Devil's Prince (Satan's Brood Book 1)

by Louise Furley

  There were plenty of other immense and scary looking species on board, but Dev speared intense fear into even the most formidable hearts.

  He strode for fifteen minutes before he finally reached the sickbay. The auto-doors flashed open before he reached them and closed as soon as he passed through.

  Entering the first room Dev called out, “Geffry!”

  A female Tron, a nurse with a body like an anvil, she was quite tall and strong with dark webbing hair, amphibian-like skin, several eyes, hurried over to him. She held her arms out to take Sveti. “Sire, give her to me I will put her on a gurney.”

  Dev strode past her, barked, “Get Geffry,” and kept going until he reached an infirmary room. Most everything was white; walls, ceiling, beds, linens, chair covers. The floor was white and beige diamond shaped tiles.

  By the time Dev reached a bed, a husky man came striding in. Also in white; coat, shirt, pants, his brown hair was tufted with grey, Dr. Geffry Jamez bustled into the room.

  “Ah, Dev, what have we here?” He looked down at the battered woman in Dev’s arms barely clinging to life. He told him, “Set her on the bed. Lynya,” he called out to the nurse who had followed them into the room.

  “Take her vitals and,” he called out again to a male assistant that had followed him in, “Jaspin, bring me the relconsitation.”

  Dev gently laid Sveti on the bed. The mattress didn’t even dent she was so slight. He stood staring down at her.

  “Uh, Sire, uh,” Lynya said nervously, “you uh, could you please stand back so I can take her vitals?” She had seen the Dravidian plenty of times when he brought in injured warriors but she was still just as terrified of him as the first time he’d drilled those incising fathomless eyes at her.

  Dev didn’t move as if he hadn’t heard the nurse’s request.

  “Devilos,” Dr. Jamez gruffed at him, “you aren’t helping the injured young lady.” He nudged his body against Dev easing him aside so the nurse could get to Sveti.

  When Dev wandered over to the other side of the bed to observe, Lynya drew her hand-held auto-vital tac over Sveti’s body.

  A young human male hurried into the room wheeling a machine on a cart.

  The doctor immediately unwound wires and suctioned them onto Sveti’s head, chest, abdomen and hands then flipped switches on the machine. It whirred and blinked as information was fed from Sveti’s body into it.

  “So,” Geffry Jamez murmured as he worked, “who is our guest and how did she get in such dire condition? Besides obviously beaten, kicked, bitten, and caned no doubt, she appears to have been…stomped on and starved.” He peered into a screen that was clicking out a diagnosis.

  His eyes on her, Dev explained, “She is Prințesă Svetiessa Emita Ritrova. Apparently Illyios Gha’auvin captured her younger bráthair and was selling him to the Ochlos for the mines. When the prințesă got wind of it she traded her life for his.”

  Geffry’s brows hit his hairline. “Is she insane? Twas cerain death.”

  Dev nodded. “Truth. However, apparently her young brother’s life was worth more to her than her own.”

  The doctor looked upon the uncouncious woman with grim eyes and tightened lips. “Brave lass,” he commented softy. But you got her out in one piece?”

  “My team invaded his lair, killed his soldiers, Gha’auvin wasn’t present. I found her like this. The Amphicyonids as you know are grizzly-canines, they like to make their captives run so they can chase them and take them down, then they enjoy repeatedly pouncing on and batting them around, and throwing them at each other in games, cutting them and biting them.”

  Geffry shook his head, his lips pursed. “Hard to fathom creatures so evil and deranged they get a thrill out of submitting henious injuries upon a sentient being.”

  “And aye, you are correct, they get off on caning captives too, amongst other delights. I found the prințesă in the dungeon hanging from the ceiling by her wrists. If she had survived the vicious brutality she would have been sent directly to the mines.”

  Jamez shot a glance at Dev. Shaking his head again he muttered, “Shit.”

  “Aye,” Dev nodded agreeing, his eyes on the young woman. “Do you think she’ll make it?”

  The doctor ran his palms over Sveti’s body incurring an inexplicable growl and frown from Dev.

