Sinless Demons: A Forbidden Fated Mates Reverse Harem Series (The Monsters and Miseries Series Book 2)

by A. K. Koonce

  He won’t hurt him. I hope.

  I don’t want to trust him. It’s just, I have no other options.

  He’s all I have.

  White fumes billow up from the man’s hands. He focuses on his work. His brows pull low as he puts more power into it, and even more fumes spread around them.

  The gray poison beneath Ryke’s throat fades. Pale skin replaces the strange dark lines, and soon he looks normal. Slow breathing, but normal.

  Johnn releases a big breath before lowering his hands and settling back a few inches from his patient.

  “Are you a healer?” I ask with disbelief.

  Johnn shakes his head. He peers back at where my father’s throne stands. He’s being as careful as I always am. But it’s empty. My father is gone.

  “I’m a tracker. I take the essence of something, and I can return it to where it’s from. It allows me to track things and people. I returned the ash poison back to where it came from. That’s what I did for your friend. I didn’t heal him. He’ll still need his wounds tended to.” Johnn eases to his feet without another word.

  He leaves us in a rush of rapid footfalls.

  Because he knows he’s in trouble.

  We all are.

  10

  Cross the Line

  Damien

  She’s vacant. I could see it in her eyes. I helped her lay Ryke down in the demon’s chambers an hour ago, and I had to force her to go get cleaned up instead of waiting by his bedside or commanding Pen to get him better living quarters. Zaviar and Krave stayed, promising to look after him. But I couldn’t.

  I linger in her bedroom now. She told me to go, but I can’t leave her.

  Not like this.

  Water drips with trickling sounds from the open bathroom door. I’m tempted to check on her but there’s a fine line between being a friend and being a creep. I’m just on that side of the creep line right now as I hover at the bathroom door.

  The scent of a warm water and lavender fill my nose.

  Still I wait.

  She doesn’t need me to wash her fucking hair.

  She . . . she doesn’t need me at all really. She’s fearless and smart and . . .

  Naked.

  She steps out of the room without a towel. Without a single fucking shred of clothing.

  And at some point, I have to remember to pick my jaw up off the ground from where I dropped it on the other side of that creep line.

  She doesn’t say anything as she passes me, her hips swaying with every perfect step she takes.

  Gods her body—

  Ryke’s in pain. And she’s worried about him. Now is not the time to think about how nice her tits look when they’re wet.

  I clear my throat hard and try not to stumble over my words when I speak. “Can I get you anything?”

  Her wet silver hair shifts along her back as she shakes her head without glancing back at me. She opens her closet and picks out the first outfit her hands catch on. She slides a black shirt over her head and it wafts open in the back around her big black wings. I’m surprised when she leans forward for the black jeans in her hands. I almost comment on the Bin style clothes here at court, but then she starts shimmying into underwear and jeans, and the bounce of her ass in those thin lace panties distracts the thought right out of my head.

  “Why are you getting dressed? It’s late. You should sleep.”

  “I have to meet someone,” she says absently as she tugs on a pair of new black boots that stop just above her knee.

  She looks like a sexy assassin ready to walk the cat walk and possibly slit a few throats along the way.

  “Who?” I ask, but she’s already headed toward the door. “Where are you going? Will you just hold on a second!” She doesn’t stop.

  Not until she swings the door open.

  And there stands Krave, leaning against the doorjamb like he’s been there for a good long while.

  Seems I’m not the only creep toeing the line.

  “Going somewhere, love?” he asks, a bit less desperately than I had.

  He’s dressed in dark jeans that fade into the darkness of the hallway, but his pale chest only makes him stand out even more against the shadows.

  “What is with you two! I’m going to meet with the Shadow Guard,” she hisses on a harsh whisper.

  The Shadow Guard. Her secret team of friends. Right.

  I should calm down.

  She’s not rushing out to murder her father for what he did tonight. She isn’t a thoughtless killer. She’s smarter than that. I’m blowing things out of proportion.

