Page 74 of Chained to the Devil's Daughter

“Don’t worry,” I finished. I opened my mouth and conjured a flame atop my lower lip, then blew. “Don’t worry. She’s safe. She’s very excited to see you.”

Devil’s flames doused. His furious shouts were muffled by a void-black gag.

I bid my flames to wrap around the monstrous tyrant more and more, like the victim of a killer python. Bloodshot, flameless eyes full of fury and fear bulged from puffy red cheeks. It was a comical sight, to see a demon so mighty strung up this way.I doubled over in the kind of laughter that would make sane people cower.

“She’s going to love this.” But not yet. I grabbed Devil by one sable horn, drew the serrated knife from my belt, and began to saw. “You make a beautiful engagement gift.”

At his muffled rumbles, I was tempted to remove the gag. Nah. I rather preferred Devil helpless and voiceless like this, just as he’d forced Searra to feel for her whole life.

“You poor, pathetic thing,” I taunted in the same better-than-thou tone Devil liked to use. “I guess big, bad kings beg for their lives just like their subordinates, in the end.”

That pissed him off. I had to grab his other horn to hold him down.

“Stop wiggling, little puppy,” I said with a giddy chuckle. My knife broke through the other side and I tossed the severed horn into the air, catching it pointy side down. I promptly slammed it into Devil’s abdomen, cackling wildly at the way it sent him into convulsions.

“Don’t thrash, it makes you look weak,” I echoed his own words, straight into the evil fucker’s ear. As the shouts of pain died down to moans, I wrenched one wing free from the fire rope and squeezed the membrane with force.

“Mmm! Mnnm!”

I cupped my ear. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you. Some weak ass bitch won’t stop crying.”

With a playful kick to the horn stuck in his side, I kicked the chairs out of the way and hopped onto the table in one eager leap.

Cutting through a demon’s wing was no easy task. I hadn’t known when it happened to me, whether it was truly tough to pierce or if Devil had been fucking with me.

“Well, you weren’t kidding. This is quite the task. What say we stop here and call it good?” I asked with a shrug, jiggling themangled mess of Devil’s wing. Devil’s head lolled back, his eyes like smoke. “Nah. Might as well finish what I’ve started.”

The serrated knife slowly broke through, until all that remained was a stump with bloody branches. I took hold of Devil’s remaining horn and headed for the door, dragging him along like a hunting prize.

“Play time’s over. Time to see the queen.”

40

Searra

Ipaced the intimate sitting room where my father and I had taken brunch together from age four to fourteen, the only time he belonged only to me and not the hundreds of demons he kept himself surrounded by. I glared at my usual seat, across the six-person wooden dining table from Devil’s high-backed, intricately carved wooden chair that used to make me feel proud to be his.

I flung myself into the gaudy, throne-like dining chair and slumped back with a sigh.

From the sound of things, Ash’ren wasn’t holding back. Good. As long as he was delivered alive enough to answer questions, my tyrant father deserved everything my mate would dole him.

I’d begun pacing again by the time I heard footsteps, along with another sound, like a sack of produce being dragged down the aisle.

For a moment I was a child again, running away so my father wouldn’t catch me being disobedient. I squashed that part of myself with a firm but loving hand. I was here now, safe. Err, sort of safe.

Pouring a stiff glass of lavaberry wine, I donned my queenly facade. I tried to embody the type of uncaring attitude that would leave one’s daughter unnamed until the age of five. The type of lackluster interest that made a nameless child grasp at hope, hope that she would feel her father’s embrace for the third time in her life.

Someone knocked. For good measure, I muttered a prayer to whatever gods my true family might’ve prayed to. “Come in.”

I did not stand. I didn’t even look their way. When Ash’ren dragged the lump inside the room, I pretended not to feel a sour squeeze around my heart.

Devil, wrapped in black ribbons like a holiday gift, lay at my feet. The only sign he wasn’t dead was the furrow of his brows. I toed him with my soot-and-sand-covered boot, which I’d deliberately kept on. His slow-blinking eyes raised to mine.

“My queen.” Ash’ren bowed low. He dropped to one knee, took my hand, and kissed it right above Devil’s head. He kissed each knuckle and up past my wrist. Even with everything going on, I couldn’t stop my giggle.

Devil rumbled in displeasure. I slipped my hand from Ash’ren’s and twinkled my fingers.

“Hello, father.”

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