The car stopped near the castle's front entrance, carefully avoiding the giant fountain that sat in the middle of the cobbled driveway as it slowed to a halt. Damon watched Glevthop with a stone cold gaze, not wanting to make any sort of move until the man had lifted his hand from the metal crate and gotten far enough away from it. Glevthop stared right back, completely unmoved by Damon's glare. In fact, the longer he stared the young Duke down, the more he seemed to be enjoying himself.
Their face off was interrupted abruptly by the chauffeur, who had gotten out of the front seat and circled around to the back of the car. He opened the door, gesturing for the occupants to get out. Glevthop nodded to him, sharing some sort of unspoken message that made Damon uneasy. He didn't like not knowing what was going on around him, especially if he already had a disturbing lack of control over the situation. And the fact that a few more people he only just barely recognized as the rest of the king's henchmen were already waiting for them in front of the gates to the courtyard made him even more uneasy. He glanced down at Pandora, wanting nothing more than to take her and run for it. This was obviously a much bigger deal to the king than Glevthop had let on, and the trick that had been played on him was making Damon less and less inclined to trust that anything else Glevthop had told him had any real truth to it. Pandora smiled reassuringly, gently nudging Damon to get out of the car. "Come on. We can't back out now. And even if we could, I still don't want to." She said. Damon hesitated for a moment longer, staring down into her eyes and praying that she was wrong. But try as he might, he couldn't find any way out of this that didn't leave at least one of them dead. There was nothing he or anyone other than the king could do to make this any better, not that he could see. And considering how Glevthop had had to trick them in the first place to get them to trust him, Damon was fairly certain that the king didn't have the slightest intention of helping the. Damon sighed, climbing out of the car and turning to help Pandora. "I doubt either of us are going to live through this." He whispered in her ear as he helped her slide out of the seat. She shrugged, giving him a brief hug. "It doesn't matter. I mean, it's not like either of us will be going to an innocent afterlife, anyway. I suppose I'll see you in Hell." She smiled, pulling away from him and turning to face Glevthop and the rest of the henchmen standing a few feet away and watching them. The men and women the king trusted enough to make them his personal guards and friends were a mixed bag, with some looking about the same age as Glevthop or perhaps even older, while others had to be about Damon's age, and a few who looked at the very most seventeen or eighteen. Clearly, the king's most trusted friends weren't particular to any age group.
Glevthop turned and nodded to a few of the group, who parted from the rest and pulled the crate out of the car, holding it as though it was both a precious treasure and an active bomb. "You're doing pretty well, so far." Glevthop said, turning to Damon and Pandora and gesturing for them to follow him past the enormous courtyard gates. "Just keep this sort of silence up and you'll have a much easier time not making the king want to kill you as much as he could." He added. Damon and Pandora followed behind him warily, neither one sure whether or not they were supposed to be flattered or insulted by the comment.
The second set of gates swung open as soon as Glevthop showed some sort of identification to the camo-clad woman who sat in a little room built into the massive wall. She nodded to him, offering a few words that Damon couldn't hear. Glevthop led the two through the massive lawn and garden that made up the courtyard, letting the air lapse into uncomfortable silence. Damon looked around himself, doing his best to calm down his rapidly beating heart and put a stop to some of the thoughts flying through his head at speeds that made deciphering them impossible. A good portion of the mile or so that spread out in front of the castle was laid with cobblestones like the driveway, but it clearly wasn't meant for cars to drive on. Surrounding the stone part was a large, perfectly maintained lawn, with evenly spaced pots half as tall as Damon was lined up alongside the paths and lanes that wound their ways through the grass. Perfectly trimmed trees stood in between each of the pots, branching up towards the sky with their elegant limbs. A few patches of flowers covered areas that were clearly not meant to be walked over, offering a place for butterflies and bees to rest. It would have been rather peaceful, if Damon wasn't so sure that he and his lover would be dying as soon as the king had gotten answers for whatever questions he might have.
The huge double doors to the actual castle swung open quietly as the three approached, allowing a view into a foyer that was bigger than Damon's ballroom. Ornate chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting halos of golden light over the enormous staircases framing either side of the room and extending outwards enough that they might as well have been upward-tilting roads. The floor and stairs were made of polished white marble buffed to the point that it might as well have been a mirror. An archway wide enough to fit at least one regular sizes house stood at the other end of the hall, decorated in carvings of mythical beasts that went back as far as time would allow. Beyond the arch sat the throne room, in all its glory of gold and white marble. And directly across from Damon, situated in what was supposedly the exact center of the castle, was a pedestal of gold cloth and white stone, atop which stood an ancient golden throne decorated with the crest of the kingdom and all the provinces in it. Sitting on this throne was a boy, with a circlet of gold perched atop his dark hair and his legs crossed in a very improper fashion. He looked too young to be the king. And seeing as he had only turned seventeen a few months ago, he probably was. But it was still his duty to rule the kingdom after his father's death, and he had done so rather well for someone his age. He had never been too happy about it, of course, and he hadn't made any attempt to hide so. In the end, though, he really didn't have much of a choice.
Damon swallowed hard, knowing with each step he took that he was going to have to do something soon to get him and his lover out of here. And that whatever he might come up with was, in all likelihood, going to fail miserably and only get them into more trouble than they were already in. But even though he was sure it wouldn't do any good, he couldn't give up. Not yet. Not until his life was seeping out of his body with his blood, and he was left with no other choice than to accept defeat. He quietly took Pandora's hand, squeezing it gently and pulling her a little closer. He didn't want her to be pulled away from him when things got bad. If anyone tried to take her, he wanted to be dragged along. All the way to whatever sort of living hell the king had conjured up for her. All the way to the death.
Glevthop led Damon and Pandora into the throne room, stopping at the foot of the throne to make a low bow. The king returned this with a nod of his head, before switching his attention to the other two. Damon bowed as well, biting his lip to avoid showing just how frightened he was by what the king could do to Pandora. The last thing he wanted to do right now was express just how terrified he was by the thought of how painful his lover's death could be. Out of the corner of his eye, Damon saw Pandora drop into a perfect curtsy, which she held until the king gestured for her and Damon to return to their usual stances. Damon straightened up, just as the king stood and stepped down off the platform his throne stood on. He scrutinized Damon and Pandora for a moment, scowling a little. "Well, isn't this a surprise." He said, turning to stare pointedly at the young Duke. "And here I thought loyalty did more to rule this kingdom than I."
YOU ARE READING
Morals of a Villain
General Fiction(Completed) Damon, a Duke by right, has never particularly liked the morally righteous narcissists he frequently has to deal with in everyday life. While others might see them as heroes courageously pitting themselves against the horrible and sadist...