  Geffry ignored him. As the doctor ran his hands under her skirt up her legs, Dev’s body pumped, the growl deepened, he moved imperceptibly.

  Geffry glanced at him again with a slight smile. “What is she to you that you’re reacting that way?”

  Dev crossed his arms and glared at the doctor then lowered his gaze back to Sveti. “Nothing. Only a prisoner. My prisoner.”

  Stifling a chuckle, Jamez continued his examination. “I see.” Then he turned serious. He leaned back and instructed Lynya, “Get plasma into her stat, AB pos, and electrolytes.”

  As the nurse hurried to do as he bid, the doctor sifted his palms over Sveti’s ribs, she whimpered, her body pulsed.

  Dev took a step closer to the bed. “What did you do? Did you hurt her?”

  Shaking his head, pushing aside the shreds of her gown to expose her top half, Geffry said quietly, “Her ribs are broken. Every one of them.”

  The nurse blanched, whispered, “Oh my Zues’ sons.”

  Sveti’s entire torso, limbs face, neck were solid black and blue. Even the breasts that plumped over the torn peach bra were a mess of lacerations and bruises.

  Dev’s expression remained impassive, but his lids lowered over his eyes. “Geffry,” his heavy voice low he asked, “what are her chances of recovery?”

  Studying the relconsitation indicator, Jamez shook his head again. “I don’t know. Right now it’s iffy that she will survive the night. Now,” he turned to Dev, said sternly, “I can’t work with you in here glowering at me. You need to leave. I will contact you with information as it happens.” He glared at Dev when the big man stood stolidly.

  He had business to attend to or he would observe, for a while anyway. Rough and low, Dev commanded, “Someone is to stay with her every second, night and day. That will be only you or Lynya.”

  His fluffy grey brows rose then pushed down, Jamez said, “Devilos, Jaspin and Roy are quite satisfactory to watch over her.” His flaccid face burrowed into a frown. “Besides, no one would attack that child in the condition she’s in. She will be safe-”

  Dev’s words hard and cutting, brooked no further discussion, “Only you or Lynya.”

  The doctor raised his palms. “All right, fine. Now, get out so I can work on her.”

  Casting a lingering look from the top of Sveti’s dirty curls down the length of her broken body, Dev spun and strode out the door.

  Chapter Six

  A few weeks passed when Bowie slid onto a barstool next to Dev. He raised a hand at the bartender then clasped his hands together and set them on the bar. “So, how’s she doing?”

  The strong, pale-leasant green liquid went down Dev’s throat smooth as silk.

  The bartender set a beer in a frothy draft in front of Bowie. The lieutenant picked it right up and chugged half of it before setting it down. Dragging the back of his hand over his mouth he made a satisfied, “Ahhh,” sound.

  Without looking at him, Dev said, “Jamez says she’s on the mend. He kept her in an induced coma because the pain she would be suffering healing would be…unbearable, excruciating. He brought her out of it yesterday but,” he chuckled mirthlessly, “he wouldn’t let me see her. Said he didn’t want his fragile patient frightened back to death.”

  Sucking his beer, Bowie laughed. “I can see that. Besides your fearsome looks, she’s gotta know you have a personal vendetta hit out on her.”

  His brows drew down with a scowl. “I do not have a hit on her, Bow.”

  Bowie cocked his blond head at his friend. “Yeah? You need to tell her that, because moons to stars she’s going to think that. Besides, you pretty much said those words. Everyone knows h
ow she tricked you, us, with that ploy. But,” his grin straightened, “Miles is back now. He told you she got him out, snuck him out, and assuredly, bráthair or not, Krystian Ritrova will punish her for that the second he gets her back in his clutches.”

  “Huh,” Dev snorted, took a deep drink.

  “You need to cut her some slack, bro, Miles said her bráthair sent that transmission to us in her name, and he forced her go with Miles. You saw at the party how he used his strength to manhandle her and how much she resisted. Hell, Dev, the fear and dread of him was plain as rain on her face.”

  Nodding grimly, Dev grumbled, “Aye, we, I should have been suspicious that it was not a visual transmission.” Granted, Dev had thought about it at the time, but he wanted to get Miles back as soon as they could knowing he might be in bad shape, so he allowed the rushed transport.

