The Asian half-demon pointed at me, sniffing, and accused. “She isn’t even a human!”
“Took you this long to figure it out, demon?” I snorted. “And you need to improve your skills when it comes to complimenting a woman.”
He glared at me. “What are you?”
“Asmodeus, meet Princess Celeste, my little cousin,” Loki said and then turned to me. “The one who enjoyed Irish whiskey while watching you fight is Leviathan, the Duke of Envy. Pythius, the Duke of Deception, is on a mission. But you’ll meet my spymaster soon.”
I’d learned about the ranks of demons in Esme’s classDemon Mythology and Powers.
“So the dick who nicked me with his longsword is the Archdemon of Vengeance and Wickedness?” I asked, ignoring Asmodeus’s hissing. “I thought demons weren’t fond of swords. The ones I met and killed on the surface preferred other kinds of weapons. Axes and chainsaws seemed to be their favorites.”
“Only Lucifer, my dukes, and I use swords,” Loki said. “And my dukes prefer the title of duke rather than archdemon.”
“Sounds the same to me,” I said with a shrug.
Asmodeus bared his teeth again.
“You look very scary pulling your thin lips up, Hell boy,” I offered. “Keep it up, and I might shake in my boots with fear one day.”
Loki sighed and spread his arms in resignation. Leviathan chuckled again. And Asmodeus shook his head in disgust and stormed back to his seat. The wicked duke tore a chunk of meat from a roasted animal thigh and shoved it into his mouth.
My belly grumbled.
To my surprise, no one made fun of the noises my stomach made.
“No more brawl,” Loki said, giving his dukes a warning look as he pulled up a chair for me at the end of the table, and he took the seat at the head. He was treating me almost like his equal.
I picked up a roll of dark rye bread from a basket, pleased that it was warm. After pasting butter on it with a knife, I started eating. There were all sorts of drinks in front of me, but I went for a bottle of water and tried my best to avoid anything red. For fuck’s sake, this was a demon lair. Any red liquid could be human blood.
“Is this the female you promised us, Your Highness,” Leviathan asked, “a mate who can match us in strength and sate us all?”
I sneered before I swallowed a mouthful of bread.
Leviathan grinned. “She’ll do fine with us. She can survive us.”
“The question is if you can survive me,” I said.
Leviathan laughed.
Asmodeus glared at me. “She’s like a bad kitten ready to pounce at anyone. We need to clip her claws before she scratches our expensive furniture.”
“Come to clip me, pretty boy,” I said, forking a diced apple while I was ready to throw my butter knife at his left eye.
I needed protein, but in Hell, I’d better stick to vegetables and fruits. Who knew what kind of meat they’d serve here?
“She doesn’t look like the One,” Asmodeus complained.
I got his point. I could imagine how I looked without peering in the mirror. I’d lost weight. I was now paper-thin from months of torture and starvation and being locked in an iron coffin.
I was almost thankful that Loki had stopped the fight between his duke and me. If the combat had kept going, I’d have collapsed. By the end of it, I’d already been swaying. It was only by sheer will that I’d held myself together.
Even now, my head was pounding with pain, and waves of vertigo assaulted me.
With a thin face, my green eyes must look huge, and my wild lavender hair didn’t look too far away from a bird’s nest.
Back on the surface of Earth, I’d never looked tough either. My mates had taken good care of me. And no matter how many trainings and battles I’d gone through in the Half-blood Academy, I’d never looked battle-hardened. And I’d never lost the baby fat on my roundish cheeks until I was in Hell.
I didn’t look the part of the daughter of the Queen of Hell.