's legs. Jandry curled up a little tighter.

"That one is somewhat handsome for a shifter, no?" Daniel said, assessing Jandry now. "I can think of a few ladies who might like him as a pet. Tell the guards to go easy on him if he cooperates."

"But not the princess?"

Daniel sneered. "She won't cooperate. Her dragon will forbid it."

He's not wrong, my dragon thought.

Daniel made a signal, and the demons around him moved forward. Two grabbed Jandry and hauled him up, hustling him toward the castle. Two others grabbed my arms and yanked me to my feet, one tweaking my shoulder painfully.

Daniel's gaze traveled my face, and he reached out. I struggled not to jerk my head away as he lightly fingered the hair draping my cheek and then ran his manicured nails along my jaw and down to my chin. He applied pressure to tilt my face up a bit.

"So pretty, even disheveled as you are. I wouldn't mind using you as a pet myself. One mighty dragon on my leash, and his mate at my beck and call." A ghost of a smile crossed his lips, and my dragon thrashed in my hold, wanting to break free and crush some bones. "As soon as we can get that stench off you, it will be so. I promise. You will beg for my cock. I'll let your dragon prince watch as you do so…right before I kill you. It'll finally break him. I know it will."

"Hmm. What an offer," I said, winking. "Very tempting. I'll need to pass, though. I'm partial to dragon-sized cocks. I don't beg for appetizers."

He huffed out a laugh. "Even dragons break. In the end, you will be my little lamb, eager for affection. And my entire court will watch you fall."

A chill arrested me, but I kept myself from squirming. "Promises, promises."

"Time, your highness," he said as his gaze roamed my body. "All one needs is time. Even the strongest beings will crack and crumble given enough time and pressure." His eyes turned hungry. "And I have all the time in the world."

His hand drifted lower, toward my breast. I braced myself for the touch, but his hand stopped right before touching down, a wrinkle worming between his eyebrows. His jaw set, and a glimmer of fear sparked in his blood-red eyes.

Touching my face was one thing—Daniel had a lot of power and could withstand Neff's aromatic presence for such a benign gesture—but my breast was altogether different. Touching me there would be more intimate, erotic. And so he felt the full weight of the dragon's protection. It didn't matter that the golden prince wasn't here in the flesh.

Daniel pulled his hand away and turned. A burst of movement and he was walking toward the castle, a group of his strongest minions, similar in color to him, following at his heels.

"Let's go." A black-scaled demon gave me a shove.

As we crested the rise, the wind slammed into us, knocking me sideways into Jandry. He huddled down into his sopping clothes, glancing beyond me. I followed his gaze, taking in the stark vegetation atop the hill—nothing but a few bare trees permanently bowed by the roaring wind, sickly bushes, and weeds. Beyond, the sea stretched out into the darkness. My dragon's power meant I could see in the dark with a black, white, and yellow color spectrum, but not at great distances like that. In the day, it would probably look like that part of the sea carried on into eternity.

Daniel's crew continued forward toward the grand front entrance of the castle, with a large gate arching over what had to be the door. It was too far away for me to see much detail. Of course, we weren't headed for the front entrance, and after we reached the windswept hilltop, our captors veered us right. We plodded along the side of the structure, likely aiming for a fast track to the dungeon.

As we neared the castle, I looked up at the monstrous thing, reaching far into the rain-soaked sky with multiple towers practically piercing the thick, sodden clouds. Or so it seemed from the ground.

My legs ached by the time we reached a little berm at the base of the wall. The metal door nestled within it clearly led down into the bowels of the castle. The hinges squealed as one of the demons bent and pulled it open, no key needed. He looked down into the dark depths, the blackness giving nothing away.

"Did his majesty say anything about the magical lock?" He hesitated a moment before asking in a louder voice, "Does anyone know if they stripped the obice covering this entrance?" He looked at the demon holding Jandry, his flat face lined with wariness. "Did anyone ask?"

Obice. Ah. No key needed because the lock was magical in nature. Shit. In all the reading I'd done about the demons and their castle, trying to prepare myself for this moment, I didn't recall anything regarding this type of demon magic.

"Gio can release the obice," someone said. "He has the magic to do it."

The crowd shifted around, looking for whoever that was.

"Not at present," a deep, somewhat bored-sounding voice said from somewhere behind me. "I had that ability and others, but they were suppressed as punishment while I'm on this detail."

A few grumbled at that, turning back to the demon standing near the gaping blackness.

"Test it out," someone called from the back. "Walk down a bit."

"What, and lose my foot? Fuck off." The demon at the door looked through the crowd that had gathered around us. "Sandy, try it."

A female laugh sounded behind me. "I don't want to lose my foot any more than you do, Reno, and it won't be me his majesty punishes for dereliction of duty."

The demon by the door, Reno, licked his pale yellow lips, the color a little lighter than the rest of his face. Like all demons, he was capable of using a human form, but he clearly couldn't be bothered. Then again, why would he? He was among his kind, the rest of them in their natural forms as well, ranging from nearly human looking to leather or scaled or even feathered.

"Zulfy, run around and find out whether the defenses are turned off," Reno said.

I heard shuffling in the back. "That would take forever. You know what it's like in the dungeons. His highness doesn't enforce any sort of regulations down there. He lets the officers run wild as long as they make his creatures."