by A. K. Koonce
Contents
1. A Princess Once More
2. Family
3. Rules and Erections
4. Wasted Time
5. The Dungeon
6. Ryke’s Handler
7. Mind, Body, and Soul
8. Her Demons
9. A Deadly Party
10. Cross the Line
11. Endurance
12. To Grandmother’s House We Go
13. A Vow
14. Time for Healing
15. Patience
16. Jizz Muffin
17. The Advisors
18. A Favor
19. Diplomatic Ducks
20. The Love in Lust
21. Forever Yours
22. The Other Monsters
Also by A.K. Koonce
About the Author
1
A Princess Once More
Aries
With another dab of adhesive, I stick one more glittering silver flower to the hard exterior of my right horn.
There. Perfect.
I tilt my head this way and that, and a small sense of petty accomplishment burns in my chest at the sight of the many tiny blooms that accent my dark spiraling horns. It’s the first feeling that hasn’t been rage or emptiness in days. I look like a godsdamn unicorn threw up all over me, but it just draws attention to the one thing my father has asked me again and again to hide.
He’s ashamed of my hellish appearance. Well, I’m ashamed of every single thing he’s done since I was a little girl, so we’re eve—no. We’re not even. Not even fucking close.
Because three men who I care—eh, who I’m decently fond of them not dying—are locked away in the demon’s hold beneath the castle. They’re literally lying beneath my fucking feet, and I’m not permitted entrance.
I seethe another heavy breath through my clenched teeth.
“The flowers complement your eyes, love,” Krave says from behind me.
My gaze flashes to him in the mirror. He leans against the closed door of my quiet bedroom. The hard lines of his chest and the sketching tattoos that line his body are accompanied only by his glittering black wings and tight black jeans.
He watches me from a distance. Just as he has for three long days now.
Just like my father told him, I’m sure.
“Be sure to tell Daddy all about it,” I say beneath my breath as I dab another little bloom and add it to the others. I’m one fucking glittering petal away from having my own horny garden, but I don’t care. It’s tacky as hell to look at, but I keep on adding them anyway.
It keeps me busy, really. Doing this petty bullshit keeps me from not thinking about how monumentally I fucked up.
I put them in danger. And they paid for it.
My jaw clenches. The only comfort I have is knowing that today will be the last damn day I sit locked in my room doing nothing.
I’m done waiting to see their fate.
“He asked me to ask you to glamour them again.” Krave shifts where he stands but doesn’t dare take a step toward me. Not after what he did to me. He accused Ryke. He let Ryke take the fall for me. They all just let him be beaten at my feet and then torn away from me.
I don’t even know if he’s alive.
He was so bloody. Everything was bloody that night.
My attention slides to the golden crown resting on my vanity tabletop.
It’s his. Everything in this fucking room is his.
It’s Nathiale’s crown. The same one I killed him with.
And they’ve shined it up like new and passed it down to me, the future ruler of the Kingdom of Roses.
I’ve studied the detailed crown enough to know there’s a speck of blood they missed in the central opal gemstone. It’s hardly noticeable, but I notice. I notice it all the time. My thumb brushes over his dried blood. I caress the cold metal and memories whisper through my mind.
My gaze slides over the white walls to the balcony doors, and I swear I can feel the cold breeze that flitted through this room that deadly night.
You did the right thing, Catherine says gently.
I hate how supportive she’s been lately. She’s been careful with me. Like she knows I can be set off now and not pause for an instant to let her take control. My body is mine.
Mostly.
And I won’t be fucking changing the appearance of it for my father.
I lift the crown and maneuver it over my ugly flowery horns. The gold metal, the smooth gemstones, the sparkling flowers, it’s . . . a fucking atrocious mess atop my long silver hair.
“I’m ready,” I say with a small lift of my chin.
“Yeah, you know he’s never letting you out of this room with your horns, Ari,” Krave says.
“Yeah, and I don’t give a fuck.” I stride from my velvet seat and meet him head on.
He doesn’t cower before me. His lithe frame towers over me even with my horns, and my stomach dips from the way he gazes at me. The longing in his dark eyes is hard to look at. It’s even harder to keep an impassive, fuck-you glare in place, but I wear it well.
“Move,” I growl with as much hatred as I can find within myself.
It’s misplaced. I know it is. My anger with him is this constant thing that my father puts between us. If my father didn’t own Krave, I’d love him completely.
But instead, I despise him every time he looks at me. Because with every glance, he relays what he sees right to the one person I can never trust.
The long fingers of his right hand, the one with the tattooed crown, twitch like he might touch me. Energy presses between us and siphons into my chest. I swallow hard.
And keep glaring.
