Page 22 of The Prince and His Stolen Groom
“This is a private matter,” Griffin snapped, trying to put himself between me and the creature, which would have worked better if he wasn’t a head shorter than me.
The creature shrugged and continued munching. “This is a public marketplace. It’s your fault for causing a scene.”
Panicked, I looked to see if anyone else had witnessed our interaction, but only the creature seemed interested in us. “What are you?” I asked, shaking Griffin’s hand off of me.
“Imp,” it replied. “Fourth level, but I’m working on that.” He did a little jump and landed on his feet, stuffing the popcorn bag into a small pocket on his brown trousers. “Confirm one thing for me.”
I’d heard of imps before, but never seen one. They were low-level minions of an evil mage—the exact kind of creature that should have been repelled by the Kingdom Defense Spell. I stared at it, unable to speak, as my mind grappled with the new development.
Since I didn’t say anything, Griffin took the lead. “What do you want, creature?”
“This kingdom is?”
“Woe.”
“In the?”
“Desolated Lands.”
“And we’re how far from the castle?”
Griffin finally stopped answering, snapping his mouth shut and narrowing his eyes. “What foul deeds are you plotting, fiend?”
The imp shrugged. “Two out of three isn’t bad. Thanks for the info.” It saluted briskly and started walking away.
Fuck, no, I had to find out why—how—the imp bypassed the spell. “Wait!” I ran after it and grabbed its tail, yanking back. “How did you—”
“How dare you, foolish mortal!” it snarled. The calm, professional demeanor disappeared as the imp transformed into a writhing, wriggling mass of rage. Trying to hold onto it was like squeezing a waterskin too tightly—its whole body swished and swelled as it tried to escape my grip.
I raised it higher and shook it once, trying to startle it into behaving. “Who do you serve?”
“Ricky, I don’t think that’s a good—”
Teeth sunk into my hand, and I yelped in pain as I dropped the creature back to the ground. It disappeared in a puff of ominous purple smoke.
Griffin took my hand and examined the puncture wounds. “Why don’t you come back to the shop with me? I’ve got a first-aid kit there, we need to treat it so it doesn’t get infected.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped, yanking my hand from his grip and shoving it in my pocket. “I have to go.”
“Ricky, wait!” he called after me as I rushed back into the main marketplace. “Rick!”
I didn’t have time for this stupid relationship bullshit. If an imp could bypass the defense spell, what else might slip through the cracks?
Interruption Three
“What do you mean youbita man?” Cyril demanded as he dragged the imp over to a dark corner of the inn. “You were supposed to keep a low profile!”
“I couldn’t help it,” the imp murmured, forgetting to add any ‘my lord’ or ‘my lieges.’ It pouted as it clutched its tail, nursing a black bruise. “Their argument was so fun to listen to!”
Cyril pinched the bridge of his nose. The worst part about working with imps was that they absolutely adored drama. It made them easy to recruit—if an evil mage were ever looking for new minions, all they had to do was stage a loud, impassioned argument and they’d draw a whole hoard from which to choose—but also meant they were easily distracted. “Did you at least find out where we are?”
“Oh, yes, of course. We’re in the Kingdom of Woe in the Desolated Lands.”
The village they’d stopped in today looked exactly as happy and cheerful as the one yesterday, if a slightly different flavor. The people were different, implying it wasn’t just some illusory trap to tempt Cyril into wasting his time. Illusions were the lowest form of magic and not prone to originality, usually simply copying and pasting the same sorts of buildings and people over and over again.
“You’re absolutely sure?”
“Two hundred percent positive,” the imp replied, licking its lips with a long, wet tongue. “He tasted like royalty.”
