Page 15 of Chained to the Devil's 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 Ithe 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, ifyou 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.

8

Searra

Before I could interject their squabble, jet-black flames engulfed the men. The peculiar flames did more than obscure their bodies. It seemed to swallow their sound as well, like a rift in reality.

“Ash!”

If the void didn’t shred them, this crowd would. Gasps rang out as I pierced the magic. I hissed at the heat that seared my fingers, but it cooled before I could yank my hand away. Unseeing, I groped through the blackness until I found his shoulder and heaved him around.

His pupils were all black, leaking from the corners. He looked like a spectral with the lingering flames obscuring his form. Then it was gone, fluffy gray ash falling onto Fuegis as his body dropped with a thud.

“Se-Firefly,” Ash’ren whispered. He glanced at the ash-covered man at his feet and grimaced.

“Use her proper title, mangy mutt,” Fuegis growled. I barely bit back a scoff. The gall! How simple could he be, to poke a predator after narrowly avoiding their jaws?

“Enough.” I gave them each a super-duper queenly stare before wedging myself between them. “Forgive my—my friend. Show me this new gadget.”

“Yes, Your Bone-Blessed Majesty.”

Ugh. Bile clumped in my throat as the word clunked over my tongue, threatening to spill forth at the use of that damned title. I still hadn’t gotten used to it. The bowing, the constant formalities, the fear and reverence of mygreat authority. When I was Princess Searra or simply Devil’s daughter, I’d received unsavory glances aplenty. Now they looked at me and saw my father.

“This way.” Fuegis took the lead, dusting off his brocade tunic. He bumped Ash’ren’s shoulder as he passed. I held my breath, but Ash’ren didn’t take the bait.

My gaze lingered on Ash’ren’s profile. His strong jaw twitched. Without moving, his gaze slid to mine. The smirk in them didn’t reach his lips, but it sent liquid heat straight to my core and prickly heat up my neck. I snapped forward as my foot collided with something stuck in the sand.

Quickly, I smoothed my expression and returned my attention to the very important, very queenly task at hand. Oh, rings! I was hopeless.

“Hello, princess!” called Geysis, the merling who’d double-crossed Devil to join our cause. Her short curls, a deeper aqua than her skin, bounced as she rocked in her chunky boots, which added a full six inches to her petite frame. The many bits of metal that decorated her ear fins glinted in the final ray of sun that still reached the trench of Ring Ten.

“Hello, Geysis. I’m thrilled to witness another stroke of your brilliance.”

A teal lip decorated with a gold ring disappeared under her teeth in a barely contained grin. With a bit of flair, she held up apair of shackles. The cuffs had about six inches of chain between them. “I call them the Maniacal Manacles!”

I bit my knuckle and didn’t dare glance at Ash’ren. Not that our laughter would offend Geysis, but those observing didn’t need more reason to doubt her.

“Manacles? How could it possibly work if you’re bound?” I appraised the cuffs, looking for clues. They were polished tungsten, free of the dirty gray hue that belied the use of the Forgotten Ones’ bones.

“Allow us to demonstrate! Come on up here, assistant!” Geysis waved frantically at Fuegis, who scowled back. Tough to act like the smartest one in the room when he so clearly wasn’t, I suppose.

My soul nearly exorcised straight from my body with the effort of withholding laughter as Geysis locked them together. One cuff on his right wrist, the other on her left. Their free hands outstretched to the side, palms up. Blue designs lit along Geysis’ skin, the glowing symbols waving and swirling in a hypnotizing oceanic pattern. Fuegis’ smooth palm squeezed into a fist as sparks raced up his arm and across his chest to gather at their bound hands.

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