For a long moment, I watch him debate with himself. Smoke swirls from his palms like a nervous tick that he’ll never admit to. I can’t tell if he’s about to give in to me. I think he is.
I think he might.
“I can’t,” he whispers.
Fuck!
Fucking Krave and his fucking ties to my father’s binding magic.
My jaw grinds, and I have to calm myself little by little before I speak again in the lowest voice I possess.
“Krave, get out of my way, or so help me, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” he whispers, his head tilting down so far that his words brush across my lips in a slow taunt of sensual dominance.
Something inside me reacts to something inside of him, and the moment that tingling feeling hits low in my core, I shove it away.
As well as him.
I grip his arm and twist it behind his back in one swift move, but like a dance, he twirls out of the forceful position, and we stand with our hands held, arms outstretched to one another, like long lost lovers preparing for the tango.
He smiles.
The fucking cock mongrel.
My nails sink into his tattooed skin, and I leap at him with all my might. Wind flicks through my hair. He catches me as we go down hard. His back hits the glossy wooden floor with a solid thud that knocks the breath from his lungs.
And still he smiles at me.
My legs are straddled on either side of his hips. His hands lift, almost skimming my thighs, but he holds them there around me as he clearly thinks through every move he makes. Before lowering his palms to the ground.
“Was there something you wanted, love?” he asks with so much insinuation dripping from his smooth-spoken words.
“Why—” My molars grind as I try to sort th
rough the thoughts slamming through my mind. Why is he like this? Why did he ever make a deal with my father? Why can’t life be simpler? “Why is your cock hard all of a sudden?”
“What do you mean all of a sudden?” His inky eyebrows lift with too much amusement.
He makes me absolutely crazy.
Crazy defeated. Crazy insane. Crazy confused.
Long fingers dipped in demonic magic carefully skim over my long dress as he seems to take his time touching me as well as thinking through what he wants to say.
He swallows so slowly, I can spot the way his Adam’s apple works against his throat.
“Your father is in a meeting with his advisors on the third floor. First door on the right. It’ll end in seven minutes. But if you hurry . . .” Thick lashes lift as he gazes at me intently.
My lips part as my chest warms like the soul inside me is trying to hold itself together, but it’s a cracked and damaged little heart of mine. My palm lifts hesitantly. My fingers slip through his soft locks. A breath he was holding slips out in a wave of pent-up heat.
He’s so beautiful. Hauntingly beautiful.
I can’t help but lean into him. His hard chest and the metal that pierces through his nipple teases along my breasts as my light hair cascades around his dark. My tongue slides over my lips as his attention drops there. He watches every single move I make with a depthless hooded gaze. My lips brush his ear.
“Sometimes I want to kill you,” I whisper. That smile pulls wider as he nods to me. “And sometimes, I want to let myself love you so hard that nothing in these screwed up realms will ever hurt me, so long as I have your affection.” My voice catches, and that arrogant smile of his fades from his face.
Shivers race over my flesh as his fingers drift up my arms. “You have all of my affection, Ari,” he says on a pained tone.
My eyes burn with moisture, and I have to clench them closed hard before the emotions overtake me. He holds me to him, and I let him for just a second longer.
“Yes. I have all of your affection.” I pull back from him, meeting his eyes. “And my father has you.”
Sorrow and loathing creep over his sharp features as I stand and walk toward the door. He doesn’t get up from where he lies on the floor. I don’t look back at him.
I have a meeting to attend, after all, and I can’t afford to make a late appearance.
Especially after all the work I put in with decorating my horns.
2
Family
Aries
The white gown I’m wearing is a tighter fashion than when I last walked through the halls of my father’s castle. Things are changing here. The men walk around without shirts to accommodate their fae wings. And the women wear low-dipping gowns that don’t caress their feathers at all.
It’s all very sensual and stylish.
I blame the human realm for all of it. I don’t know who specifically; maybe it’s that Dashian family that’s always on, maybe it’s that Gaga woman, but someone in the human realm is to blame for this sexy attire.
And I can’t complain.
The hem of the gown swooshes over the floor as I stride down the third-floor hall. And stop swiftly at the first door on the right.
He told you exactly where to go, and you didn’t so much as mumble thank you. Catherine’s voice haunts my mind, but I ignore her.
I have a dramatic entrance to make right now.
My back straightens. With my bedazzled horns held high, I fling open the door. It bangs into the wall, and I stand there like a discount bin goddess of nightmares, ready to receive mortal offerings.
The room is empty.
What the fuck . . .
I step inside, and the moment I do, tinkling laughter hits my ears. At the far end of the long room, past the many windows that beam with natural light, stands someone I haven’t laid eyes on in a decade.
And seeing the little snatch again after all that time is far too soon.
