Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 48568 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48568 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
“In return for what?”
“I am the rightful king of these lands. Give me the demon men.”
Kinsey glanced over at Lucan. “Does he really think that demand will work?”
Lucan shrugged slightly. “Very possibly, he is unspeakably spoiled.”
“It’s true. I am,” Sebastian agreed with no shame.
“Little devil prince,” Kinsey growled. “You will pay for your insolence. Here are the terms of my help. I will give you a demon escort to safety. In return, I fuck the knight, and I thrash you.”
“No.”
Lucan and Sebastian said the word at the same time.
“Then I watch the knight fuck and thrash you.”
Neither Sebastian or Lucan said no to that idea immediately. Kinsey’s eyes lit up.
“Ah, as I thought,” the devil chuckled. “There is desire between the two of you.”
Lucan said, “He’s a virgin. I won’t have his purity taken for your amusement.”
The devil chuckled. “You should take that purity as soon as possible, Sir Knight. The world that awaits Sebastian now is not pure, and he will not stay innocent in it. It is time he becomes a man. In every sense.”
Lucan wanted to be intimate with Sebastian, yes, but not on command like a stallion being brought to a mare, and not for the amusement of a devil.
“I’m not a virgin.”
“What?”
It was the prince’s turn to surprise everyone.
“I’m not a virgin. I’ve been sleeping with Devos for years. Three, to be exact.”
“I am sorry you had to leave him behind. Losing a love…” Lucan began to sympathize, but quickly found his sympathy entirely unwanted.
“We were never in love.” Sebastian corrected him all too swiftly. “We were of similar taste and need. I know Devos is wily. I know he will protect himself. He is such an excellent tailor, they would be foolish to hurt him. I am simply glad he was not invited to the dinner. The servants were much safer than the nobles and courtiers. If you think about it, cake was the perfect means of murdering anybody with any power. It was never going to be served to anybody besides the royal family and those close to them…”
Lucan listened to Sebastian rationalizing his way through the entire murderous affair. The trauma of the event was yet to settle. The prince was being brave. And though he might technically not be a virgin, he was still all too innocent for the world outside the castle walls.
Power lay inside his young man. He’d seen it before, and he knew he was likely to see it again. Kinsey was probably one of many who knew of this power and wished to harness it for himself.
“Perhaps there is more of your father in you than anybody imagined,” Kinsey chuckled. “And I do mean both fathers, in this case. I left a little of myself in you, but you have the blood of Thadecus Force in your veins as well, make no mistake. A beautiful, philandering, demonic young prince brimming with pain…” Kinsey looked Lucan in the eye. “What wonders might you wreak upon the world as you come into your power.”
“Then give me what I am asking for,” Sebastian insisted. “Give me a demonic escort, that I might survive long enough to discover what power I have. The only reason I believe you is that I felt it once. In the training ground.”
He turned to Lucan. “Do you remember? The day I sneaked in? The boy who ended up losing his eyes?”
“Yes,” Lucan growled. “I remember. I called it primal magic. I never imagined that it might be demonic in origin.”
Lucan had been worried since the moment the royal family started dropping dead. His level of concern was now at an all-time high. Demons and devils had their place in the pantheon of supernatural influences. Everybody knew that. Everybody also knew that to make a deal with such a question was to lose your soul. Did this devil, this Kinsey, did he even now possess the eternal soul of Melinda Force?
They stood at the very brink of hell. Sebastian was not showing proper amounts of fear because Sebastian did not have a decent sense of what to be afraid of. Kinsey seemed like just another courtier to argue with to the young prince. But Lucan felt the depth of the void below. He knew in his gut that he stood on the precipice of a fate worse than any other.
“Let me take the boy down,” Kinsey said. “He can only learn to harness the power he inherited from me safely among others of his kind. If he continues to carry on with you, it will emerge seemingly at random. You will never know when some rancid flame will claim eye or face or body of an unsuspecting passerby.”
Lucan ignored the warnings. There was something more interesting at play. The devil was acknowledging Lucan’s guardianship over Sebastian. He was respecting it. Which meant it was more than an arrangement of courtesy. There were several kinds of bonds that even devils had to respect. Familial bonds, and bonds of the soul.