A Ruin of Roses (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 1)

The pang of remorse and guilt that followed that thought was unexpected. Fuck it all, I just couldn’t win.

“So, how’d it go?” Hadriel asked in a singsong voice with a grimace. “Get those plants sorted?”

My face burned with embarrassment. In the moment, I hadn’t thought about people watching. I wouldn’t have cared.

“You didn’t turn away, did you?” I asked as I sat down to the lovely spread of food on the bright pink and orange blanket.

“Turn away? Love, please, you must be kidding me.” He sat down with me. “I couldn’t look away! I didn’t know if he was going to bang you or break you. It was wonderfully tense.”

“Hey.” Leala batted his shoulder. “What are you doing? That’s for her. You’re not supposed to sit with them.”

“She’s not a them, first, and I will let her eat it. But you heard the master; I’m supposed to keep her safe…somehow. If she gets into trouble, he’ll kill me.” He smoothed his hair back. “So I’ve got that going for me now. It’s like…I think my life can’t get any worse, and then bam. Here’s a shit sandwich, Hadriel. Enjoy your lunch!”

I stared at him incredulously. “When did he tell you to keep me safe?”

“Just right now when he went away. I’m to let you find a garden that you can grow your herbs in. And I’m to watch over you. If you get into trouble, he expects me to call him immediately.”

“That’s not keeping her safe,” Leala said. “That’s just tattling on her.”

“Keeping her safe, tattling on her—either way, he has his eye on me and wants me to report to him. And do you know what will happen if the demons find out?” He gestured between him and me. “We’ll both be killed.”

I held up my hands. “I do not understand that guy. He essentially just told me to fuck off and leave him alone, and yet he’s setting someone to guard me? To tattle on me?”

“Oh, no way can Hadriel guard you, milady,” Leala said, laughing. “If anything were to go down, he’d probably soil himself as he ran away.”

Hadriel turned to her. “Leala, honey, eat glass.”

“Walk off a cliff,” she responded pleasantly.

I chuckled. “What sort of trouble can I get into?”

Hadriel pointed at the everlass field. “You just made out with the most dangerous, unhinged guy in this kingdom—”

“Except for the demon king,” Leala said. “He’s more dangerous.”

“He is not more dangerous than the master,” Hadriel shot back.

“Of course he is. He can control the master.”

While I listened to them bicker, I selected a sandwich and took a bite. Cured ham and cheese. Delicious.

Hadriel half turned toward her. “The demon king can only control the master by using the curse as a leash. The master isn’t even supposed to have jurisdiction, remember? In the beginning, he was just supposed to stick to the castle like the rest of us did. But he killed any demon that tried to keep him from the Royal Wood. Tell me that the demon king is more powerful than that!”

“But the demon king does have the curse as a leash, so technically he is.”

“Technically you’re a waste of resources.”

“Suck an asshole.”

“Whoa, okay…” I put my hands out.

“My point was”—he gave Leala a poignant stare; she rolled her eyes—“you clearly don’t make the best decisions.”

“What about the girls he bangs?” I asked. “Do they have a guard detail, too?”

An awkward silence greeted my question. I lifted my eyebrows.

“He doesn’t bang girls,” Hadriel responded as Leala said, “He hasn’t been with anyone since the curse, I don’t think.”

“Wait…” I lowered my half-eaten sandwich. “What?”

“Yes, you might have to take a second with that one.” Hadriel patted my knee. “I cannot even fathom what his blue balls must be like. I mean, shame-fucking warps the brain, yes, but being backed up for years and years? That would drive a man mental.”

“He has some…issues,” Leala said carefully. “He won’t have sex with a demon because they moved in and ruined our lives. He has a lot more self-control than the rest of us do, obviously. I didn’t want to touch those demons either, I really didn’t. But the incubi are really handsome, and eventually I got tired of everyone else, and then…”

“Shame-fucking,” Hadriel finished. Leala shrugged and nodded. “That leaves the household staff. We assumed he was secretly fucking some of us, but all the secrets and then some have come out by now, and no. He’s not fucking anyone in the castle. So then we assumed he might be fucking some of the villagers. Stands to reason. They feed him information, and then he probably gets a little whisper and a poke down that way. But he seems to only meet with men.”

“He’s not into men,” Leala said.

“Right. He’s not into men.”

“Wait a minute.” I pushed my last bite to the side of my cheek. “He’s meeting with villagers?”