“Aries!” Penelopia steps away from my father, rushing toward me with her layers upon layers of fine fabric clinging to her curves. She crushes her body to mine with a thud, and I just stand there with my hands held at my sides.
Again, let me reiterate, what the fuck.
She pulls back from me just to hold me at arm’s length.
“It’s been so long. I love your horns. They set off your wings.” Her own teal wings ruffle behind her shoulders, and a flash of mental brutality flickers in my mind with the thought of rustling a potato sack over her still-chattering mouth and her perfect little wings. “Uncle Gravier was just telling me how you needed an ally at court, now that you’re back. You need someone to make the people love you again. I’ve been his assistant for a while now. We should stick together.” She ends that little prepared speech with a warm smile that doesn’t meet her deep green eyes.
Krave does a far better job at hiding his true feelings.
She’s a novice compared to my incubus.
“Everyone respects Pen. She’s our go-to girl around the castle. She’ll be good for you,” a deep voice says, snapping me out of my murderous fantasies.
My attention flicks to my father, standing back in the corner of the room. His gray hair is smoothed down in long waves across his broad shoulders. He looks every bit a powerful fae king. As well as a severely disappointed father.
“Pen, why don’t you leave us while you plan Aries’ welcome back party this weekend,” the king says in his commanding tone that leaves no room for argument.
A welcome back party. Right. He wants me accepted here. But not with these horns. So, I doubt the party will really be happening.
Penelopia rubs my arm once more before my cousin prances from the room like a sickness waiting to settle in my lungs.
She seems harmless, though. She’s no longer the little annoying pest I remember as a young girl.
Maybe she is different now.
The king’s gaze watches the door close slowly. Then he pins that attention on me.
“I asked you to glamour those things.” He points vaguely to the lovely collage of glittery flowers donning the top of my head.
“What things, Daddy?” My arms fold, my head still held obnoxiously high.
Look me in the eyes, and tell me again how monstrous demons are. Tell me how those horned creatures will always be beneath us. The scum of the earth.
Tell me, daddy dearest.
“There are three demons held in the cellar of our castle. Do you care about those men, Aries?” He tilts his head at me in a challenging look I’ve seen so many times in my youth.
I have to be careful here.
For everyone’s sake.
“I’ll glamour the horns on one condition,” I say suddenly, piquing his interest far more than the previous topic.
It works.
“Go on.” His big arms fold over his crisp button-down shirt, making his black wings spread out behind him. He’ll never change. Not his clothes. Not his mindset. None of it.
Be careful. Be careful. Be careful.
I cannot show interest in Ryke. I can’t ask about his wounds. I can’t ask about Damien’s status or if Zaviar’s been bound to anyone yet.
I must be careful.
“I want a demon of my own. Someone to do my errands for me. Krave’s been a good guard as well as a kind friend over the past few years. Bestow Krave’s bindings from you to me, and I’ll glamour my horns.” My chin tilts even more, and at this point, I’m almost looking at the high arching ceiling.
I make a point of holding his curious gaze.
He’s skeptical.
But I know he wants my appearance to be accepted more than he cares about if I have feelings for the demon who loves me. It just comes down to who has the better poker face.
“Fine,” he booms. “Take the demon. Hide the horns. And meet me downstairs for lunch in thirty minutes.”
A wide smile beams across my face.
And for once, it’s genuine.
3
/> Rules and Erections
Krave
I think—I think my heart just stopped.
“You’re my handler?” I ask her again for the third time.
Perhaps I had a demonic stroke, and all of this is just a sinful dream meant to put me out of my misery.
That’s not true. My sinful dreams are much, much better than this.
Ari still has her clothes on, for one.
Her confidence is like steel. Her spine is impossibly straight, and she lifts that delicate chin of hers even higher, as if that’s some form of dominance.
It’s not. But it’s cute.
She pulls the silver pin from our palms, stinging my flesh with the pain of the bonding magic instilled in that little needle-like weapon. I remember how much it hurt when her father did it to me. But right now, I’m beyond happy.
The happiest I’ve been in a long, long time.
“Yes. And as your handler, things are going to be a little different between you and me.” She tilts her head at me, her arms folding hard against her smooth ivory dress.
Too many delicious thoughts spin through my mind, and before I can stop it, glittering smoke wafts from my fingertips. Images drawl themselves from my palms, relaying my thoughts in dark inky lines of swirling smoke. In my drawings, her mouth opens. Her eyes clench closed. No sound comes from the little erotic artwork, but we both know when the orgasm shakes through the smoke on trembling waves of wafting magic.
I clap my hands together hard and fast to dissolve the naughty image in a puff of black glitter.
But her disappointment is clear on her pretty little face.
“What did you have in mind, love?” I ask innocently.