A Queen of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 4)

“Does anyone ever actually believe you?” Vemar asked him, still smiling.

“No, they don’t,” Leala said, standing beside me. To Nyfain she said, “Are you sure you want to see this, sire?”

Nyfain held my hand. His sword was strapped to his back. “Want to? No. I do not want to see the conditions in which my mate was tortured for those many months. Do I need to? Yes. I’ve heard her story, all your stories, but I have a feeling I didn’t really grasp the magnitude of the situation. I want to have better context. I want to share in the horror so that I can better offer her—and you—support and compassion.”

“If you didn’t break a demon over your knee or routinely succumb to fits of rage, I’d say you were getting soft, your highness,” Hadriel said. “As it is, I assume you’ll make a great dad and mate, but I will continue being wary of your moods.”

“Wise, Hadriel.”

“Yes, sire. Thank you, sire. That didn’t improve my mood. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it.”

I looked behind us to the host of people who’d decided to go with us. Only some of them were past residents, like Micah, Tamara, Weston, and a few of the others. Most wanted to see what the people they knew had been through. Other people, like Hannon and Dessia, wanted to personally make sure the demons down there were dead. They’d volunteered to go first, since the only person who could kill each of them was the other.

Then there were the demons. Govam had fully healed in the two days since the battle, having consumed my usual elixir mixed with one of the illuminated everlass leaves. He’d been helping us go through the castle and find demons that were still alive, identifying those that needed to be killed on the spot and those that could adjust to a new, less loathsome, order. More were saved than killed, especially in the lower power scales.

He’d wanted to come down to the dungeons to make sure we didn’t get lost, and in case there were any problems. Denski, Sonassa, and a few of the others had the same thought. They’d already been through here, though. They’d made it their job to kill all the new officers that had been created. The two factions had never liked each other anyway, and it saved us from having to do it.

“Let’s go.” Nyfain squeezed my hand.

The smell hit me, and memories immediately came flooding back. The pain. The pleasure through the bond. The parties. The torture. Nyfain looked up at the ceiling in the main room, tracing the large stone columns with his eyes.

“This is the whipping post.” Micah stopped next to it, loathing in his expression. “The dragons spent a lot of time here. A lot of my blood was spilled on that ground. The knives were the worst, I think.”

“I wasn’t partial to the whips, myself,” Tamara said, her hands in her pockets. “They were unpredictable.”

“We didn’t get whipped as much,” Weston said as the newcomers toured the area and the rest of us replayed our horror. “I was probably whipped the most, because I had the most power to offer, but I was also worth more at the parties.”

Nyfain stiffened, bowing a little and looking at the ground as we walked. He didn’t comment.

“This is where Finley poisoned all the officers.” Hadriel stopped beside the large copper container that had once held the officers’ drink. It lay on its side on the ground, empty. “Those fucking creatures were so weird. They all looked nearly identical.”

“They were all fashioned after the first officer,” Micah said. “He made the others in his image.”

“And how was he made?” someone asked.

Tamara and Micah and Weston all shrugged.

“We didn’t have a lot of quality conversations with those creatures,” Tamara said. She looked at Govam.

He shook his head. “I was never privy to that side of things, and I was fine with that. They weren’t creatures I liked dealing with.”

Uneasiness crawled through the bond as Nyfain and I separated down the stairs. Govam stopped on the first landing and looked down the middle of the cells.

“This was the non-dragon grouping,” he said, waiting as some of the others moved through it. “They were used a lot in parties because they were easier to manage. It means they were tortured less.”

“We were tortured plenty,” Weston said. “Just in a different way.”

“True,” Tamara murmured.

“Why not use the dragons more in parties?” someone asked. “Goddess alive, look at these cells. A bit of straw, a bucket…”

“The dragons made a sport out of killing guards,” Denski said. “They were too volatile. They only attended the larger parties that had more security.”

Down the next set of stairs and Nyfain blew out a breath.

“The one at the end?” he asked, starting forward slowly. “That’s what you said, right?”