by A. K. Koonce
“Viral, how have you been? How is your . . .” the way Krave pauses, drawing out his dramatic flair with a wave of his hand, brings all attention to him. “How is your wife? Is she still as pretty as I remember?”
Wow. This . . . this is why I should let him do all the talking? Are you fucking kidding me right now? Viral’s going to break everyone of Krave’s long magical fingers one by one if he says another fucking word.
“She’s well. Thank you, Mr. Salvation. We haven’t forgotten what you’ve done for us.” Viral’s thick brows remain lowered over his dark eyes, but he nods to the incubus with total respect.
What. The. Demon. Fuck. Is happening right now?
“It was entirely my pleasure, Viral.”
I blink dumbly at the two men. They ignore me and my gaping mouth entirely.
“My Princess was interested in purchasing a new demon or two. Are there any left after yesterday’s auction?” Krave is the most casual talker. He lies with ease. It shouldn’t be an admirable trait, and yet in this moment, when I need through this locked door more than I need anything else in the world, it is a kind quality.
“Ah, the auction was canceled because of the rain. Rescheduled for tomorrow morning. I can’t move anyone, but you’re welcome to get an early glance at the stock, if you’d like.” The way the guard says stock makes my stomach roil, and it makes me hate the man a little.
“That would be very appreciated.” Krave nods with a charming smile. Disgust is still heavy in my throat. I can’t force myself to mimic his politeness. My lips are pulled so far down, I’m sure misery and anger are written all across my face.
Clanking sounds scrape through the silence as the guard works the lock on his side. The incubus tilts his head, his inky hair falling into his eyes as he tips his head down to me. His touch sears across my arm as he trails his fingers lightly over my flesh. It’s the briefest calming moment of his hands against my body.
“You’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay, Ari,” he says on a quiet comforting whisper.
The door swings open. The warmth of his touch drops. In a matter of half a second, the façade that is Krave Salvation is right back in place.
“Thank you very much, Viral. Send my love to your wife,” he says sincerely as he ushers me by on quick steps.
“I will. I will,” the guard tells him with kindness now shining in his deep brown eyes.
What—
“What did you do for them? Did you fix some erectile dysfunction? Tell him where the mysterious G-spot is? What did you do, Krave?”
He smirks as we pass waning torches along the brick wall. The tunnel continues down farther and farther.
And here I thought we were already in the dungeon . . .
“Is that all you think I’m good for, love? Fast fucks and hard cocks? That’s all you think I know?”
When he passes me a sinful smile, I have to roll my eyes.
“His wife left him earlier this year. Said he was emotionally unavailable.”
Yeah. I can see that being a thing for a guy named Viral.
“I caught him down here crying. Real tears. Big wailing man tears like I have never seen in all my centuries.” Krave’s smooth voice is perfect for fairytales and storytime. It makes warmth and sadness settle in my chest for the man who made me sick just moments ago. “I told him not to let her go. If he loved her, and he clearly did, don’t let her go without showing her all he could be for her. Men get distracted easily. Jobs and money and stress all weigh them down, but they think they have to shield that stress away. Pretend to be strong and unyielding and just keep on going. Work harder to ignore it. When all women really want is their presence.”
Oh. My. Fucking. Gods.
I’m in love with Krave Salvation.
Obviously, Catherine chirps from the back of my mind.
I stumble in the dim lighting. I almost fall face first onto the piss-and-vomit brickwork. It takes everything in me to stagger awkwardly behind him as if I didn’t just eat the ground because of how hard my heart’s pounding from what he just said to me.
Don’t let her go without showing her all he could be for her.
That’s all Krave has been doing since the moment we met.
As I’m half jogging, half face-falling, he turns to me. He veers back with confusion crossing his smooth features.
“Are you alright? Is the smell getting to you? You look like you might be sick, love.”
That’s what love looks like for someone like me. Someone who has never let that warm and happy feeling hit their soul for even a heartbeat of a moment. Yeah, love looks like a godsdamn illness for people like me.
“I—I’m fine,” I say as I swallow down the tension filling my throat. The longer I hold his gaze, the harder my heart pounds for me to cling to him, clutch him, kiss him, and whatever else Hallmark instructs women to do when they realize their heart isn’t their own but shared with another.
“If you need me right now, just say the word. I’ll promise to be quick if you promise to be quiet,” he says with a wink.
Ah. Perfect. Just the blatant romantic words I need to clear my head before I do something really stupid.
“I’m good. Let’s just find the others.” I motion forward, but he studies me for a moment longer, like he knows exactly what I’m not saying.
Doubtful, but still. It’s enough to make me nervous.
He lifts his palm, and once more hovers it at my lower back, leading me without ever touching me. My lashes close with a calm settling in to know we’re fine. We’re just as we always are.
Which isn’t fine at all, if you think about it.
I shake my head and try to focus on the task at hand.
The tunnel slopes hard like a dirty slide before coming to level brick flooring. The room opens up to thick darkness and one single torch on the far wall, just near the barred cell.
