Read Online Prince of Demons 2: The Order of the Black Swan by Victoria Danann - Free Book Online Page B

him and she walked straight into them, burying her head in his neck and hugging him tightly.
    “Good morning, Beautiful. How did you sleep?”
    “Like the dead. But when I wasn’t asleep I was worried about you.”
    She heard one of the demons snort at that.
    He hugged her tighter, nuzzling her ear and murmuring sweet thoughts about how good she smelled.
    “What’s going to happen to us now, Brave?”
    She opened her eyes a sliver. What filled her field of vision was the chest and arms of one of the demons and his arm tattoos were identical to the guard that they had either killed or left for dead when they escaped.
    She opened her mouth to tell Brave, but he pulled back smiling. “Nothing is going to happen to us. We played a game. It was fun, but now it’s over.”
    The guard they had fought with said, “Do you have further need of the Council, Your Eminence?”
    When Lana realized that he was addressing Brave, she felt shock register and then resonate all the way to her toes. She looked back at Brave with wide eyes.
    “No, Perry, but I want you and Dart to stay for a bit and get to know Lana. Atalanta Ravin,” Brave smiled down at her like he was introducing her to friends at a cocktail party, “this is my chief security officer, Peregrination. The other ugly demon is Dart. He’s been my best friend since, well, forever.”
    “I don’t understand. This demon is the one you attacked so that we could escape,” she said, nodding at Peregrination.
    Perry laughed and winked at her. “I’ll be forever grateful that you weren’t brought here in stilettos, I assure you.”
    Everyone vacated the room, leaving them alone. Brave ushered Lana toward his chair and sat her on his lap. She went along dumbly because she was too stunned to resist.
    “Lana,” Brave laughed. “Don’t look so glassy eyed. All this was prearranged for you.”
    At first it almost sounded like Brave’s voice was coming from the bottom of a well. When her mind snapped back into real time, his last statement began to sink in.
    “Why did he call you ‘Your Eminence’?”
    “Oh that. They call me Prince because my foster father is Regent.”
    Dart spoke up. “That’s not the only reason. He’s being modest. He’s Prince because he has something we need.” Lana looked at Dart, who smiled showing incisors that would be extraordinarily sharp on a human. “He’s devious. Has a gift for it.”
    Lana looked back at Brave, who shrugged, obviously proud of himself, and gave her a little pat on the rear end. Which made her want to bite down on that hand. Hard.
    “He certainly is. And apparently you think deviousness is a good thing.”
    “It’s not just a good thing. It’s a thing necessary to protecting and preserving your home against aggressors who are also…”
    “Devious,” she supplied. “So none of this was real.”
    “Some of it was real,” Brave protested, suddenly becoming aware of her tone. “The part that counted – the sensations and emotions you were feeling.”
    “And you thought making me feel those things was a game?” She scrambled off his lap and stood facing him in confrontation. “Not to mention the fact that we could have died!”
    “No.” He shook his head, looking more concerned by the second. “Nothing could have happened to you. It was all planned.”
    “Planned? That’s impossible, Brave.” She looked around at the others whose expressions were completely blank. “You don’t seem to understand that this was wrong! Wrong on every level.”
    She jerked her head toward Perry when he snorted at that.
    “Do you have something you want to say, demon?”
    Perry wiped the smile from his face. “Yes. I would like to say your human philosophy on ‘right’ and ‘wrong’,” he actually did air quotes, twice, “won’t find any fans here.”
    She stared at Peregrination for a full minute, trying to absorb that and imagine how a society could be ordered without some code of conduct, whatever it