Page 72 of Pain

Shoy followed my gaze and without saying anything, the three of us wandered over to the fence. He made a clicking nose in the back of his throat and a few of the smaller magsiths came trotting over. Their feet were webbed but, strangely, they still had hooves on the bottom of the webbing.

Their antlers were twisted straight up like a Twizzler, rather than multi-pronged like an elk’s, but their face shapes and brown fur were similar. However, the praying mantis arms were creepy, along with the insect-like clicking noise they made in their throats when they bowed their heads and Shoy scratched between their ears.

“The females are very gentle,” Shoy said, switching his attention to another creature and scratching the top of its head. “The males can get a little territorial and possessive. Each male has about twelve females in his harem. And if a younger male comes and tries to mate with or even flirt with a taken female, that older male can get pretty grumpy. Both males and females have horns. But we have to put protective bumpers on the males’ horns during mating season, otherwise they could kill each other. The only real way to tell the difference is by the color of their chest. The males have a big white tuft of fur on their chest, the females have a blond tuft.”

With hesitation, I extended a hand toward the one closest to me—a small female—and she bowed her head enough that I could scratch between her twitching ears. The clicking noise must have been their noise of contentment, like when Zandren purred.

Drak came up on the other side of me and reached his hand through the fence to start scratching between the ears of a juvenile male magsith. His horns were significantly smaller than the female I was petting, and he wasn’t nearly as tall asthe others.

“I don’t know why it makes me sad that we slaughter and eat these creatures when they’re so gentle. We do the same with pigs, cows, and chickens on Earth,” I said, my heart heavy.

“Everybody needs to eat,” Shoy said. “But your father made sure that when he came into power, all animal slaughtering was done humanely. Until then, it wasn’t. And all farmed creatures for food must be free-range. We can’t give them a cooped-up life, then take their life so we can eat.” He spread his hand out wide. “They have acres and acres to roam. Then, they go back into the barn each night to be safe. This is only about half the herd. The other half are probably two miles away, down at the stream.”

“There’s a stream?” I asked with excitement.

“Underground mostly, but it springs up not too far away. It’s where we get our water from. All the water in Hell is well water.”

“I’d love to see this stream.”

Drak made a noise in his throat, reminding me that we really didn’t have the time or luxury to be exploring.

“Right.” I frowned. “Probably not the best idea. We want to get back to town and make sure Kenvin is okay.” I sighed and moved on to the next magsith that trotted over asking for attention. “I suppose we should probably think about getting back to Earth too, if Lerris has been to Hell. Who knows what he’s planning.”

My belly rumbled again, loud enough that the two men standing with me heard it. Even the magsiths heard it, and a few of them—including the little one Drak was scratching—got startled. “I need to eat,” I said, giving a final scratch to the friendly beast clicking in front of me. I snagged Drak’s gaze. “You should too.”

“Vip’s got a whole spread of food out for you. Poor thing was frantic this morning, saying we didn’t have anything fit for a queen.”

That made me chuckle as we all made our way toward the open front door. “I’ll eat anything at this point.” Then I wrinkled my nose. “Well, maybe notanything, but I don’t need royal food, that’s for sure.”

We arrived in the kitchen to find Zandren gorging himself like the hungry bear that he was, and Maxar casually sipping tea, leaning against the counter chatting with Vip. His amber eyes filled with love when he spotted me, and he opened up his arm to welcome me under it. He smelled of sulfur and his hair was a tad damp. I was happy to see him in a better mood than when we left the prison. Pressing a kiss to my temple, he brought the mug of the blankberry leaf tea up to his lips, taking a healthy sip. “Vip here is telling me about the tea. Who’d have thought Hell actually had anything that tasted good?”

Zandren stood up from his spot at the counter, abandoning his still heaping plate and began to fix another one. I thought he was just preparing his second helping so he didn’t have any lag time between the two, but love filled my chest close to bursting when he handed me the second plate. “Eat, Little One.”

I smiled at my Pooh Bear, lifted up onto my tiptoes and pressed a kiss to Maxar’s jaw, before joining Zandren at the barstools and sitting down to eat at the counter.

Back to being his quiet, brooding self, Drak fixed up a plate and stood quietly in the corner of the kitchen eating.

“How far are we from town?” I asked in between mouthfuls of food. Vip was one heck of a cook. Her scones were better than Kenvin’s, probably because she added skivern syrup so they were sweet. There was no getting around how dry they were though. The Hell Cricket flour turned everything into a paste in the mouth, no matter what.

“Several hours,” Shoy said. “So we should get a move on shortly.”

We all nodded, then silence settled between the six of us as everyone methodically chewed and stared at the space directly in front of them. I’m sure we were all worried about Kenvin, as well as what was to come next with Lerris. Was he still in Hell? Why did he come here in the first place?

I glanced over at Drak, who—even dressed down in an oversized gray T-shirt and black shorts—seemed to ooze aristocratic grace the way he stood with his back straight, politely nibbling on his breakfast.

“Shoy’s going to stay in town for a few days to gauge the population’s reaction and sentiments toward the idea of a queen,” Vip said. “You might notknow this yet, but demons can be pretty stuck in their ways.” She smirked and playfully elbowed her mate in the ribs. “This one is as stubborn as they come.”

Shoy winked down at Vip. “Ah, you softened me.”

That made Vip beam. I could only hope that when my mates and I had been together as long as these two, that we still looked at each other with so much love.

In less than an hour, we had finished breakfast and were ready leave.

With tears in my eyes, I hugged Vip tightly, reluctant to let go of the first real friend I’d made since discovering I wasn’t simply human. She was a genuine, good soul, and I was a better person having met her.

Gripping me by the side of the face, her own brown eyes watery, she smiled at me. “You are already a great queen. But I know that you will be truly extraordinary. You have his goodness in you.” She pressed her forehead to mine for a moment and we each shut our eyes as tears fell down our cheeks. I didn’t bother trying to read her mind, or thoughts, she wore them on her face and in her heart openly. A hope she hadn’t felt in a long time thrummed through her, hope, joy, and tempered excitement. And even though it was a lot of pressure to live up to as a new demon and queen, I returned to her nothing but love and gratitude. We would meet again. I would make sure of it.

Laughing to keep from sobbing, she pulled her head away and smoothed her hands down my face before resting them on my shoulders. “Now go. Be the queen you were born to be.”

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