A Kingdom of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 3)

The demon by the door looked down into the hole’s depths, clearly debating. He lifted his gaze again, zipping over Jedrek and then landing on me. My stomach flipped at his sudden look of decisiveness.

“You, shifter woman, come here.” He gestured me forward. Tingles of warning spread across my skin.

Well, shit.

TWO

FINLEY

“Not her, idiot,” a familiar voice said from behind. Sonassa. “She’s the dragon prince’s mate. The king has plans for her. Besides, didn’t you hear? He’ll want her as a pet eventually.”

“His highness just said not to mar her face or arms,” Ressfu said. “He said nothing about her legs.”

“He’ll want both of them to be there,” Sonassa replied.

Ressfu looked beyond me, probably at Sonassa, clearly thinking it over. Anticipation rolled in my gut, and I got to work planning what I would do if they called on me to be the fall guy.

No problem, my dragon thought. Grab that fuckstain Ressfu and toss him down the hole. See if he dies. They might beat the shit out of us, but that’s better than losing a leg.

This was true.

“Fine,” Ressfu said before spitting to the side. “Luru, come here. You have the least seniority. Dip your tail in and see if the coast is clear.”

The demon beside me grunted as if he thought it a fine idea.

Luru, a leathery-skinned demon with a hunch, didn’t seem to agree. He slunk closer with a slack face, looking between Ressfu and the gaping door at his feet.

“I think it’s probably fine,” Luru said in a weak voice, stalling at the edge of the door. “The officers may not be regulated, but they are always punctual. They’re always eager for fresh prisoners, especially dragons. They’ll know the king was planning on bringing prisoners in at about this time.”

“How would they know that?” Ressfu said. “These shifters weren’t planned for.”

“Not these shifters, no, but his highness almost always brings back some shifters from that kingdom, doesn’t he? And he always sends them around this way to get cleaned up. Right?”

It didn’t sound like he was entirely sure of what he was saying. Still, the words pinged around inside my head. Were some of the people from my kingdom—maybe even my village!—down in that dungeon?

Heart pounding, I waited as Luru argued for a moment longer before two demons stepped out of the crowd and roughly grabbed him.

“I’ll go around!” Luru hollered as they marshaled him down a step, into the doorway. “I’m fast! I run fast! The officers like me. I’ll just go— No!”

They lowered him. He pulled up his thin tail and bent his legs, suspended above the blackness.

“No. Please,” Luru pleaded.

“Drop him,” Ressfu said.

Luru started screaming and writhing as his captors released him over what was surely a staircase. He dropped down squirming, hit at an awkward angle, and screams turned into painful grunts and then screams again as he rolled down the stairs.

“Coward,” someone spat.

Sonassa laughed. “You think you would’ve approached the situation with more decorum, do you? I didn’t see you volunteering.”

A few others snickered.

“We’re good,” Ressfu said, motioning everyone on.

The two demons already at the opening descended the stairs one at a time, darkness swallowing them as they went.

The demons holding me started forward, jostling me to keep up even though I wasn’t resisting. They got to the mouth of the doorway.

“Wait,” Ressfu said, eyeing my face. His mouth curled into a sinister grin. “You got lucky, dragon. You must know it. What will make you squeal, eh? I like to watch your kind quiver.”

The two beside me chuckled darkly.

Ressfu reached for me, taking my arm in a clawed grip and jerking me toward the mouth of the stairs. Darkness covered what lay beneath—the kind of thick, impenetrable darkness that suggested magic was at work.

The demon’s breath smelled like dead things. “Are your kind bred to feel no fear? Let’s see.”

He shoved me out over the lip of the doorway and into nothingness. Gravity snagged at me immediately, yanking me down.

Protect your head, my dragon thought-hollered, blasting me with power. The sweet fire filled me up and rushed through my blood. My senses heightened and my thought process sped up as blackness washed over me, cutting out my sight. It was clearly magically induced.

I closed my eyes so it wouldn’t distract me, focusing instead on my other senses and the need to survive. Pungent aromas assaulted me, vomit and piss and decay wrapped in a musty scent like mold. I twisted and bent, making sure my first point of contact would be my side. A moment later, my hip hit a hard corner, half on and half off my sword scabbard. My upper body slammed down on stone steps.

I grunted and tucked, wrapping my hands around my head, forming a shape as close to a ball as I could manage.

Hang on, folks, we’re about to do a little acrobatics, I thought desperately, speaking to my imaginary audience the way I always did under dire circumstances. My dragon must have felt the pressure, because she didn’t call me an idiot.