  It certainly wasn’t because he had wanted to see the prințesă again. See what color her eyes were, see those lips- he shook his head of the nonsense filling it. “Geffry has cleared me to see the female in the morning.”

  “And then what? What will you do with her once she’s recovered?”

  Dev arched his neck letting his head fall back for a second, the braids dangling, before pulling it back upright.

  “Doesn’t matter the ins and outs of it, she was involved in the subterfuge, she was personally on board, on the bridge. She was complicit in the dupe.”

  “Uh, huh.” Bowie shrugged. “But think about it, she looked scared as shit and didn’t say a word, in fact she looked as shocked as us when Miles transported back with her. She’s human, she can’t transport, Ritrova would have had to do it. He undoubtedly didn’t fill her in on the fraud he’d planned.

  “And again, I repeat, she helped Miles to escape at the risk of her own neck. It’s well known Principé Krystian Ritrova is a ruthless vicious psychopath.

  “By Zues, Dev, she traded her life for her younger brother’s, fully aware she would be tortured and then die at the hands of the bear-dogs, or work the mines until suffering an equally agonizing death. The females in the mines are granted no protection from the males, guard, prisoner or otherwise.”

  Devilos was silent as he finished his drink. Two females from Bowie’s planet, Resh, approached the men, one slid onto the stool beside Dev, and the other turned her wide engaging smile to Bowie as she joined him on his right.

  The woman next to Dev gave him a sparkling smile, her blue-red eyes shining in explicit invitation. She stroked her hand over his forearm then tucked it around his upper arm. Her elongated body was slender with enhanced breasts and matching derrière. She cuddled a breast against Dev’s big arm.

  “Sire,” her words slurred slightly. “They say you don’t bang chicks that are on the station, but when women from other planets gossip,” she took a heavy lurid breath, “I hear you are like a fucking warhead in the sack. That you are a different kind of male, sex with you is…different. Rough and…punishing, with that steely body and other…aspects.”

  Wearing a tiny, tiny dress that almost didn’t cover her bosom or butt, she plucked at the top pulling it down further aiming her rack at Dev. Any lower and she’d get arrested for public nudity. “I,” she licked her enhanced lips, “l-o-v-e it rough, honey. How ‘bout you take me right now and show me how tough you can be?” She tugged at one of his braids.

  Dev didn’t look at her, he glanced at his friend.

  Bowie had his tongue down the throat of the female next to him and his hands up her top.

  Shoving from the woman that clung all over him, Dev stood up, imprinted his wristband on the ticket in front of him paying his tab, and without a word, left the bar. Bursting constellations of aggravated flames ripped behind him.

  The next morning, after showering and shaving, Dev pulled on black cargo pants and a black thermal shirt and headed to the infirmary. He ignored Lynya’s scared cringe as he strode past her and went straight to the room Sveti was in.

  He stopped dead in the doorway. The scowl prowling inside him didn’t show on his stoic face as he observed Connar, Bowie and Lukas standing around Sveti’s bed. They were laughing and grinning at her.

  Even the serious science whiz Lukas with his Marine buzz cut was laughing.

  And Sveti, still terribly thin but with roses in her round cheeks, in a clean gown, her hair washed, the curls shiny, was sitting up against a stack of pillows. Much of the bruising had faded and the cuts healed.

  Judging by the stiff way she sat, he assumed she still had the wrapping around her ribs to hold them while they knit back together. She wasn’t laughing or talking, she appeared to still be in pain and was just smiling in weak politeness at the men.

  Bowie saw Dev in the doorway. “Hey, Dev, come on in. We thought we should see how our patient is doing. I mean, after all, we did rescue her.”

  Dev took a few steps into the room mutter, “No, I captured her.”

  He noted as soon as she saw him the color seeped out of her cheeks turning her pale face into soft alabaster. She shrank back against the pillows. The huge eyes were as crystalline as he had remembered, even more so. They were wide with terror at him.

  “Geez, Dev, cut it out, you’re scaring her.” Bowie stepped in front of him with a warning frown.

