“As I was saying… the others will arrive this eve and there will be a feast.”
What the hell did demons eat at a feast? She cast an unnerved look at the elves and then at Olivia. The elves seemed at ease and they ate vegetables and fruits. Maybe the demons did too.
She could have laughed out loud at that thought. None of the demons she had met in her long career as a hunter had looked as if they enjoyed a nourishing five-a-day. They all looked as if they lived on a protein-rich diet. Plus, elves also drank blood, so there was just as much chance that demons did too and tonight’s feast would be served in cups and jugs.
“I am sure you all desire to settle into your quarters. Until the feast then.” Thorne bowed his head and Loren did too, and then the elf prince was walking towards her, Olivia and Bleu.
Loren took Olivia’s hand and led her away, following several demons. Sable trailed behind them, feeling Thorne’s gaze on her with each step, heating her to her core.
Cold swept over her and she looked back, wondering why Thorne had stopped looking at her.
Bleu hadn’t moved.
He stood in the middle of the room facing Thorne, his expression impassive but his ears pointed, flaring back against the sides of his head and tangled in his wild black hair. Thorne held his gaze, a corona of fiery red circling his darker crimson irises and his horns slowly curling around in front of his pointed ears.
Sable took a step towards both males and their focuses shattered, their gazes coming to her.
“Bleu?” she said, and then looked at Thorne, catching the fire burning in his eyes. Whatever challenge had passed unspoken between the two males, it had set alight to Thorne’s temper. She needed to get Bleu away from him before the demon king did something he might regret. She shifted her gaze back to Bleu. “Are you coming?”
He looked as though he wouldn’t and then nodded and began walking towards her.
Sable lingered, her focus drifting back to Thorne where he stood in the middle of the cavernous room. Bleu caught her arm, stealing her attention away from him, and she swore she heard Thorne growl.
She had seen Loren act like this around Olivia and it set her on edge.
His behaviour had all the hallmarks of a male with his mate and she didn’t like it. She had never seen the point in getting serious with a man in her line of work, when every patrol might be her last, and she had seen just how serious being a mate was with her friend. Olivia was now immortal, mated to an elf prince. Their love was forever.
For a flicker of a moment, what they shared had made Sable want to try on a relationship for size, but it had only been a passing fancy. A reaction to loneliness. She liked her dalliances short and hot. Not eternal.
Sable turned away from Thorne and followed Bleu. She frowned at the elf male’s hand on her arm. The jagged black claws of his armour covered his fingers and the tips pressed into her flesh. The sight of his hand on her, possessively clamped around her wrist, unnerved her too.
She took her arm back and he glanced at her, confusion reigning in his violet eyes when she scowled at him.
“I can find my own way.” She picked up pace but he remained with her, his long strides making it impossible for her to lose him. She gave up trying when they caught up with Loren and Olivia.
They reached the first floor and a nice male demon showed Bleu to his room at the start of the long corridor, giving her a moment to breathe. Another led her past Olivia and Loren’s quarters to the next arched dark wooden door. The man pushed it open and she thanked him with a smile before stepping inside. He muttered something in the demon tongue and closed the door behind her, leaving her alone.
Sable heaved a sigh and leaned her back against the wooden door, gazing at the large room. Her entire quarters at Archangel would fit into it four times over.
A breeze came in through the three arched windows in the wall opposite her, tousling the heavy dark red curtains. No glass.
Not much furniture either.
A large four-poster bed stood against the bare stone wall to her right, covered with thick pale furs. A dark wooden table with a speckled ancient oval mirror was to her left, beside a big wardrobe. The wall opposite the bed had a huge fireplace, with two threadbare velvet-covered armchairs in front of it. Maybe it was the lack of furniture and zero decorative touches that made the room look huge. She walked around it and decided that it wasn’t. It just added to the spacious feeling.
Sable paused in front of the fireplace.
The fire in the grate burned brightly.
Strange, but she had thought it would be hot in the demon realms, even though it had always been cool and breezy whenever she had visited the elf kingdom.
How far were they from that realm? She had never asked Loren about it before. Did Thorne have a map of Hell? She wanted to see where they were in comparison to the elf kingdom and the Fifth Realm.
Maybe Loren could tell her.
Sable left her room, went to the next one and opened the door. Olivia shrieked. Loren bit out a few nasty-sounding words in the elf language.
Sable covered her eyes and scrubbed the image of Loren playing tonsil tennis with Olivia while mostly naked from her mind.
“Sorry,” she muttered to the wooden floorboards. “Are you decent yet?”
“Knock next time,” Olivia snapped.
“In my defence, you’ve been alone for all of three minutes. I didn’t think you could make the leap from room orientation to sex in three minutes!” Rabbits. No. They were worse than bunnies. If Sable took her eyes off them for five seconds, they were kissing like teenagers.
Loren continued to growl dark-sounding things. She presumed they weren’t complimentary and were about her because he was firmly sticking to his own language. He still refused to share knowledge of the elf language with Archangel and she supposed she could understand his reluctance. No one other than the elves could understand or speak it. It was probably handy being able to speak a language your enemy couldn’t.
