Vandel

It was five minutes till seven.

He would be here any minute.

I paced back and forth in my bedroom, my hands knitted behind my back. This was a bad idea. This was a truly horrible and awful idea, quite possibly one of the worst I had ever had. Trust me...that's saying a lot.

My gaze drifted to a cream colored box wrapped up in red ribbon that rested on my bed. Ridley was going to hate what was inside. What was I thinking bringing him here? I was about to show a human that hated demons the darkest part of our society. There was no way to predict how he would react. If he blew his cover tonight I would be completely fucked. So why the fuck did I still ask him to come? Why the hell did I trust him so much? He was an enemy. He could betray me at any moment.

I ran a clawed hand through my hair in an attempt to stay calm. In addition to the rest of all this shit there was the secret I had found in the out in the village of the Ancients. That said secret had been the only thing keeping me from contacting Ridley until now. I shut my eyes for a moment. Gods I hoped I was making the right decision. If I fucked this up it wouldn't be my first time almost losing everything due to putting my trust in the wrong human.

That's when an accumulation of violet colored smoke suddenly appeared and standing at its center was Ridley.

I forced a sly smile to slip over my features. Well...it was time to go back to pretending I was completely in control of this situation, suave and not about ready to faint from anxiety.

This was sure to be an interesting night.

Ridley

I looked around confused, slipping the golden ring off my finger. The purple smoke had been a surprise but with the exception of that the whole process of transporting from the human kingdom to the demon one wasn't as horrible as I had expected. It felt almost like slipping into a cool pool of water and then immediately slipping out.

"Glad you were able to make it," I heard a voice say. As the thick violet smoke started to fade I noticed the form of Vandel beginning to become increasingly clearer. He looked slightly different from the last time I had seen him, an unsettling reminder that the last time we had spoken in person had been months ago. His hair had grown longer and there were bags under his eyes that I had never seen before. Vandel stepped forward and I took in his outfit in all its glory. I suppose I shouldn't have been shocked at the gaudiness of his outfit. The demon prince was decked out in all his usual finery. His cape was what really grabbed my attention however. It was massive, trailing out onto the floor behind him. The cape appeared to be formed from feathers made entirely of glass. There must have been thousands of them making up the cape and they rose all the way to his neck, sticking up to form his collar.

Vandel noticed me staring at it and smirked. "You want to touch it Ridley? It's actually super light."

My curiosity got the better of me and I slowly reached out to touch it, my fingers gently running along the surface of the massive cape. To my shock he was right, the cape (despite appearing to be made of glass) felt as fluffy and light as real feathers.

"Woah..." I whispered.

Vandel gave me a toothy grin. "It's nice right! It cost me a fortune but it was definitely worth it." He looked me over now. His eyes were pitch black tonight. "Did the ring work alright? You didn't have any trouble? I was worried I might have messed up the spell a bit and you would show up without a finger or something." My heart skipped a beat and I immediately looked down at my hands to make sure everything was accounted for. Vandel snickered. "I'm just kidding. Gods, you humans are so gullible."

I frowned at him but held my tongue. I would need to be careful tonight. I was still in enemy territory and despite the fact that we were currently working together and had grown closer Vandel was still an enemy. Even though I was slowly starting to put more trust into the demon I had to keep reminding myself that he had lied countless times before and could trick me again.

I looked about my surroundings for the first time now. My gaze drifted from a large mahogany dresser to a massive canopy bed with spider web like drapes hanging off of it and red silk blankets cascading onto the floor. A box sat upon it beside a pillow made of inky black raven feathers. Beside the bed was a massive fireplace, a green blue fire blazed from within it.

"Is this your bedroom?" I asked slowly.

"Did the bed give it away?" Vandel snickered at me. "Yes, I just randomly decided to transport a human I'm smuggling into my kingdom into a RANDOM person's bedroom."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I was just asking a question."

Vandel crossed his arms. "Well there's no time for stupid and pointless inquires tonight."

My gaze fell to a large painting now. I pointed to it. "That picture, is it supposed to be a human? Why does it have noses for eyes and why is there a dagger in the middle of its forehead?"

Vandel's gaze fell to the painting now and his face immediately paled.

"That portrait...it's nothing."

"I might be imagining it but...does it kind of look like me?"

"Nope! I see no resemblance whatsoever! I'll talk to Boris the royal portrait painter about making a new, less hideous one. Not that I expect anything better from him. He probably couldn't tell the difference between paint and his own shit."

"Okay...that was a pretty graphic image. Thank you for that," I mumbled. "If he's so bad at art then how did he become the royal portrait painter?"

