Chapter Ten #3
And the diced-not-sliced thing? That was leftover childhood trauma from when a baby Dora snuck an apple slice from my plate when I wasn’t looking.
She choked on it, and even though Mom rushed over, got it out, and everything was fine, I’d been cutting up my fruit small enough for a toddler to eat ever since.
But how did you notice that? I thought, gazing at Ronin. Not even Dora ever knew why I was so insistent on small pieces of fruit.
“And if you spit on her food again,” Ronin hissed at the aye-aye demon as I spun around, looking at the food on the floor in new light. “I’ll rip your tongue out of your head next.”
“Next?” he repeated.
Ronin snapped his fingers.
“Ahhhh!”
I clapped my hand over my mouth, muffling my shout or keeping down my bile—I wasn’t sure which.
The fingers on his left hand bent and twisted in almost half a dozen directions they were never meant to go.
“Ahh, fuck! I got it!” the aye-aye belted out. “Diced, chocolate, hollandaise, honey, no spit!”
There was definitely spit on my leg after he shouted that. And I had a feeling there would still be extra added to whatever he brought out next.
“He says he’s got it...” Ronin nuzzled my cheek, shifting me and my body back to him and returning me to his thrall like a sunflower reaches for the sun. “But what should I do to him if he’s lying? What do I do to anyone who defies me when it comes to you?”
I knew the answer, for there was never going to be another one. Grasping his cheek, I stroked his lips—tracing his shock as his mouth parted in surprise.
“Why, kill them, of course,” I replied without hesitation. “It’s no more than they deserve.”
Ronin just looked at me, face expressionless. He drew away from my touch and flapped an irritated hand at the aye-aye demon. “You heard her.”
Grumbling to himself, the demon went off to fetch a plate of food that I was one hundred percent not eating. On my other side, Dora tackled her meal with gusto.
The doors flew open, and the princesses blew in on a cloud of perfume, pomp, and bickering.
I shook my head at them. For five women who fought and cursed each other out as much as they did, they couldn’t seem to help going everywhere together as a group. Seriously, they were the weirdest band of frenemies I’d ever seen.
And once again proving they had more in common than not, they all took one look at me and Dora at the Sins table, and broke out in matching glares and grimaces.
“What the fuck are those two doing here?” Raven demanded.
Ronin picked up his glass of wine and swirled the contents, gazing into its crimson depths. “You conjured seven chairs for seven sins, didn’t you?” he drawled. “Who else was the seventh chair for if not her?” He motioned at Adora.
“That was before she glued herself to the mortal bitch!”
“A mortal bitch who”—Ursula stomped over to me—“is not one of us.” She pointed to the tables before the platform where the lackeys were sitting down, getting comfortable, and waiting for their food to come out. “Get down there with the rest of the bootlickers.”
“Hmm,” Ronin hummed, flicking my gaze to him. “Is that where you belong, Charlotte? Down there?”
I smiled tightly, thinking of nothing but the company I’d prefer. “No, Ronin. I belong to you, and beside you.”
Surprising me, he turned away—irritation etched in his handsome face.
My brows twitched together. What’s his problem? Aren’t I giving him exactly what he wanted?
“Besides,” I went on, feeling the princesses’ murderous glares stabbing me in a dozen different places. “I’m on your side. I’m working with Ronin and Dora to get Lucifer to hand over the keys to his kingdom.”
Kama snorted. “You are? What the fuck can you do?”
I just smiled blandly at her. “He brought me to hell for a reason. I’ll make it clear to him that if I get what I want, he’ll get what he wants, and then you’ll get what you want. A classic win-win-win.”
Raven rolled her eyes. “Whatever, I don’t care as long as you deliver. And I’m sure you will”—she tapped her shoulder with a smirk—“because it’s not as if you’re in a position to refuse us.”
Us. How quickly she became an us with Ronin in her mind.
But with that, the other princesses lost interest in me and took their seats—awaiting their food.
“Anyway, like I was saying, Father received word of our plans,” Sauda continued.
She was gorgeous as usual in a leather dress with long, sheer sleeves and a spiked collar.
“He forbids it. He says there’s to be no more talk of this empire of sin bullshit unless it’s the empire of envy.
All Houses are to cede their land, territory, and trade agreements to him, and name him the undisputed emperor of hell.
If your dads do so willingly, they’ll be named his advisors.
