A Kingdom of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales Book 3)(64)

My jaw dropped. “What the hell” was right.

Costumes. Everyone had on costumes. It was reminiscent of a party back at Nyfain’s castle. Although some of the guests showed next to no skin, others were nearly naked. No robed figures walked amongst them this time—the “tame” shifters and faeries wore sparkly briefs and body paint of all colors.

“Has this happened before?” I asked Micah, fighting a crooked smile. Even though no one really wanted to get too close to me, they continued to put us together as the focal point of the cages. I was going to try to pull back on that a little tonight. I had to get near the other shifters, even if it meant getting bought, killing my john, and facing the repercussions.

“No.” Micah chuckled, then started laughing. “Absolutely not, no. Despite the fact that there is an entire faction of sex demons in this kingdom, the demon king likes to pretend their kind are civilized. Civilized in his mind means…”

“Vanilla,” I said, my smile widening.

“Apparently they’ve had a change of heart.” He sounded mystified.

Hadriel and Leala work fast, my dragon thought, full of pride.

“Are they…” Micah’s words drifted away for a moment. “Are they wearing nipple clamp…pasties? Is that a thing?”

Really fast. I laughed.

“So it seems,” I said, spying Leala in the crowd draped on a demon’s arm with those nipple clamp pasties and a sparkly pink thong. The demon next to her held a leash attached to a collared male demon trailing along behind them.

I could not believe my eyes. Collars? Hadriel and Leala were miracle workers.

Then again, there were sex demons present, and this was the exact vibe they’d created at Nyfain’s castle. Dolion might’ve been trying to show a certain face to his guests, but this depravity had always been lurking within them. Hadriel and Leala, true experts, had just let it out. I was sure the sex demons in his castle had helped. How could they not? This was their jam.

The night rolled on as it had in the past, with demons wandering closer to assess us and giving me a wide berth despite my attempts to muffle my scent. It wasn’t until about halfway through the party that I spotted Hadriel, working the crowd with smiles and grins but toning down his usual flamboyance. It was almost like he was trying to blend in. No purple beast costume this time, although he did wear a fuzzy purple necktie and wrist cuffs.

He visited the cage of the indigo-eyed faerie, staying for a brief period before sauntering over to the alpha wolf. Putting his back to the cage, Hadriel looked out at the crowd of partygoers, his lips barely moving. To someone not in the know, it would look like he was just assessing the room. He was obviously networking, though, and the perpetual tightness in my stomach loosened just a little.

Not long afterward, he threaded his way through the crowd, stopping to chat a few times and allowing a woman to grab his junk. He grabbed a female demon and walked her toward Micah. At Micah’s cell, after marveling about the large dragon’s frame and muscles, he excused himself and sidled over to me.

“My love,” he said quietly, his back to me as though he were still assessing Micah. “That dress is truly hideous. It is like they are trying to make you ugly.”

“Any news?” I murmured, looking out at the crowd.

Dolion strolled through the double doors, his smile tight and his shoulders tense—I could see it from all the way across the room. He looked around, trying to take it all in, his movements getting stiffer and stiffer as he did. He paused next to a male shifter in a pair of tiny briefs and looked him over, a little crease forming between his eyebrows.

The woman next to him offered the shifter a beaming smile and then a pat-down, running her fingers over his chest and down to his stomach. She pulled her hand away before she could trail them over his bulge, but the look in her eyes suggested she would have liked to keep exploring. She continued walking with Dolion, her gaze seeking out more flesh, her desire plain. She evidently liked what she saw.

Dolion must’ve hated it, though, because he disentangled himself from her, putting distance between them. She hardly seemed to notice.

“How’d you do this?” I asked Hadriel as he worked his way back to the female demon checking out Micah.

He paused and turned to look at me, assessing me like any guest or “tame” shifter might. He waved his hand in front of his nose and screwed up his face in disgust.

“We don’t have time to waste on questions like that, dove,” he told me, his tone not at all matching his actions and body language. “We need to get you in a room with the indigo-eyed faerie and the alpha wolf. They’ve been collecting information for years. Years and years. But they don’t have the power to break out or the knowledge to operate the boats. They need the way cleared, essentially. They need the dragons.”

“They’ll have the dragons. We just need a way to get out of the dungeons.”

He nodded and turned again as the lady demon wandered over to him.

“The faerie thinks you can help her with that,” he murmured, so low I barely heard. He rose his voice as the demon took his arm. “Do you know what?” He turned my way. “She is a vision. I think she’d be a great show for Tessau while you pleasure him, don’t you? Or I can pleasure him—or you! If she were a little removed, we wouldn’t be troubled by the smell.”