Chained to the Devil’s Daughter (Mating the Elements #1)

7

Ash’ren

“N ot slow enough, princess?”

I smirked, feeling no shame. We would spend plenty of time apart, even while surrounded by people. Right now, she was mine.

“It seems about right,” she panted. At her encouraging whimper, I squeezed her ass against my cock so roughly I hoped it would leave an imprint.

Before she could rescind, I claimed her mouth, my hands getting braver around her perfect tits. From her peachy ass to her soft center, her body had filled out fucking perfectly, made for sin. I couldn’t help picturing the goddess-like visage she would paint while round and full of milk for our young.

Breathlessly, she pulled away. I gnashed my teeth in protest, but something darkened her features. “What is it?”

“I have some things to take care of. You’re welcome to join, but. . .” She bit her lip and averted her gaze. “You should know that others will share the warlord’s view.”

“That I’m your pet?” I shrugged. “Let them. You’re my queen, and I’m your pawn.”

“More than that. The reports we received about your jolly jaunt through Hell weren’t taken well.” She slid her arms around my waist and sank into my chest, my arms caging her close. “Some will say you’re a liability. Others that you should’ve been used as a secret weapon. If you’d been warned as we’d planned, perhaps we would have decided on that path together.”

“Warned?”

“Your door was unlocked days after my father left. If that reckless warlord hadn’t started that battle, a messenger was supposed to tell you of your freedom. To offer you a choice.”

“What choice?”

“Escape to safety in Fyre, or return.” Her shoulders tensed as though still carrying the heavy burden. “Everything went so wrong. I couldn’t visit myself, and sending anyone else would have provoked suspicion. My hold on the nobility is tenuous now, but it was cobwebs then. Devil’s spies are everywhere. Even now, we intercept messages.”

“Firefly,” I interrupted, gently taking her chin. “You know what I would have chosen.”

“I believe so.”

“You. Always, I will choose you.” I cupped her cheek and didn’t relent until her unshed tears were all blinked away. Recalling my jolly jaunt, I grimaced. “I must have appeared a menace.”

“You were a menace,” she teased. “All of Hell was in ashes. Some still burns.”

“I would do it all again to be here with you.”

She smiled, and that was enough for now.

∞∞∞

The visage of the woman I once knew dissipated when we exited the living quarters. With a respectable space between us, I blended myself into her shadow. People cast cautious glances my way and I sneered right back. With the flame of her inner light flickering so, it was best everyone knew I was dangerous. I would snuff them out so fast they’d forget they ever knew anything but darkness.

“Searra,” called a woman’s voice.

Only the current suitor could address the princess by first name. An ember sparked in my subconscious, sending trickles of heat through my veins. A spark or two must have popped from the surface, drawing unwanted attention.

“Filaris.” Searra reached for the suitor, whose face was a blurry memory from my arrival. Conduit lines swirled like a tree’s gnarl on her forehead and pinched when she glanced my way.

“It’s incredible, Searra. It—It—you’ll have to see it.”

“It works?” Hope sounded good on her. Whatever this weapon was, it instilled fear in a warlord unafraid of sacrifice and hope in the most compassionate woman in Hell.

“I believe it will,” Filaris replied.

“That’s great news.” Searra wrung her hands until Filaris tapped her wrist. She shot her the faintest look of gratitude and quit fidgeting. “Give me your risk assessment before we reach them.”

The woman was quiet for a moment, calculating. “Success is dependent on a mobile evacuation. The nobles will see it as a diplomatic decision. Clearing the rings will raise production, if successful.”

“But is it viable?”

“I believe so.”

I inhaled sharply. She glanced in my direction for the first time since we’d left my fancy new prison room behind. Though I was clueless as a motherfucker, I nodded my support.

“Wonderful.”

We crossed the whole palace with me riding their heels, close enough I needed only to lift my arm to graze hers, though I wouldn’t dare.

A caravan of griffyion carriages greeted us outside. The mighty beasts had ringlets of tungsten and bones of the Forgotten Ones hewn directly into their frost-flame wings. The ringlets bore chains for the drivers to use as leads to control their speed on the bridges. The thought of riding in those nausea-inducing things made my stomach roil.

Gasps and whispers caught my attention. A gaggle of nobles gathered around a char mark leading into the palace. I cringed.

Ash Render. Wreckage. Horror. Rabid animal. Dog.

I settled into a carriage with two naturally wingless demons, both total strangers happy to glare at me in the small space. Now was as good a time for a nap as any, given my exhaustion and the sickening pace of the gryffion. I drifted into dreams with the lullaby of name-calling and slept like a flames-damned baby because none of it mattered. Firefly had welcomed me home, deep inside her where I belonged. I didn’t need anyone else.

When I came to, the carriage was at a stop. The other riders scrambled out as though I might burst into flames—which, honestly, I might. I gripped the carriage for support as I set foot on the red sand of Ring Ten. At least we were far enough from the tower that I didn’t have to stand beneath its shadow. Or maybe it would’ve been a good place to expel my innards.

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

Oh, great, the animated pile of shit, Fuegis. Devil’s hand-picked favorite for his daughter’s hand. The one who’d apparently been slumbering in Searra’s secret chamber while she and I had a few good go-rounds. My shoulders rolled back. While I was claiming her virginity in all the ways possible, he was in there sucking his toes or some shit. Five years and suitors after she’d rejected him, Fuegis discovered me wallowing in the garden. He convinced himself she would’ve chosen him had it not been for her low-class lover. So, like the trash rat he was, he ratted on me.

Not my best look. That night, I hadn’t even bothered to climb through her window. I was a wrecking ball of sorrow five years in the making. Leaning against a tree with a bottle of volcanic panic in my hand, I watched every shadow that played behind her curtain. The visions my imagination painted were enough to drive me mad.

When Fuegis passed by in the private gardens, I lacked the energy to hide. The next thing I knew, I was being dragged to Devil’s throne room, where I shamelessly begged to trade my soul for another minute with his daughter.

“Hello, Fuegis,” I drawled. “Fancy coincidence meeting like this, isn’t it? How strange we’d both be in such a restricted area at the same time.”

The sniveling shit-smear pretty boy puffed up like he meant to fight me. One step forward, two, three, and we met in the middle with black and orange flames whipping around us. I snatched his v-necked tunic and dragged him off his feet.

“What were you doing in that garden, Fuegis? Came to steal what you couldn’t have?”

“Ha! I would never desire a limp wing and a stubby horn, stray.”

“Oh, you’d have more damage than that,” I promised. He grappled against my hold, but I shook him like a dragoncherry tree. “I’d have burned you to ash and muddied you with my piss.”

“Why then are you the broken one, and I the lead engineer of the rebellion? Huh?”

Flaming fucking rings, I’d forgotten. There’d be no killing him until the rebellion was over. “If you lay a hand on her, if you so much as think about finishing your suspicious task in the garden that night, you will know the extent of my wrath.”

“Oh, my task is complete, stray. Don’t you worry about that.”

Hatred won. Magic devoured my soul, its eerie black tendrils coiling around my arms, my legs, my heart. The void swallowed me from the inside out, filling my every sense. It smelled of burnt hair, whooshing in my ears with the ferocity of wildfire, filling my throat with the taste of cinder. I could give in, let the void reclaim its gift of black flames, and take me with it.