Growls and hostile threats echo around the space, but one violent voice rings out to me among all others. “Fuck you! Fucking touch him again, and I’ll shove my fist so far down your throat, your asshole will have a gag reflex.”
“Zav, calm down. We don’t want the guards down here again,” Damien whispers, his palms planted on each of Zaviar’s sweaty biceps as the angel glares pure rage at the other five men around them.
The others shift on their feet. Violence pulses like an organ pumping blood through the bricks of the walls surrounding them.
Whispers and slurs are spit their way, but no one dares to step toward the two men in the corner.
The ones who are so close to me, I could reach out and touch them. My heart aches with how near they are. It’s a pain and a need, all at the same time.
My hands lift between the cold bars, and my fingers lightly kiss their skin. Dirt rolls beneath my fingertips, but I don’t notice it. I’m too focused on how the tension eases from each of the two men’s shoulders and wings. I know they feel me in a way that tells them exactly who I am with just a single touch.
“Aries,” Damien says on a catching whisper.
His dark wings shudder before he spins on his heels, and then he’s looking down on me with big brown eyes. In a swoop of movement, he takes both of my hands in his and comes as close as the bars will let him as he drags his big hands over every inch of my body.
“I’m okay,” I say slowly, but he’s cradling my face in his hands and searches there as well, before his gaze slides from my lips to my eyes. His skin is hot to the touch as my fingers glide over his wrists. “I’m okay,” I tell him once more.
A heavy breath slips from his lips and fans between us.
“You feel good,” he whispers, like it’s a painful admission to show his weakness in front of so many surrounding enemies. It makes me wrap myself around him as much as this fucking prison will allow and never let him go.
Tension presses from my chest and snaps between us as we cling to one another.
On the toes of my shoes, I arch against the cold cell, and ever so gentl
y, I skim my lips against his. It’s chaste. It’s sentimental. But it doesn’t stay that way. He tips my chin up even more, and I gasp against him as his tongue thrusts inside. Reverent strokes taste me deeply. It shoves aside my fears and wakes up my lust with a single demanding kiss from my sweet, not-so-innocent demon. My once-tender touch turns to clawing demanding nails that sink into his shoulders. He takes his time as the whispers begin to build around us.
“Seems the good little demon has found himself a piece of princess pussy,” someone sneers.
Damien breaks the kiss and grabs his brother’s arm tightly just as Zaviar lunges forward, scattering the other prisoners around them with a single lashing threat of violence.
Damien slams his brother back against the cell. Thick pink feathers slip out between the bars, and as I catch my breath, I make a mental note to possibly change his wings back to his holy white ones.
Unfortunately for him, magic is banished down here.
So . . . just try to keep that badass image intact for a bit longer, my frilly pink-feathered friend.
He’s shaking, though. His fingers tremble against his palm. I know he’s furious and in a constant state of threat here, but . . .
“Are you two sick?” My fingers slide around Zaviar’s wrist, and just like his brother’s, his skin is blazing hot to the touch.
Dirt streaks their faces, even in the dim lighting. Zaviar slowly slips out of my reach as his blue eyes shift around the room, like a predator taking inventory of his prey. “We’re fine,” he says gruffly.
“Infection is rampant down here.” Krave’s tone is low and quiet, but he’s nearer than I realized. “Any minor scrape is a nice little home for the bacteria that suffocates the warm air in this place.”
Dried blood covers their arms here and there. I try to think back to the night my brother died, but through all the memories of the blood, I can’t remember if they were brutally hurt by the guards. Or even me.
Clearly, they were . . .
My heart sinks.
“I’m going to get you two out of here.” I turn to the incubus at my side with wide eyes and rushing thoughts. “Krave, get Viral. Tell him—tell him—”
Long tingling fingers catch mine. “Ari, that’s . . . that’s not possible, love.” The hurt in his black eyes is as palpable as the hurt slicing open my chest. “The king’s magic controls this cell. And only the king’s magic can open it.”
The walls press in on me. His words break me down, and the little hope I had left, until my knees shake like they might give out right beneath me.
“Where’s Ryke?” I blurt so loud that the question echoes up the bricks and around the dark ceiling.
I don’t look up, but I’m faintly aware of the look Damien passes to his brother.
“Gravier took him earlier today,” Damien finally says.
And I swear my heart stops dead in my chest.
My fucking father sat at lunch with me today.
All while these men grew sicker and sicker.
And the king plotted Ryke’s punishment.
Or possibly, his death.
6
Ryke’s Handler
Aries
My hands slam down on the long table, and the asshole seated across from me is not the one I want to take my anger out on, but he’s the only one available at this late hour.
“Where the fuck is he?” I demand so loudly that the other men milling about flinch away from me and my temper tantrum.
“Easy A. You know if I knew, I’d tell you,” Sev says with such a shit-eating smile, I don’t believe him for a single fucking second.
“Easy A?” Krave repeats with a glare toward the Shadow Guard leaned back in his chair, his dirty boots kicked up on the paperwork littering the tabletop. “My apologies, who the fuck are you again?” Krave asks with all kindness but blatantly repressed hostility.
