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Marcus wrinkled his nose at his companion. “Disgusting creatures…”
“That’s fine.” Gavin reached into his front pocket and tugged a folded handkerchief free. He wiped the glob away without a care in the world. “All of the bosses have flown in to bear witness to your punishments. I don’t give a damn who gets the pair of you. It’ll end the same way regardless of who buys you. You’ll end up pissing on yourself by the time you’re hauled out of here, mortal.”
That was enough to wipe the enraged expression off Tate’s face.
Not a single person in line was willing to break the silence as the chain started to retract back into the floor, forcing us further into the garage so that the demons could yank the sliding door back down. Only once my exit was sealed shut did it finally give us some slack. All it took was each demon pulling a gun out of their back pocket to prompt us in the other direction, straight toward a set of double doors that were already open.
Another male demon waited for us just inside with another thick chain draped over his arm. “Normally, I wouldn’t mind you screwing around, Gavin.” His voice was low and dripping with agitation. “Except you got the same memo that the rest of us did. Not only are the lords coming here to give judgment of the mortals, but so is the prince.”
I was managing to carry myself just fine, heavy chain and all, until the word ‘prince’ came out of his mouth. My foot managed to catch the smoothest part on the floor, sending me down on one knee and bringing both Beau and Evelyn down with me. The entire line almost went down if it wasn’t for the boss brothers and a few others ahead pulling on tight to keep everyone else on their feet.
Gavin howled with laughter. “Did you see that, Marcus? The little spitfire is clumsy as fuck. Oh, that’s hilarious.”
“Absolutely amusing,” Marcus responded in a flat tone. “Do us both a favor and take them off our hands, Wesley.”
His voice was further away, encouraging my eyes back toward where we’d come from. Although Gavin had walked alongside us toward the third demon, Marcus had halted near the part of the floor where the chain came out. All he had to do was jam a foot down to bring everyone else to a halt. I winced as both of the brothers cried out from the ragged metal digging into their skin. The faint smell of iron in the air hinted that the wounds were already bleeding.
Gavin seized the first person’s cuffs, keeping a firm grip while he took his chain off so that Wesley would replace it with his. “You’ll have to keep us up to date on how the verdicts go, friend.”
Wesley responded with a snort, dropping the chain as soon as we were connected. “You know very well how the verdicts are going to go. Why are you so interested in this batch, anyway? They’re all human and they were stupid enough to commit a crime against the royal family.”
Chills trickled down my spine. Just because the demon hadn’t spoken the words didn’t mean he hadn’t inferred them. We’d gone against the ruling demons by stealing from their own funds. It didn’t matter what our good intentions were, it was still a crime. I’d seen humans be condemned to death for less.
“Please.” Emma raised her cuffed hands and cast her wet blue eyes at Wesley. “I didn’t know what was going on in the basement. I thought I was being hired to be the nanny of the Eldermiles’ five-year-old son! I had no part in their crimes!”
I had just risen off the ground when Emma made the mistake of grabbing the demon’s arm. All it took was a push from him to send her flying back into the wall behind her. The way her eyes rolled up into the back of her head left me nauseous to the point where the room started spinning around me. The smell of iron grew even more dominant.
“Emma!” The man next to her on the chain line sank down beside her. “Hey… Look at me. Open those eyes.”
It took everything I had not to wince. You fucked up, Colby…
The edges of Wesley’s lips twitched. “Don’t know the others, huh? Looks like this male is very fond of you.”
Colby glared up at him while his companion tried to shake Emma awake. “That was unnecessary. You could’ve killed her.”
Any hint of the amusement that had started to leak onto the demon’s face immediately dissipated. He took a step back to give us a clear path into the next room. “Move your asses. I won’t hesitate to toss someone else. Even little Emma.”
Although Colby’s nostrils flared at his words, both he and his companion reached down to hoist Emma up to the best of their ability. In the end, their movement was so restricted that they had to drag her along the floor. The rest of us were forced to shuffle in after them.
The temperature seemed to drop dramatically once we piled in. The chain simply retracted into a hole near the left wall and kept Colby in place. What little freedom the rest of us had ceased as soon Marcus snagged the other end of the chain and attached it to another hole on the right side. It essentially kept us locked in place with nowhere to go.
Not much time passed before the doors were kicked open again and the next line of APL members shuffled inside. It didn’t take long for them to be chained in a line behind us, leaving two solid lines of prisoners staring at a wall of glass.
The air hitched in my throat when I realized there were seven seats within that room, six of them forming a small row closer to the glass while a single one was placed a row up, placed perfectly in the middle. The tension ripping through my body was nothing compared to the moment that the door within the room swung open and several men drifted inside to take their seats.
Every single one of them was intoxicating to the eyes in their own way, yet the way they carried themselves screamed danger and death. It took everything I had not to cower as their gazes swung toward us once they took their seats. So these were the demon lords, right-hand men to the prince himself.
The rest of the APL members — excluding the livid twin brothers beside me — immediately ducked their eyes out of pure fear. Hell, with the way Theo was shaking, he was clinging to that anger with everything he had in a desperate attempt not to succumb to the same paralyzing terror washing through him.
I was the only one to lift my jaw in defiance. Their presence certainly left a suffocating weight on me that made it difficult to draw each breath. Yet, I had endured my own lifetime of hell in the body of someone who should have given me love — not disgust. The way the demon lords peered down on us was merely a different mixture of the same venom and I refused to cower.
It didn’t take long for the two in the middle to take notice. The demon lord with piercing crimson eyes honed in on me while his amethyst-eyed companion jabbed him in the side with his elbow. I’d watched enough people during the day to read his lips.
“Look at that one, Nico. The boss will love breaking the spirit of that one.”
His crimson-eyed companion merely scowled. “You’re assuming he’ll let any of them live beyond tonight.”
Marcus drifted into the room with two more suited men bearing automatic rifles. He planted himself in front of us with a scowl of his own. Although his annoyance for being here was clearly painted on his face, he didn’t express an ounce of that emotion verbally. When the door in the room behind him swung back open, he wasn’t the only one to flinch under the sudden fluctuation of power sweeping through the room.
