Mated (The Queen's War #1)

Chapter 9

"Tell me more." Perci asked with a smile as Mekaziel finished describing the events of a particularly eventful evening of festivities during a winter festival almost three thousand years ago.

According to Mekaziel's near perfect recollection and a few agreeing side-quips from Sithral, it had been the penultimate night of a week-long winter festival held every decade in the Citadel. Lucan had used the event as an excuse to draw out a would-be king-killer that had been caught loitering around the Keep by the Royal guards.

As a smoke demon, the threat of the assassin had been real, especially since Valefar, one of Lucan's Commanders, had claimed he was once one of his best mercenaries before he went rogue.

Lucan, never one to sit and play possum, had paraded himself around the festivities with no weapons to speak of and deliberately put himself in a position where the assassin had an opportunity too irresistible to pass up. Then in front of a crowd of thousands, he'd plucked the heart of the demon the split second his smoky form appeared behind him to behead him, and shoved the still-beating organ down the assassin's own throat.

The barbarity of the story should have repulsed her, but all Perci could think about was the sheer power that Lucan clearly held. To outwit a demon that could literally appear out of thin air was baffling to her normal, mortal senses. She found herself wanting to hear more tales from ages long past about everything from the way Lucan governed his people to the small innocuous things like his favourite foods and pastimes.

"Well, what would you like to know?" Sithral leant back in the comfortable armchair of her private chambers in the Bowels. Kronan had all but insisted that she take ownership of the space, and she'd gladly accepted the safe space away from the curious eyes of her fellow souls.

"I don't even know where to start." She frowned.

"Tell her about Marsha." Mekaziel suggested and Sithral made an immediate sound of disgust which had the other Archdemon laughing.

"Who is Marsha?"

"She was... how to put this delicately?" Sithral seemed uncomfortable and Perci got the impression that she was about to hear something she didn't want to hear.

"A whore?" Mekaziel inputted and she was a little surprised at the degrading way he had said it.

"I think that's putting it mildly." Sithral blew out a breath.

"That seems a bit harsh." Perci muttered, feeling bad for this Marsha person.

"Trust us, if you had met her you would think the same."

"So what has she got to do with Lucan?"

"Back when harems were fashionable-" Sithral began to explain.

"Harems?" She squeaked, unable to stop the avalanche of mental images of Lucan surrounded by barely dressed women climbing all over him. She wasn't stupid, she knew that Lucan was hardly going to be a virgin after ten thousand years, but somehow she hadn't quite come to terms with just how many ex-lovers she would have to deal with.

"Uh, perhaps this story is best left untold after all." Mekaziel said after seeing her expression.

"No, no. I want to know now." She hurried to say. "You were saying about Lucan's... harem." She ground out.

"If it helps, we all had one." Sithral grinned.

"It doesn't." She said, but his cheeky smile was enough to lighten her mood nevertheless.

"Harems are as uncommon as they are in the human world now, so I'm told. But anyway, that isn't the point of the story." Sithral cleared his throat. "Marsha had been part of Lucan's harem for barely a decade when she began to grow resentful that his visits had become infrequent. She even had the audacity to question us about his intentions when we visited the Citadel."