“Decent?” Sable asked in a small voice, fearing the elf prince was going to start directing more than insults at her.
“Yes,” Olivia answered and Sable came out from behind her hand.
Their love-nest looked much like her room, but with the layout reversed, so the bed was to her left and the fireplace to her right. She looked at the dressing table near the fireplace and idly said, “You don’t have a mirror.”
“You have a mirror?” Olivia looked as if Sable had just announced she had cable and a fifty-inch home cinema system.
Sable shrugged.
“Well… now we know for certain who the king’s favourite is.”
She glared daggers at her friend, and then at Loren when his sensual lips tugged into a teasing smile.
“Ha-ha. Drop it already.” Sable closed the door behind her and waited for them to look a little more serious before she continued. She decided she was going to have to wait a while.
Loren wrapped his arms around Olivia and stroked her cheek, smiling down into her eyes, looking like a lovesick fool for her friend. Olivia looked just as ridiculously sappy as she gazed up at her prince and rose on her tiptoes. Sable shifted her focus to the fireplace before she caught another eyeful of them locking lips.
Her chest ached and she ignored it.
It grew impossible when Olivia whispered sweet things to Loren and Sable found herself envying her friend.
Again.
Maybe she should have taken the time to try on a relationship for size. It did look sort of nice sometimes. Loren fussed over Olivia and Olivia did the same to him. They always had each other’s backs too. And she had never seen her friend so happy.
She scratched her neck and stared into the fire, listening to their murmured conversation and the demons stomping down the hall outside the door. They didn’t keep their voices low. Whatever they were discussing, it had them excited. Were they talking about the feast?
Sable closed her eyes and focused on her natural gift to sens
e non-humans. Their signatures came back strongly, far stronger than she had ever experienced. She could feel their excitement and the buzz running through the castle. It seeped into her as if it was her own, stirring her blood and sending a tremble of anticipation through her. She reached further, pushing herself, stretching down to the next level, seeking one strong heartbeat amidst the cacophony.
“Sable?” Olivia said, drawing her away from her pursuit of Thorne and back to the room. “You okay?”
Sable nodded. “Just fine tuning.”
Concern warmed Olivia’s dark brown eyes. Before her friend could go doctor on her and start asking about whether her gift was bothering her or if she had any problems with it, Sable smiled and shrugged it off.
More male voices boomed in the hallway. Talking about the feast? She had tried to learn a little of the demon tongue from Bleu but it was tricky. All she had mastered was how to greet someone depending on their status in your opinion, which mostly boiled down to various levels of insults.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Olivia asked and Sable nodded again.
“Just thinking about tonight.” Before Olivia could leap in with some ridiculous mention of Thorne, Sable added, “This whole feast thing has me a little jittery. I guess first times are always like that.”
“I have to admit, I haven’t a clue what to expect.” Olivia smiled at her and swept her wavy chestnut hair from her face, hooking it behind her ears. It was strange seeing Olivia in jeans and a black baby-doll t-shirt. She was so used to seeing her friend in her white coat with her hair pinned in a bun, looking all neat and authoritative.
Loren pulled some clothes out of thin air and Sable was never getting used to that. He could teleport whatever belonged to him from anywhere in the world, both this one and her one. He held the long elegant black jacket up and the rich elaborately detailed purple embroidery shone in the firelight.
“You are wondering what food they eat,” he said in passing and picked some fluff off the jacket before laying it down over the back of one of the armchairs and pulling a pair of trousers out of the air.
Sable gaped. “Do you read minds now?”
“No, but it was on both of your faces.” Loren flicked her a smile and he was charming.
Were there any ugly elves in their world? All of the ones she had met were beautiful, when their temper was in check.
When they slipped into a rage, it was a whole different matter.
She had caught Bleu in a very painful place a few times during their sparring and he always turned on her, his eyes flashing bright purple and his pointed ears flattening against the sides of his head as he hissed at her, exposing large sharp fangs.
“Demons prefer meats, but I am certain there will also be vegetables and perhaps other foods on offer, such as berries and cheeses.” He paused to lay his trousers down over his jacket and his black eyebrows drew down above his crystal violet eyes. “Although, I do recommend avoiding the cheeses. Many of the animals they milk are not the same as the ones mortals would choose.”
Sable didn’t want to ask, not even to assuage her curiosity.
Loren pulled an elegant long dark purple dress out of the air and Sable could no longer hide her worry about the feast.
“Is there a dress code for tonight?” She looked at the beautiful gown and then Loren’s fine clothing resting over the chair.
She hadn’t brought anything for this sort of situation and she doubted her team had either. All of her clothes were fit for battle and nothing else. Even if she had known in advance about the feast, it wouldn’t have helped. She didn’t own anything as fine as the dress Loren held. She didn’t own a dress period.
“I really don’t want to offend Thorne,” she ignored the teasing look Olivia slid her way, “but I know all of my team brought only battle clothes with them.”
“That will not be a problem.” Loren laid the dress down on top of his clothing and turned to her. “You represent your team so only you will be seated at the main table with the other commanding officers. Thorne will not mind if your subordinates are dressed plainly.”
