Page 265 of Red Ruin

I groan.

Someone’s calling from Kyorgos.

Did Duchess Kyorgos finally remember that I exist?

As usual, Vhex and Remy don’t notice or care.

I follow their example, hitching a leg over Vhex and angling my hips to find his fin.

“Firefly,” he mumbles and palms my ass.

Remy uses my shadow clothes as extra hands, teasing my nipples and feathering every inch of my skin.

There’s a lazy comfort to their pace.

They can feel my exhaustion, just how I feel the shift in their desire. They always want more—honestly, me too—but kissing and keeping me close spark a swell of satisfaction in their souls.

The flashing orb reminds me this is real.

It whines at a high pitch.

Someone’s juicing it witha lotof energy on the other side.

“Shall I toss it into the sea?” Remy murmurs against my throat.

“Tempting, but no.” I open my palm. “May as well say what I need to say.”

Remy wafts the orb into my hand and lights it with ticklish power.

I used to primp for hours to look the part of a future Kyorgos matron.

It was never enough.

Now, I’m such a disheveled, over-sexed wreck, I can’t even hold the orb steady.

Vhex kisses up and down my shoulder, rocking my body as he humps between my thighs.

I connect the call.

Two fussy, frigid women sit side-by-side against an even fussier backdrop of heraldic-patterned wallpaper. Both are dressed for a ball in corsets and curls.

What war? What monsters?

Baroness Alessandra Ashbourne and Duchess Calliope Kyorgos live in an entirely different world.

“Yes?” I ask curtly.

Their made-up faces are ready in masks of pissy anger. As they realize what they’re seeing, their expressions morph through seven stages of horror.

“Iris!” my mother snaps, shrill enough to vibrate her corkscrew curls. “How dare you?—!”

She chokes off, red spots spreading across her cheeks.

“What have you done to my son?” Duchess Kyorgos snatches the orb and drags it closer to her face. The angle sharpens her already angular features.Halfway to a lich.“You traitorous slut.”

Viper-fast, Vhex and Remy snap to glare.

The blood drains from the duchess’ face.

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