  “You think Sev will help you discreetly kill your father?” Krave tilts his head at her, his messy black hair falling across his inky eyes.

  Fuck. I was wrong. I was putting things exactly into the proportion they needed to be. Aries does want to kill her father. And she’d be executed for that. The fae realm would never stand for the murder of a king who’s ruled for the past two centuries.

  My fingers lift, and her smooth skin brushes over my fingertips as I catch her wrist in my hand. She only glares back at me, gifting me with the same look she used to reserve for Krave.

  My hand drops just like my stomach does.

  Her features soften as she stares at me with the brightest silver eyes I’ve ever seen. I’ve never met someone so beautiful and so beaten down by the world they live in.

  People think life is easier when you’re pretty. As a once-perfectly-created seraph, I do understand that thought, but absolutely nothing in Aries’s life is easy.

  “I’m not going to kill my father,” she whispers on an empty, defeated breath. The constant tormenting smile on Krave’s face slowly fades, and I know he wants to wrap her up and never let the world hurt her ever again. “I do need to speak with the Shadow Guard, though.” She squares her shoulders, and the second she takes a single step forward, Krave gets the hell out of her way.

  Then the two of us are trailing after her in the dark.

  Every nerve in my body is on edge as I follow her down the sleek staircase. A man is posted at the front door. He’s stoic, and the princess doesn’t give him an ounce of her royal attention as she glides past him and strides to the kitchen.

  Moonlight shines in through the big windows. It gleams across the clean white counters. She walks through the empty, silent room. I arch a brow when she stops next to the towering oak cabinets and lifts her hands to the flat stone wall.

  Her delicate fingers press gently on a stone.

  And that stone shifts beneath her touch. They all do. The many bricks twist this way and that and scatter across the wall to make space.

  It makes just enough of an opening for a small doorway to fit into the total enveloping blackness.

  I swallow hard at the sight of the mysterious hidden door. When she walks forward, so does Krave. And so do I.

  I have no idea where we’re going.

  I don’t ask. It’s not my job to ask. Right now, my job is to follow her.

  And I’ll follow after this beautiful, reckless woman right to the bowels of hell.

  11

  Endurance

  Aries

  The guard are as busy as they always are at one in the morning. Sev and the woman I met earlier are both hovering over an untitled map with zero words written on it that might indicate where they’re headed. Just landmarks.

  The guard are cautious. Another thing they are is untrusting.

  And Sev, he doesn’t fucking trust me anymore.

  “I think you’re lost, Pretty Princess,” he says, rolling up the map the moment he spots me standing among the rushed work flow of the other Shadow Guards. “Best get back to rest. Wouldn’t want to disappoint Daddy by being late to another ball where a demon’s slaughtered just for entertainment.” His gray wings ruffle behind him as he folds his arms across his black shirt.

  Isabella slowly passes him an annoyed look.

  It’s just what I’m counting on.

  Everyone here wants me t
o fuck off because they think I’ll get them all killed. But Isabella has faith in me.

  For some bizarre reason.

  “Isabella, do you have a minute?”

  I note a man to her right stops flipping through his file folder to glance our way, passing me a look that tells me Sev isn’t the only one who wants me to fuck off.

  My heart beat drums in my chest as I wait for the small woman to speak. She’s quiet, but she’s really making this painful for me to stand here and be stared at by the people I once called my friends.

  Shining red hair shifts along her soft features as Isabella nods. She doesn’t say anything when she slips by me. She’s headed to the office, and I pretend like I’m not completely unsure as I follow her back there.

  We slip inside among the cluttered filing cabinets that no longer have the space to line the walls. I stand at the center of the angled cabinets with Isabella, and by the time Krave and Damien both come inside, there’s no room for our wings. Isabella’s feathers flutter along her back, scattering loose papers atop the cabinets but she calms and pulls them back in it seems. I shift on my feet until my big black wings fade away, settling inside myself like a comfortable blanket wrapping around me. Damien smiles slightly at the sight of my glamouring magic while Krave doesn’t much notice at all.