The other dozen or so men dressed in all black keep pretending to work on their files and their cases, but I’m very much aware that they’re listening to every word passed within their range of hearing. It’s their job, after all. They’re alert. They’re good at going unseen. And they’re ruthless at getting information. And that’s how I know that Sev knows.
“Tell me,” I grind out, my teeth clenching so hard, my molars shoot a pain deep into my jaw.
“No,” Sev says with a lift of his dark eyebrows. “Don’t think that after three fucking years of radio silence you can prance in here with the king’s pet on your leash and think for a single godsdamn second that I’ll say anything.” His smile fades. “Your recklessness used to be inspiring. Now it’s just dangerous. Get out. Before you fuck us all, like you did back in the necropolis the night you left.”
There’s a deadness in his eyes. That boyish charm of his is gone entirely, and for a moment, I don’t know what to say to him.
But thankfully, someone else does.
“Get your dick out of your ass, and stop being a cunt to her.” A small woman with long glossy red hair stops to look up from her manila folder. Her shifting gaze searches me like she’s reading a book. “Gravier took the largest demon from the dungeon to gift him to his niece. He’s too much of a racist fucker to realize it’s the one he accused of killing his son. Bet they all look the same to him, you know?” She cocks a sharp eyebrow at me, and I can tell she’s still trying to decide if I’m trustworthy or not.
I wonder if that’s why she said what she did in such a harsh way. Or maybe that’s her normal speaking voice . . .
“Thank you,” I say, while my heart drops through my stomach.
He gave Ryke to Pen. Pen owns Ryke. Ryke’s hers. And no matter how differently I say it, each time, it stabs through me over and over again.
He’s bound to her.
I swallow hard.
“He was standing watch outside her bedroom door on the second floor just ten minutes ago,” the pretty redhead adds as she knocks over a towering stack of papers to the floor. They flit around at her feet and I’m stunned to see Sev rushing to pick up after her. Her eyes close slowly with a breath pushing from her lips as if she isn’t as put together as she seems on the surface.
I nod and turn toward the door.
“Be careful, Princess,” she says on a rush. “He’s a new one. They’ll test him, you know?” Her head tilts low like she’s back to reading her assignment, but I know she’s still aware of me.
I was once the only female in the entire Shadow Guard. And now she is.
It’s hard being surrounded by men twice your size while trying to carry your own.
She does it well.
“What’s your name?” I finally ask as my palm slips over the cold metal door handle.
She continues to scan her papers. Seconds pass as if she didn’t hear me at all.
And then, “Isabella,” she says surprisingly.
A few men snort with covered laughter, like her pretty name and her pretty face are amusing to them.
But I do see the way Sev hasn’t looked away from her since the moment she told him to get his cock out of his ass.
The tension in the place, I swear.
They’re just as fucked as I remember.
I’m quiet as my fingers roam over the carved roses along the glossy banister. The incubus behind me whistles a tune like he doesn’t have one fuck to spare in this world. I roll my eyes at him, and he just shrugs and keeps on with his flawless haunting melody.
I step up to the soft red rug on the second floor, and I peer to the left and then the right.
And there, hunched down on the floor, sits a demon. His big hands are thrown over his knees, and he looks so beaten down and defeated that my heart crumbles in my chest.
Anger flares up within me.
I swallow hard and go right to him.
The man who’s been my shadow through all of this stays put, settling his lean frame against the wall as he watches me walk away.
My gown bunches around my legs as I fall with a quiet thud in fro
nt of Ryke. His head wobbles a little when he looks up at me from beneath his thick dark lashes. He smiles, but he winces when the pressure of it touches his eye that’s swollen shut.
A deep split splices his lower lip so deeply, it cuts into me just looking at him.
Those fucking men who hurt him.
They’ll pay. The guards. My father. All of them signed their death warrant the moment they laid hands on this sweet, sweet man.
“Hey, Crow,” he says with a coughing laugh. His head sinks down as he shakes from the pain I know he’s holding back from me.
His warmth is overwhelming as I take his big hand in both of mine. He comes closer, and I lean into him as he rests his head against my shoulder.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Ryke. I tried to tell them. I tried—”
“Shhhh,” he whispers, sliding his free hand along my arm and sinking it through my thick silver hair. “I’m fine. Don’t think about that right now. Just be here with me for a little while. Please. Please stay here with me. Please, baby.” His voice cracks, and my heart cracks right along with it.
What did they do to him in the dungeon? What happened after they took him away from me?
“I’m here.” My words catch, and the tremble in my chest is a deeper feeling. It’s something that isn’t in my lungs or my flesh.
It’s in my soul itself.
His hold on my hair tightens, and I love the sting of it even as he lifts my head up to him. His deep green eyes peer down on me from beneath the violence that’s been done to his face.
And then his lips ghost over mine.
“Aries,” he whispers against my lips.
My eyes close.
His breath warms my skin.
I tilt my chin up just slightly.
Just as the distinct sound of hinges swinging open cuts through the thick silence.
I pull back from him, and he releases his hold immediately. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m practically a heap of heavy-breathing hormones in his lap.