had chosen for her was pretty. She’d been so long without one. They called her drudge, the demons and Diemos. She didn’t know why Tobias was in chains here, what he’d done, but she found herself thinking about him more and more often.
The female beside her hissed.
“I’m so sorry,” Scarlet whispered as she dipped her rag in the small bowl at her hip.
“I’m fine,” the female said through gritted teeth.
Diemos himself had sent for Scarlet to tend her, and not for the first time. The small, fragile-looking female belonged to their king. Though going by how often he punished her, she obviously didn’t want to belong to Diemos. Not surprising. Who would?
He never allowed her to leave his quarters either. No, she wasn’t locked in one of the cells like Tobias, at the mercy of demons, but this was still a prison. And if this wasn’t torture, Scarlet didn’t know what was.
A shiver slid through her as she looked around the king's chambers. There was a glossy black stone bed, the mattress covered in deep blue silks, and a large charred wooden chest sat at the end of it. A few other dark wood pieces of furniture were scattered around—a desk, a couch with blue silk cushions—but what made her shudder with revelation was the glistening dark walls. They looked like glossy obsidian, but when Scarlet had taken a closer look, it was blood that made the stone shine, blood running down the walls from the cells above.
“Would you like me to help you to the bathroom?” Scarlet asked, another task she’d done several times when the female had been too weak to walk on her own.
The other female shook her head. “He told me not to move.”
Scarlet’s heart ached for her, but there was nothing she could do. The king would do terrible things to both of them if they went against him. The way he obsessed over the small female, watched her, controlled her, was unsettling.
She eased her rag over the female’s abused skin again and thought about Tobias, the way he’d asked for her name every single day she’d tended him—how she’d felt the day he’d given her one of her own.
Did this female know her name? Would having one of her own help her the way it had helped Scarlet? She found now she stood a little taller. And for once no demon guard was listening or watching their every move. Or worse Taren, Diemos’s right hand, who was always close by. The male was almost as terrifying as Diemos himself.
“What is your name?” Scarlet asked.
The female stared at the wall for several long moments. Finally, she blinked, and a single tear slid down her cheek.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you…I just thought…”
“Kyler,” she said huskily. “My name is Kyler.”
“That’s such a lovely name. I’m Scarlet.”
“It feels…so long since I’ve said it out loud, since someone has called me by it,” Kyler said, her gaze so incredibly hollow.
Scarlet carried on tending Kyler’s wounds. “Is there something I can do to help you?”
Kyler shook her head. “Nothing that wouldn’t get you killed or tortured for eternity.”
“There must be something? The way he treats you… I know the passageways, the cells, deep hidden places barely anyone goes. I could hide you.”
Kyler remained completely still, only her eyes moving. “As soon as I left this room, they’d be on us. He’d tear Hell apart to find me. I’m too important.” She huffed out a humorless breath. “If I moved a finger right now, he’d know. And he'd return. Then you’d need to come back to do this all over again tomorrow.”
Oh god, she literally wasn’t permitted to move.
“Kyler…”
The door opened, and Scarlet shot to her feet as Diemos strode in, tall and pale and utterly terrifying. His yellow eyes locked on Scarlet, and fear so strong her lips trembled spiked through her. Then his gaze slid to Kyler, at her almost fully healed back. “Ah, almost as good as new, my darling,” he said in a voice that grated down Scarlet’s spine.
Kyler’s gaze became so impossibly empty it hurt to look at her.
Diemos glanced back at Scarlet. “Leave, drudge, you have work to do elsewhere.”
It took a second to unfreeze, to make herself move.
Diemos walked to the bed as Scarlet rushed to open the door.
“I hate it when we fight, my precious one,” he said to Kyler. “But making up is always so much fun.”
Scarlet had to bite back her sob. Leaving Kyler there felt wrong in