  “I didn’t do-”

  “Nay,” Bowie hissed in a whisper, “it’s your natural implacable scowl, and it’s worse than normal. Lighten up.”

  Dev glared at him then lowered his head, generating a centering calm over himself. He growled to Bowie as he elbowed past him, “Get the fuck out of my way. We don’t coddle goddamned coiriúil, criminals.”

  He moved in front of Bowie, catching his and all of his friends’ displeased frowns, and the female looked about to expire from fright. She had obviously heard him.

  The three men came together to stand like a wall between Dev and the girl. It was symbolic only, each man was aware it would be a helluva a fight but Dev could take them all out at the same time if he chose to.

  Bowie said under his breath, “She’s still sick, Dev. You can see how frail, skinny and tired, and in pain she is. You don’t need to be scaring the fuck out of her.” Indeed her plush lips tightened as a flash of pain crossed her face.

  “You should have taken Esmeralda up on her offer last night and you wouldn’t be so cranky now,” Bowie joked. “I had to be a gentleman and step in for you and take them both to bed.” He grinned broadly at his friend with a wink.

  “Seriously, Dev,” Connar said, “give her some time before you go all ballistic on her.”

  “Aye,” Lukas chimed in. The three men stood immovable, their arms over their chests. Lukas added, “And you need to rethink the brig. It’s freezing and uncomfortable, and filled with lethal men, she would be in danger, and she won’t get well in that dank pit.”

  Dev knew he could take his men out if he chose to, but, his eyes narrowed in menace at Sveti. He stated coldly, “I’ll be back tomorrow to talk with you, alone.” Satisfied at the terror that flickered over her beautiful face, he turned on his heel and left the room.

  Stalking down the hall, Dev was furious. The fucking bitch was a felon, a coiriúil. She had conned them and further endangered Miles’ life with her false trade. His lieutenants had no business protecting her from him like she was a fragile child- shaking his head, whatever.

  He went to the garage where the Grisail, his flashjet was parked and spent the next few hours burning off his anger doing routine maintenance on it, then afterwards he hit the gym because he was still fuming with ire.

  Dev got up early the next morning, showered, shaved, and went straight to the infirmary. As he moved through the office, he nodded at Geffry but held a hand up as the doctor started to warn him off. He kept going until he stepped inside the small recovery room.

  Sveti was as yesterday leaning against pillows. A tray was on a stand next to the bed. The plate of food looked scarcely touched. Her pallid face was strained with pain that she worked to clear the second sh
e saw him in the doorway.

  When he moved closer to her, she braced herself, her body stiffened, her eyes went to his horns, blinked hard like she was hoping she imagined them, and the pointy ears.

  Although her half-brother was part alien, he looked fully human, she had come in very little contact with other aliens as isolated as they were on their planet.

  “Prințesă Svetiessa,” Devos muttered. He stopped a few feet from the bed. She looked so panicked he could hear her heart beating frantically from where he was. Literally could hear it. He had powerful hearing. “Can you please get a grip, I’m not going to eat you for fuck’s sake.”

  Although the blue eyes were wide with fright, she whispered with faint sarcasm, “Are you sure about that?”

  Dev’s lip twitched, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I am here to discuss your status.”

  She clutched her hands together to still their trembling, and appeared to physically will herself to calm down. Her mouth opened as if to say something, but she closed it without a word.

  Pulling his hands from his pockets, Dev set them on his hips. His upper body was so stacked with blocks of lean muscles it made his body more an extreme V with his tapered hips. The belt on his pants hung just slightly from his sinewy hips. A firearm in a holster pulled the side of the belt down a hair more.

  His gaze rolled over the bright curls then back to the brilliant blues trained anxiously at him.

  When she said nothing, he cleared his throat, his voice low and rough he said, “You are a coiriúil, a criminal. You are my prisoner. When you are well enough you will be confined in a suite.”

  Flame-colored brows arched in apprehension. “You mean, the uh, the brig.”

  He moved his hands to cross his arms over his bulky chest. “The brig currently is filled with dangerous…male outlaws. I have no space for a female.” As she was a princess, she wouldn’t have been housed there anyway but he chose not to tell her that.