Page 72 of Tortured Royals

“Yes, chef!” the servers all shout back, and we hastily join them, mumbling the words as well.

The chef grunts, and the moment he turns, moving to the other side of the kitchen, the servers all start toward the steaming plates. My mates and I copy them, keeping our backs ramrod straight, and each lifting a single plate, and gliding outof the room. The servers form a single line as we move down the hallway, and we maintain a similar distance from each other.

We round the first corner, and Nate’s curse sounds in my head.“The fuckin’ flower fell to the side of the plate.”

“What?”I hiss.

“Aren’t cats supposed to be graceful?”Prince Callan comments.

“You ever seen a cat servin’ hors d’oeurvres?”Nate sends back.

“We need to focus,”Mason says from where he’s walking behind me.“Getting in trouble with the chef should be the least of your worries.”

We turn down another hallway.

“No one’s looking,”Alaric growls.“So pick it up from the plate and fix the dish.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll just…”Nate curses again, and I look in front of me in time to see the flower garnish fall to the floor. Before Nate can reach down, Alaric’s boot lands on it.

“You dropped it,”Alaric says dryly.

“And you fuckin’ stepped on it!”Nate snaps.

I wonder why Dante didn’t simply fix Nate’s dish for him seeing as he’s following beside us somewhere, but then I hear a faint chuckle in my head.

“I love these guys,”my demon mutters.

“I’d love it more if we could get to the party already,”I say, though I can’t suppress my smile.

“Wow, can’t say I’ve ever seen Ivar naked! His cock must be ten inches,” Nate suddenly blurts, leaning closer to the server in front of him. Startled, the server turns his head to the portrait of Ivar on the wall. It’s chest up and there’s not an inch of bare skin except for the demon’s face and neck.

Before the server looks back, Nate’s hand darts around, grabbing the guy’s flower garnish and adding it to the top of his smoked fish.

“Hey wait, have you dropped somethin’?” Nate asks the server, and the demon jolts, staring back at his plate. As he sees the missing garnish, his face pales, and he peers around. Twisting his head back, he spies the trampled flower on the ground. “No, I didn’t…” he mutters, panicked.

Hearing him, the server before him, turns, her eyes widening when she spies the dish he’s carrying. “You’ve spoiled it!” she shrieks. “You must return to the kitchen immediately and have them fix this. Janson won’t be pleased.”

“But I didn’t—” the server mumbles again, and then he lets out a panicked squeak and steps from our line, heading back the way we came.

Dante’s dark chuckle sounds in my head.

“Was that necessary?”Mason asks.

“Well, I wasn’t goin’ to face Janson, now was I? That guy is far too serious,”Nate jokes.

I can’t help but feel a little bad for the server.I’m guessing Janson must be the chef’s name, and considering the pep talk we were just given, I imagine the server is about to cop an earful.Could be worse. He could be eating poison or battling a witch. And speaking of poison…

“Do you think the poison is in this first course?”I ask the others.

There’s a long pause, and I notice Alaric subtly crane his neck, trying to sniff his dish.

“It’s undetectable, remember?”I tell him.“Odorless and tasteless.”

“It’ll be in this dish,”Prince Callan theorizes.“I don’t see why Ivar would waste time holding off for a later course.”

“We won’t know until someone tastes it,”Alaric adds.

In no time at all, another server joins our ranks with a new, perfectly arranged plate of food. I don’t have time to contemplate what Janson has done with the other server, because soon we reach a hidden door and descend down a series of steps. When we reach the landing, we walk out into a main area and head into an adjoining room.

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