Page 4 of Tricky Princess
“I’m sure she can.” Dale’s eyes flickered to Ellea. “It’s about…her wards.”
Asmodeus surveyed the demon before him, but Dale didn’t balk under the king’s heavy gaze; if anything, he only looked more bored.
“Fine.” Asmodeus bowed shallowly toward Ellea. “Please excuse me; it will only be a moment.”
As their steps faded, the silence pressed in on her, and anxiety quickly crept up her chest. She was in Hel, a different realm, surrounded by the dead and demons. Ellea steadied herself and gripped the side of the throne. She inhaled deeply, held it, and released the breath before her powers could begin to crackle under her skin. Her spine stiffened as a pretentious voice came from the other side of the room.
“You look good here, Ellea,” Belias said, strolling toward her from the darkness.
She forced her voice to be calm; it wanted to shake in the presence of the man who had broken her trust. “What are you doing here?” she asked. He had stood by while her parents tortured her and her friends. They had attacked those she cared about because they wanted her. Belias was working with them, and she had a funny feeling that he had been for a long time. He was still in the same black clothes she’d glimpsed in the field with her parents.
My parents. Are they here?
More panic pressed in on her. She had to move, and something was telling her she had to put distance between them. Ellea circled the throne, but he was quicker and pinned her against the hard obsidian backrest. He grasped her face with his icy hand, forcing her to look into his eyes that were so much darker. They matched the stone around them and seemed bottomless. No light and no happiness shone in them. She could kick herself for not seeing it sooner. “Where are my parents?” The pressure of his fingers gripping her made it hard to speak.
He chuckled softly and loosened his grip. “Busy, but not here, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“This isn’t you,” she said, trying to make herself believe it more than him.
A finger traced the shape of her lips, and she pressed them together, fighting to not react, to not snap and bite him.
“There is a lot you still need to learn about me.” His breath washed over her face, and the battle to fight or curl in on herself raged. When he continued, bile rose up in her throat. “How often I found myself staring at these lips, wondering how they felt.”
He seemed to be speaking to himself, but her powers didn’t know that. She begged them to calm down, to form a blade instead of bringing the castle down around them. She needed something, anything, to protect herself. He would bleed for what he had done and what he was planning to do. The heft of cool stone weighed in her hand, and she let out a shaking breath.
Belias caressed her again, trailing a finger along her jaw before grasping the back of her hair. She curled her lip as he tugged at it, and when he brought his lips to hers, she struck. Bringing her newly made obsidian dagger under his chin, she halted his lips that had barely brushed hers. He didn’t shy away from it, only pressed into her and the dagger.
Ellea snarled and pressed the dagger harder into his chin. He smiled and grabbed the dagger by its blade, removing it from his chin. The smell of iron hit the air as blood ran from his hands down the hilt to where Ellea still grasped it.
“Nice try, witch.” He smiled wider. “You can’t create obsidian with your tricky magic.”
In a flash, his smile faltered as the sound of sizzling blood sounded through the room. He hissed and let go of the blade, looking down at his hands.
“That’s not possible,” he whispered.
His blood wasn’t enough; she would carve out his heart for siding with her parents, for using her and putting her friends and Ros in danger. She pictured it, the dagger ramming into his chest, but a booming voice interrupted her.
“Step away from her, nephew.”
It was a king’s voice, and the pride and authority of it rattled her knees.
Belias frowned at his uncle. Before he could utter a word, flames and shadows opened under his feet. He yelled as he fell, and the floor closed around him, shutting out his screams.
“Good luck crawling out of the pits by dinnertime,” Asmodeus snarled before turning back to Ellea, searching her from head to toe. “Did he hurt you?”
Ellea shook her head and tried to shake the feeling that was always left behind when a boy thought he could get the upper hand. She swallowed hard and straightened her shoulders. “It’s his blood, not mine.”
“Good. You could have made him bleed more.” He pulled a green handkerchief from his suit pocket and placed it in her bloodied hand. “Let me show you to your room.”
As they left the throne room, Asmodeus turned left and brought her through a grand archway that was built of the same black rock. Power seemed to zing across her skin before they headed down a wide hallway. The sound of his powerful steps was muffled by the thick, dark carpet that ran along the passage. Ellea stopped, needing to take in the magnificent structure before her. It was vastly more decorated than the first hallway they’d taken. Those walls were endless obsidian, these were a black marble with veins of gold and some kind of crystal running through them. Her eyes traveled up the solid walls, taking in the ornate molding that connected the walls to the rounded ceiling. Solid gold chandeliers were spread along the high ceiling, and each held about fifty black candles. As her gaze came back down, she met the eyes of the king. She hadn’t realized he had also stopped; instead of gawking at the decor, he was staring at Ellea.
“It is hard sometimes to realize that not everyone will ever come here.”
“To Hel?” she asked, confused with his unprovoked statement. Then she remembered that everyone comes here in the end. She had learned that for the first time after her conversation with Ros, Sam, and Devon. “I thought everyone comes here?”
“They do,” he said. “But not here. These are our—I mean my—living quarters. This hallway, along with the one I’m bringing you to, are mine alone. Well, they used to be Ros’ too.” He paused, seeming to catch himself. Clearing his throat, he continued, “No one comes to these quarters without my knowledge.”
Ellea slowly closed the distance between herself and the king, someone she had never really thought of, and the few times she did, it was nothing like this. Her eyes continued to take in the intricate details that surrounded them as she tried to figure out what she was feeling. It felt dark, but warm, with glints of light. It was marvelous and magical, but there wasn’t time to drool over the prettiness that Hel was presenting to her. There were so many questions raging in her head, along with fear, anxiety, and defiance. She was brought here against her will, so why wasn’t she putting up more of a fight? Not once had she felt threatened by Asmodeus. Her magic wasn’t even reacting to him, not like it had in the presence of Belias. That didn’t mean she shouldn’t take a little revenge for being plucked out of what was turning out to be a decent day, especially after the shit show she’d endured. She met Asmodeus’ eyes under lowered brows, but before she could try to scare him, before she could try to conjure a whisper of her magic, he let out a soft chuckle.