In other words, he would mind if she was.
Sable refused to panic about this. “Maybe there’s a demon female I can borrow a dress from.”
“That won’t be possible,” Olivia said, snatching her focus. “There are no demon females.”
She gasped. “Who were those women then?”
“Witches… a vampire or two. I believe there was even a shifter amongst them,” Loren replied and Sable’s gaze darted back to him.
“Demons don’t have females?” How had she not known that?
“No,” Olivia said for him and why hadn’t her friend told her about this? “The Devil put some sort of curse on seven demon species when they seized these lands to make their own realms… I guess he was pissed because he wiped out all the women and made it so the men would have to seek out their fated one. Now, demons can only mate with their fated females. The kicker is that most of them are mortal… and demons stick out like sore thumbs in our world.”
Mortal.
Sable’s pulse kicked up a notch. “How do they know their female?”
“They dream of her after meeting her.” Loren’s smile turned wicked and she didn’t like the glint in his eyes.
Cold slithered through her even as her cheeks began to heat.
“You’re talking… naughty… dreams.” Could she sound any more innocent and nervous?
He nodded. “Very, very naughty.”
“Loren,” Olivia chided and crossed the room to him. Sable thanked her for backing her up until her friend turned to her, forming an allied front with Loren, her smile just as wicked as his was. “You’re not having naughty dreams of Thorne are you, Sable?”
“No.” Lie. A whopper of one. The dreams she’d had of him had been x-rated and hotter than all of her real-life encounters rolled into one. “Besides, I’m not a demon male. Why would I dream of him?”
Loren preened his jacket and casually said, “Because their female dreams of them too, and they both experience the same dream if they’re sleeping at the same time.”
Holy hell in a hand-basket. His triumphant smile said he had noticed the blush that had risen onto her cheeks before she had gotten the better of herself.
“Screw both of you. Stop messing with me.”
“In all seriousness, demons are aggressive and it often takes their female to tame them and teach them civility, so try to avoid the unmated ones.” Olivia touched Sable’s arm.
She nodded, even though she didn’t think they were particularly aggressive. Thorne seemed quite calm to her most of the time, and the demons she had encountered so far were not as she had pictured or how Olivia said they were.
Olivia squeezed her arm. “Why did you hurl yourself into that fight?”
Sable glared at her. Could she not have five minutes without Olivia or Loren insinuating that she fancied Thorne?
She sighed. “I honestly thought they were attacking him. What else was I to think? We were called here to help in a war and we appear in the middle of a huge fight!”
Loren smiled and she wanted to slug him. “Your clue was that the other demons in the area were merely watching events unfold and not stepping in to protect their king.”
Sable loosed a ripe curse in his direction and then added, “Shut up.”
“It’s just like you to see a fight and want in on it,” Olivia said and she was about to nod in agreement until her friend ruined it by tacking on, “Of course, if it hadn’t been Thorne in the middle of that battle—”
“You can shut up too.” Sable took her arm away from Olivia and scowled at both of them.
“Come, come. I believe we have teased her enough. She will use one of those crossbow bolts on us if we do not stop.” Loren held his hand out to Olivia and she slipped hers into it and went to him. He pulled his mate flush against him and smiled down into her eyes before turning his gaze back on Sable. “Do not worry about
the feast. Bleu will have left a dress for you in your room.”
There was a knock at the door. Sable opened it and stared as a huge blond demon rolled a large wooden tub into the room and set it down by the fire. Others entered behind him, carrying pitchers of steaming water.
A bath.
Sable wanted one of those too. She needed to relax before she could even think about showing her face at the feast. She wanted to scrub away her shame and embarrassment, and unwind.
She leaned out into the hall and looked along it towards her room.
A big dark-haired male stood there with another tub and an impatient look on his rugged face.
“Got to dash.” She looked over her shoulder to Loren and Olivia, at the tub and then back at them. “Try to keep the volume turned down when you’re scrubbing her back, Big Guy.”
Loren blushed and he blushed hard.
Sable tossed him a victorious grin and shot from the room. The demon waiting with the tub scowled at her and then something flickered in his dark red eyes and he straightened and bowed his head. She grimaced when she recognised him as one of the demons from the courtyard. Just great. She got to have her tub delivered by someone who had witnessed the whole debacle with his king.
“Roll it in, Big Guy.” She pushed her door open and waved him on. He grunted something under his breath and heaved the tub forwards, picked it up with one hand on the rim, walked to the fireplace off to her left and set it down. She hadn’t meant to challenge his strength but he had clearly taken her pet term and words as just that. Maybe he wasn’t good with English.
He flicked her another glance, raking his gaze over her from head to toe this time, curled his lip and stalked off.
Not stalked. Limped.
Great. Not just a witness but one of the ones she had shot.
“Sorry,” she called after him but he didn’t stop.
He disappeared around the corner and the other demons filed in, depositing the hot water into the tub.
Water in Hell. Back at Archangel, she had wondered if they would have such things in this part of Hell. Loren’s kingdom had water but then they had portals that channelled a river through their lands. Where did this kingdom get its water?
Claimed by a Demon King Page 3
