Kapitel 7: CHAPTER 7
"I applaud you all for your…bravery, but we are not fools in the dungeon," the newcomer said, his tone sickly sweet. It made me feel like insects were crawling across my skin. "Remove the sword."
"Now, now, first officer," Sandy said from somewhere behind me. "Is his highness not keeping you in high comfort? You have to steal from prisoners now? Surely that is beneath you."
"Not from prisoners, from us," Reno said. "If we take it off, we keep it."
Gio's voice cut through the muttering of those behind us. "His highness said to leave it on."
Reno waved him away. "Yeah, yeah, I know." He glared at the first officer. "She keeps it. The king's orders."
A crease formed between the first officer's eyebrows. "Is that so? And I assume he will provide us with the needed protections when she is to be moved to the whipping post?"
The whipping post? my dragon thought softly.
Neither of us liked the sound of that.
Gio's tone was disinterested. "We don't answer for his highness. He wants her to keep the sword. That's all I know."
"She doesn't know how to use it," Reno said. "He's mocking her by allowing her—"
"His highness's reasons are his own." Gio didn't take his eyes off the first officer. "And those reasons have clearly not been passed on to the dungeons. Who is to say what his real intentions are?" That sounded almost like a threat. It was clear the first officer and Gio did not like each other. "She keeps the sword."
"For now," the first officer said, matching Gio's stare.
Gio didn't comment.
"Fine." The first officer turned his attention to Jedrek, still out cold and being carried. "What of that thing? Is he also armed?"
"No," Reno said, his gaze darting to Gio and then away. "He's no trouble."
"Hmm." The first officer took a step back and waved his hand. Four identical figures in red robes strode forward from behind him, walking down the center of the columns, two holding thin red clubs and the other two armed with whips. They had the same sickly, moldy appearance as the first officer and nearly the same facial features, only with thinner, flatter noses. It was like the first officer had attempted to duplicate himself, hadn't gotten it exactly right, but thought it passable enough to continue using the same mold.
"Remember, they need to be put in a cell together." Reno motioned for Gio to bring me forward. "Don't mar her face or arms, and don't cut anything off. She might end up being a pet for his highness eventually. They need to get the smell off first, though."
"Keep her pretty for parties, yes." That horrible smile was still on the first officer's face. "There's a lot we can hide with clothes. But they won't get that smell off." He giggled to himself, touching slim fingers to his plump lips. "How silly to even think it. Once a shifter claims its mate, the stink is forever. Usually it's tolerable, but this… Well, it'll take a nose plug to be with her for any length of time. I doubt his highness will ever take her as a pet."
"Since when did you become an expert?" Reno curled his lip at the first officer.
Two of the red-robed demons took me from Donal and Gio, pulling me to the side and ripping my arms up and away from my sword. When I hobbled and nearly fell, they dragged me.
"Out of all of us, who is with them the most?" the first officer asked with a simpering smile. "Who knows how far one can go before they break?"
Reno narrowed his eyes. "Torturing them doesn't make you an expert."
"He'd need brains to be an expert on anything," Gio murmured.
The first officer's smile stretched wider as he took Gio in. "I noticed you are not in charge for once, captain. Instead, this fool of a guard is taking the lead. Interesting." His voice took on a boyishness that was off-putting in such a foul-looking creature. "What did you do to deserve this level of punishment? Not a large crime. No, no, not a large crime. That would get you in my stocks or licked by my whips. This is just a grievance, nothing more. An infraction." His wide-set yellow-green eyes slid to Donal. "And your second-in-command is with you. Hmm. I am dying with curiosity. Pay attention, Reno—the captain here spends nearly as much quality time with dragons as I do shifters in general. Maybe it is him the king should be asking for advice."
The first officer was obviously trying to get a rise out of Gio, but no such luck. Gio looked on placidly, ignoring him as he did me. As he did almost everyone, it seemed.
"Yes, well." The first officer motioned for Jedrek to be brought forward and set on the ground.
"Remember, he's a pet." Reno pointed at the unconscious body. "Don't drag him on his face or anything. I'm going to put in my report that I dropped him off in perfect health."
"You dropped him off unconscious and with a bruised face." The first officer entwined his spindly fingers and rested them on his protruding girth. "I know how to do my job. Do you?"
Reno scowled. "C'mon," he said to the room at large, turning. "We're done here."
The demons peeled away, Gio with one last glance at me before he left. As they moved back the way they'd come, one demon was left standing her ground, looking at me. She wore her human glamor, a beautiful redhead with full red lips and a little dot of a nose. A sparkling pink dress hugged her generous curves and accentuated her perfect display of cleavage.
She didn't utter a word. Just winked, turned, and sauntered away.
The sass conveyed by those few simple movements curled under my clothes and crawled across my skin. A succubus—she had to be. I wondered what she wanted with me.
The first officer watched her leave. Afterward, he regarded me with a slightly quizzical look that quickly turned to deviousness and menace.
"Welcome, dragon. Your captors have been fooled, haven't they? That potent scent isn't from the alpha alone. It is your power mixed together." He closed his eyes and smiled serenely. "It will be so sweet to taste. And what a delicious irony. I will use your pain and suffering to fuel my creatures and send them against your dragon prince. I'll be using his mate's own power against him, as it were."
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein