The master’s face came up slowly, his eyes bleary and soaked with guilt and misery. He focused in on Leala, and I’d be damned if she didn’t stand straight and tall before him. That woman was majestic.
Suddenly, though, he let out a breath and sagged, bracing his hands on the bed.
“It’s over,” he said softly, his deep, gravelly voice thick. “She has passed out.”
“I’ve passed out before, sir,” Leala quipped. “I’ve gone so hard with it that I have passed out from pain…while still deriving pleasure from it. I think you can help her, sir. I really do. But you’ll have to be strong, sir. You’ll have to completely shove away your own pain so that you can give her only your purest pleasure.”
Ooh, she was good. She was giving him a way to help and making him feel like he was powerful and strong for going for it. Great goddess and her kinky men, she was the most valuable player in this little meeting of minds.
He looked up again, his fierce golden eyes taking her in. I could barely remember the blue they’d been before the curse—before he’d forced a shift and his retinas retained the original color of his dragon’s scales, which had been burned black.
He nodded once, curtly. He’d do it. Hopefully he’d succeed, and it would help both he and Finley.
Leala nudged me with her elbow. Whoops, shit, my turn.
“And the other way you can help is to prepare an arsenal for when she finds her way back here,” I said quickly. “She asked me to make sure you were freeing the shifters. That you were monitoring the efforts to cure your kingdom of the sickness unleashed by the curse. She made a deal with the insufferable demon king so that you—”
“Yes, yes, I heard you outside the door.” He stood, and I realized I’d gotten much too close. The prince absolutely loomed over me. “I hope that she does not come back—for her sake—but I will honor her wishes. Of course I will—looking after my people is my duty.”
“Yes, sir.” I rammed Leala with my shoulder so she’d get moving and we could get some breathing room. “Absolutely, sir. Perfect. She would be proud of that.”
“You will come with me. Get some rest. We’ll start at noon.” He rolled his shoulders, and power oozed from his mighty frame. “And every time they hurt her, I will brutally kill one of their demons. I will not suffer her ill treatment without some sort of recourse.”
I wasn’t sure whether that was a good idea—I’d need to think on it—but it was certainly a satisfying idea. I wanted to watch. Those demons had had it coming for too long.
It wasn’t until I got outside of the door that my brain zeroed in on what else he’d said.
“Wait, I have to go?” I stopped and turned to look through the open door. It shut in my face, and the lock clicked.
“That went well.” Leala pulled me along. “I hope that pleasure thing works. It might have been a long shot.”
“I have to go?” I thunked down the stairs on wooden legs. “Why do I have to go?”
She clicked her tongue. “Of course you have to go. You’re supposed to keep tabs on him for her.”
“Which I just did. I don’t actually have to look over his shoulder.”
“It’ll be fine. Now, you heard the master—go get some rest. He’s finally about to be the prince he needs to be. We just have to hope the miss finds her way out when she needs to.”
FIVE
FINLEY
I lay sprawled out on my back in the straw, looking up at the low ceiling pocked with shadow. The lights had been turned on earlier, waking me up, but we were all the way in the back of the long room, and there were plenty of pockets and patches of darkness around us. None large enough to hold another stairwell or some sort of escape hatch, though. This area was a dead end. The stairs I’d come down seemed to be the only way back up.
The last traces of pain slowly left my body. Last night’s beating had been a real doozy. I shuddered to consider how long it would’ve taken me to heal naturally. Or if I would’ve at all.
The dungeon festered quietly around me. Until Jedrek realized I was awake.
“This place stinks.” He sat in the corner with his nose crinkled. Dirt marred his face, and his hair was matted in clumps. I doubted I was much better off. “It’s dirty.”
“I hate you.”
I figured it needed to be said.
“Nice,” he mumbled.
I thought about sitting up. Didn’t.
“It’s supposed to be dirty, you shit-eating fuckstain.”