  He’s used to it.

  That and he’s nearly as powerful as I am in some ways, so I don’t expect the same impressed glance from him.

  But there’s more room now, and that’s all that matters.

  My hand presses to the old wooden door, but as it starts to glide shut, a shining black boot kicks between the frame and the door.

  Sev.

  Perfect.

  “We don’t need you here for this, Sev,” the woman says to him on that calm but annoyed tone of hers.

  He pushes into the room, his wings brushing Krave’s as they stand side by side. He closes the door behind him and looks up at us with a big smile. “I didn’t ask if you needed me. You’re my partner, and it’s dangerous to be alone with the second-most-watched person in this kingdom.”

  My brow arches high. “I’m on your watch list?”

  Sev’s smirk spreads harder across his obnoxious face. “Did you think you weren’t? After everything? After walking around with your dead brother’s crown on your head? After binding two demons and an angel to your soul? After standing watch during a fucking homicide?” His voice grows louder and louder, but all my attention catches on is that one little word.

  “You knew he was an angel?” My throat dries. My stomach twists.

  If others know what Zaviar is, he’s in danger. Not from us . . . but from the gods.

  Sev shakes his head back and forth like he can’t believe that’s the one thing I have a problem with among all that other shit.

  “What do you want, Aries?” His jaw grinds, and it’s hard for me to hear that tone in his voice.

  Because before he was Isabella’s partner, he was mine.

  He was the brother I always wanted—yes, I’m not counting Nathiale. I never will.

  He and I, we found this maid’s room that was bricked over decades ago. We found this safe place for us and our friends who couldn’t stand to see the world the way it was around us. We created the Shadow Guard.

  And now, I’m not welcome here.

  “I want to dethrone the King of Roses.” My chin lifts, and I force the look of flawless confidence across my face as my wings quiver inside myself.

  “Dethrone?” Sev says loud and spitefully. “We don’t want him dethroned. We want him dead, Aries!”

  “Why do you want to dethrone him?” Isabella asks more rationally.

  “Because killing him will only incite centuries of war. If I’m crowned after his assassination, it will win me loyalty from people like us. But people like him, they’ll never give us peace.” I tell them all of this, and it’s like an echo in my head now from how many times I’ve thought it through.

  But Sev isn’t nodding along like Isabella is.

  He reaches for me, venomous words curling back his lips before he’s even spoken, but he’s cut off when someone grips his wrist hard enough to turn his hand white.

  Damien steps closer, clenching the other man’s hand so tightly that Sev’s lips snap closed with a twisting look.

  “Do not lay a fucking hand on her,” the demon growls out. It’s eerily like his brother, but his face isn’t pained with hate. I know he means what he just said; he’s just not filled with cruelty the way Zaviar is.

  Sev jerks his hand away from Damien, the two of them holding gazes for far too long in such a small space that’s not nearly big enough for all these masculine death glares. Meanwhile, Krave looks so damn happy. I can tell he’s just waiting for a fist fight.

  “I think you three should leave. We can’t help you.” Sev’s words are flat and leave no room for argument.

  I should have known better than to come back here. There’s too much between me and the friends I once had.

  He’s right. I should leave.

  I only take a single step when Isabella catches my hand. Her long lashes close slowly as if she’s trying to get her thoughts straight before she peers at me once more.

  “Your grandmother lives near the Iris River, you know? You should pay her a visit,” she says oddly before releasing my hand and walking away, jarring her shoulder hard into Sev’s on her way out.

  I think through what she just said.

  My grandmother.

  I’ve never met my grandmother before . . .

  A crawling sensation skitters along the flesh of my arms as if my body senses the bad that is about to come tumbling down into what little good I have left in my life.

  I swallow that feeling back, but the turning feeling still lingers in the pit of my stomach.