But if they allow any of you to marry Ronin and go ahead with this plan, House Envy will declare war. ”
War? I sat up straighter in my seat, heart squeezing. Whoa, wait. I just wanted to get these five off my back. I didn’t want to be the first domino that fell in the Rube Goldberg march to war!
“My father said the same thing,” Ursula added. “Although he said he’s going to kill all of you, imprison your fathers, and fuck up the pretty faces of sloth for having plotted this the whole time, but only revealed it when all the princesses were of age.”
“Well, my father says I’m not to marry anyone, and neither are all of you,” Kama said, snapping my gaze to the other end of the table. “He says marriage is as ridiculous as monogamy, and if I or either one of you use it to declare yourself more powerful than him, he’ll kill us all.”
The ladies exchanged looks, their faces grave, then burst out laughing.
“Miserable old fuckers,” Eris howled, slapping the table. “Got ’em running scared now!”
“Like their threats are actually going to stop us,” Ursula said, giggling away. “Two seconds after I say I do, I’m going Greek on his ass. I’m trapping Father on an island where the water recedes every time he tries to drink, and the fruit trees rise whenever he tries to eat.”
“Well done,” Raven praised. “As for me, I’m going to imprison my father in our deepest, darkest dungeons, and every day regale him with the tales of how I’ve promoted, freed, and made wealthy all of his worst enemies.
There’s nothing he’ll hate more than knowing the wrath he visited on them came to naught. ”
“Sweet,” said Sauda, once again ping-ponging my googly eyes to the other side of the table. “Now y’all are making me wish I was more creative. I’m just going to drop dear old Dad in a vat of acid and seal the cauldron.”
“Hahaha,” all five of them sounded off, clutching their sides and barely keeping themselves from falling out of their seats.
“Umm,” I said softly. “I don’t understand. They all hate their fathers?”
“Of course they do,” Ronin replied. “Didn’t you hear me say their fathers only adopted them because they believe women are too weak to defeat them? They were adopted to be replaceable pawns and shields for assassination. They were never meant to rise higher than they are now.”
“Hmm.” I looked away, gaze sweeping over the mess hall. “But why do they believe female demons are so weak when no one else does?” I heard myself ask. “Everyone here was quaking in their boots when Erlik announced the school was going co-ed.”
“Because they’re not weak. Female demons master and wield dark magic better and quicker than their male counterparts.”
“They do?” I blurted. “Is it a woman thing? Like how everyone keeps telling me about goddesses blessing mortal women with magic, but they’ve said nothing about the men.”
“No gods or goddesses are involved with this,” Ronin murmured.
There was an odd quality in his voice. “Dark magic is powered by hatred, and, in hell... male demons give women plenty of reasons to hate them.” He nodded at the ladies who were currently in the middle of plotting their adopted fathers’ violent ends. “Case in point.”
“Male demons give women plenty of reasons to hate them...” Through my lashes, I peered at the five women who were adopted to be powerless, and then threatened with punishment and death when they tried to do something about it...
then my gaze drifted to the room full of vile leches and pervs who howled and stepped over each other to rape me first...
and then my eyes drifted down, falling on the tattoo emblazoned on my skin for all to see.
And beside me, Ronin tracked every sweep of my gaze—his own drilling into the side of my head.
When I snapped up, I was all smiles. “That’s a bummer,” I finished, “but hopefully, when Lucifer gives in and you all create your new empire, that’ll all change. There’ll be a lot less hate and a lot more unity in hell, and I’ll be by your side through it all. Right where I belong.”
“Tch.” Shoving back from the table, Ronin threw his wineglass at the aye-aye demon who chose that moment to return with the food.
The guy sputtered and coughed as Ronin stormed off.
Watching him go, I gave my sentence its real ending. “Male demons give women plenty of reasons to hate them...? Then, I’d have thought you learned your lesson by now.” My nails pierced my tattoo. “A woman scorned is a lot more powerful than you think.”
FOR THE REST OF THE day, I gave Ronin the sweet, pleasing, empty-headed pet he was looking for.
I didn’t react when he made me sit on his lap during classes.
I called myself his pet and his possession whenever the topic came up.
I didn’t look in Nik’s direction, and I didn’t bring up the hallows except to say that I was excited to look for them together after Lucifer gave in to Ronin’s demands.
And all day... Ronin looked pissed as shit.
That night after dinner, I hung out in my room doing homework.