bedeviled & beyond 04 - bedeviled & belittled Read Free

my heart and body couldn’t help noticing the way Dialle’s breeches hugged the nicely rounded package at the juncture of his muscular thighs.
    As the music began and Torre stepped forward to begin the ceremony, I licked my lips and tried to focus on the great sex I was about to have.
    Funny how your priorities changed when the size of your problems kept growing. After the brief, mental discussion with Dialle, I realized having sex before an audience of hundreds was the least of my problems.
    Sometimes it was damn difficult being me.
    Torre handed me to Dialle and stepped back. “Let us begin.”
    The thunderous sound of hundreds of creatures dropping to their knees made me turn. They were all prostrate on the floor, their foreheads touching the plush carpets beneath them.
    I could only hope they stayed that way. If they were sucking carpet lint they couldn’t cast their eyes on my thigh dimples.
    From the cavernous reaches of the ceiling above our heads, the magical sound of angels singing drifted down to fill the room. I resisted looking up. The chained angels were my biggest problem with the Devil Court. It was a practice that had served for millennia and, though I’d worked on Dialle for months to get him to release the angels, the politics of the move were so far entrenched into their system that I’d yet to make any headway gaining their release.
    But I had the satisfaction of knowing the angels were at least treated well. Unlike they’d been under Dialle’s father, Dialle the First, or the hopefully extinguished King Nerul of the other devil court.
    Baby steps.
    The music swelled, creating magic on the air that began to work upon my mind. The music generated tingly feelings low in my belly and made Dialle look even sexier than usual.
    A seemingly impossible trick.
    I licked my lips and clenched my thighs, fearing that my Settling would bring the magics to their culmination much more quickly than anticipated, embarrassing me and maybe even Dialle with their intensity.
    Premature magiculation.
    Torre stepped up next to Dialle, lifting his hands. The crowd behind me got to its feet again. Torre began to speak in Hades, a tongue I’d learned at a young and tender age, while bouncing on my devilish mother’s knee.
    I mentally translated as he spoke.
    “The court of Dialle the First is done. It is the time for a new regime, a fresh course, for the chosen race...”
    I snorted softly and both Dialle and Torre glared at me. I glowered back. When they said outrageous things they couldn’t expect me not to react.
    Had they met me?
    Torre continued. “King Dialle the Second brings a new vision to the Royal Devil Court. This vision binds us to the new century, to the current time, making us a vital part of this world.”
    The creatures behind us stirred and murmurs slid through the crowd.
    “We no longer cling to the past, to old ways, instead we look to the future and embrace the changes which are needed to bring us into the light.”
    “Heresy!”
    I turned to see who had shouted as Dialle lifted a hand, palm out, and shot a volt of power into the rug at someone’s feet.
    The extremely tall, exceedingly narrow royal had a pinched mouth and angry, black eyes. I recognized him as one of the Royal Court. He didn’t flinch as Dialle’s power arrow singed his toes, but, after a moment during which the entire room fell into stark, unnatural silence, he inclined his head and lifted his hands as indication that the ceremony should resume.
    Apparently he wasn’t devil enough to follow up his verbal challenge with a physical one.
    You just made me very hot. I informed Dialle.
    He smiled and his black gaze sparked with promise. He inclined his head to Torre and his brother went back to droning on.
    I stopped listening and kept a gimlet eye on the crowd. I’ve never been known for having a trusting nature and the outburst had reminded me I’d been standing with my vulnerable backside to a large group of big, bad,