Vandel grimaced. "It's a looooong story involving my mother's unfortunate fondness for goblins and their extremely large nether regions."

"Wow," I said slowly. "I really wish I never heard that."

"And I wish she had never hired Boris but we can't always get what we want." His mouth drew into a pout. "I swear to the Gods when I take over this kingdom my first act as king will be to fire Boris. That or to quite literally set fire to him. We'll see how I'm feeling that day. I'll probably play it by ear."

My gaze fell back to Vandel now. "So...talk me through the plan for tonight."

Vandel nodded quickly. "Right, right. Sorry I got distracted! Talking about Boris always gets me heated." His dark gaze raked over my form. "Well first of all we have to give you a makeover, I'm going to have to glamour you up a bit. We can't risk you getting recognized." He gestured to his bed. "Please have a seat. Lucky for you makeovers are one of my specialties."

I allowed Vandel to usher me to his bed. It was soft and sunk down beneath my weight as I sat down. Vandel climbed up onto his bed after me. All of a sudden he straddled me, his feet dangling off the bed. My entire face turned bright red and in my panic the only thing I could think of to do was to hide my face in my hands so he couldn't see.

"What are you doing?" I stammered from behind my fingers.

"Don't get so hot and bothered," Vandel said with a huff. "It's just way easier for me to fix your hair like this. If I do it from behind my boots will be on the bed and dirty up my sheets."

"Please don't say stuff like do it from behind. It sounds incident."

A small smirk appeared on Vandel's lips. "Why? Does saying shit like that get you off." He leaned closer. "Because if that's the case-"

"Please just d-do whatever you were going to do before Vandel...please..." I hated the way my voice cracked slightly when I spoke and I could hardly even manage to get the sentence out.

Vandel chuckled. "My, I've never seen you this frantic about my teasing before. But fine, only because I love it when you beg."

"Please stop teasing me."

Vandel snickered. "But it's just so much fun." His hands moved to my hair now and he began to run his fingers through it softly.

Finally I slowly lowered my hands from my face. "What are you doing to my hair?"

Vandel didn't answer for a moment, continuing to run his hands through my curls. Finally he spoke. "I'm changing the color. It should be just about done in a minute."

My eyes widened. "Changing the color?!!?"

"Don't act so upset," Vandel said. "It'll go back to normal in 24 hours. Your eye color is next." He gestured to my eyes. "Shut 'em." Slightly nervous I slowly shut my eyes. I felt Vandel's fingers gently fall to my eyelids.

His fingers felt oddly cool against my burning skin. Vandel pressed slightly harder against my eyelids and I felt a strange chill pass through my body as he continued to add more pressure. Finally Vandel removed his fingers, slipping off the bed.

"You can open your eyes now," he said slowly. I did as he said. My vision was foggy at first and everything had an odd purple tint. Slowly however my vision began to clear. I turned to Vandel who was currently looking me over, observing his handiwork. "Not bad, if I do say so myself (and I do)," he said with a grin. He gestured to a large mirror across from the bed. "Have a look." I stood up slowly, making my way over to it. My mouth almost hit the floor. Vandel stepped up next to me. "What do you think?" He said with a smirk. "Pretty good huh?"

I could hardly even recognize the face in the mirror. I still had my features but my hair was now a dark raven black, almost the same shade as Vandel's. My eyes weren't blue anymore but a stormy ocean grey.

"Woah," I said softly, running my fingers through my newly darkened hair.

Vandel gestured to the cream colored box that lay on the bed. "Onto part two," he said. I made my way over to the box with Vandel following closely behind me. For some reason he seemed hesitant. I looked to the box then to Vandel.

"Can I open it?" I asked.

Vandel gave a stiff nod. I slowly reached towards the box but suddenly Vandel shook his head. "Ridley wait."

"What?"

"Remember how I said I could sneak a human into this event," he said slowly.

"Yes."

"And remember how I said you would probably hate it."

"I do."

"So...just trust me when I say this was the only way." Vandel took a deep breath. "Okay. Open it." I hesitantly pulled the ribbon from the box, slipping it off easily. My heart was pounding in my chest. What the hell could be inside that was making Vandel so uneasy about how I would react. I went to the box itself now, slowly lifting off the lid. What I saw inside took me by so much surprise I nearly dropped the lid.

"W-what....what the hell is this?" I stammered.

Vandel looked down into the box as well.

"I warned you didn't I?"

Inside the box were leather straps, hardly enough to form something that could even be considered clothing. Laying on top of it was a collar and a leash.

"This is...this is..." I stuttered.

"What you're going to have to put on if you want to get the answers we're looking for," Vandel said, slowly picking up the collar and handing it to me.