  It’ll stay there. It’ll stay until I’ve done exactly what Isabella’s told me to do.

  Whatever the hell that might be.

  Warm fingers—almost hot—glide along my cheek, and my heavy lashes flutter at the gentle touch. A thumb skims my lower lip, pulling a sigh from my lungs as that hand trails lower along my throat.

  My eyes slowly open to the purest look of love I’ve ever seen.

  I just never expected it from Ryke.

  I catch his big hand in mine as I take in the bruising covering the gashes along his throat.

  “You should be resting,” I say on barely a whisper, snuggling into his side as we lie on my bed, holding each other a bit more intimately than we probably should.

  “And you should be awake instead of napping. That makes us even, Crow.” His smile calms my heart.

  He’s right. I should be awake. I must have dozed off as the four of us were waiting for the dawn. It beams in brightly now across my wooden floors. It shines down on the two other men sleeping soundly in my room.

  Zaviar sits in the chair in the corner, and his head’s tipped so far back, I can’t see his eyes, but the steady rise and fall of his smooth chest tells me he’s fast asleep.

  Krave lies flat on his back with his arm tucked under me as though he held me through the night.

  I hope he did.

  To my surprise, Damien’s sideways on the mattress, his legs still dangling off the edge as if he’s prepared to stand and leave at any moment. His golden locks fan across Krave’s stomach where he rests his head along the hard lines of the incubus’s body.

  And Krave’s other hand, it’s gently resting against Damien’s shoulder. His bare shoulder . . . that unfiltered sex magic is just lying there against Damien’s skin.

  The morning erection outlined beneath Damien’s jeans tells me that magic is in full raging effect.

  “Pen checked in on me.” Ryke tells me on a hushed tone. I lock eyes with him and there’s a deep heat there in his shadowed green gaze. “She asked me what she could do to make me feel better.”

  Oh no. Did … did something happen between them? Something sexy? Something my mind doesn’t have the nerv
e to imagine for the sake of my heart?

  “I told her you.” A small smile pulls at his lips and I don’t understand at first. “I told her you made me feel better.” My heart stutters. “She said she hates the idea of keeping me in the demon quarters. She said I could stay with you as long as I wanted. As much as I wanted.”

  A stinging sensation trails down my collarbone. It hesitates there for a single long second before drifting down the V-neck of my T-shirt. My stunned gaze lingers on him and his deep emerald eyes hold mine as his fingers ever so slowly slide down along my breast, teasing the flesh of my skin with his light touch. He watches me watching him as we both listen to the pounding of my slamming heart.

  I want him to touch me. I want him to distract me. I want—

  His fingers skim over my nipple with so much tingling pain, I gasp in response to the minimal touch. A rough beard scrapes my jaw as his mouth presses to the curve of my neck. He kisses there with a flick of his tongue in a rush of heat that spirals right down to my center. A gasp like a cry of pleasured pain cuts from my lips.

  “You have to be quiet, baby,” he whispers against my ear. “I don’t think it’d be good for us if you were caught with three demons in your bed.” He says all that while pushing my shirt up and taking my nipple fully into his mouth, sucking so hard, my head falls back without remembering a single word of the warning he just gave.

  His big hands send fire through my veins as he pushes a path up my ribs, and then shoves my shirt up higher for himself. He flicks his tongue out across my sensitive flesh once more before taking in the sight of my body beneath him.

  A growl of delicious approval hums from his throat.

  And then he’s crawling lower down my body.

  My eyes open slowly and I almost say something—anything—but he jerks my jeans roughly down before a single sound comes out. He pulls my jeans and panties off entirely. Big hands wrap around my inner thighs, and he spreads me wide for himself as he lowers down between my legs. Warm breath licks at my flesh. Even warmer fingers draw slow lazy lines across my hips, my pubic bone, my lips . . . but he never dips lower. He rubs his tingling touch back and forth between my legs until I feel it deep within my sex. I’m trembling beneath his big hand, and it builds to a pulse within my chest.