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

by A. K. Koonce

  “Please, Ryke. Please,” I beg.

  “Please what?” he asks on a gravelly voice like sex and sin.

  My lashes flutter, and I swallow hard to think about what he wants, and what I want, and how they’re both the same fucking thing.

  “Please touch me, and suck me, and fuck me so hard that everyone knows your name from how loud I’m screaming it.” I almost smile—almost.

  But then his growling response is humming across my clit as his mouth opens wide and takes as much of my pussy into it as he can. The width of his tongue covers my sex, sliding deep inside before lapping me up and swirling hard across my clit. My fingers push through his short hair, and that’s the only thing grounding me, it feels like. His tongue fucks me hard, lashing against my sex, diving deep and thrusting hungrily with so much intensity, I shiver beneath him as an ache tightens low in my core.

  His big hands hold me in place against his mouth, and the thrumming feeling inside of me grows with every shaking breath I gasp for.

  He stops.

  The movement of the earth stops right along with him.

  My eyes open slowly. His heated gaze holds mine. And then he sucks hard and demandingly against my clit, his teeth raking just slightly as he draws out all the pent-up sounds inside me. Lustful pleading moans fill the room, and still he works my clit in pulsing sensations.

  Two big fingers slide down my wetness. He slides back and forth there for a moment.

  And then he thrusts deep inside. His thick digits thrust, arching up at the perfect angle as he takes the flat of his tongue and rolls it across the sensitive and throbbing nub that holds all of his attention. He does it all again and again and again.

  Until pain and pleasure collide together like white hot embers within me. It clashes and rolls within my core in a freefalling feeling of total ecstasy.

  And then I’m screaming his name on a trembling, gasping tone.

  I’m pulling at his hair and trying to bring him closer to me. I need him closer.

  I need him inside me.

  Now.

  But when I lean up on my shaking elbows, Zaviar’s staring down at us. So is Krave. And so is Damien.

  All three of them now have an interesting outline pressing against their jeans. Krave’s eyes hold a sparking interest. He’s waiting. Either to join or to watch or both, I’m not sure.

  Damien’s breathing heavy, and he isn’t as manic about it as Krave, but I can tell he wants the same thing.

  But there’s one major angelic cockblock in the room.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be visiting your grandmother, Crow?” Zaviar asks calmly with a condescending arch of his brow.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be able to keep your dick soft around women who aren’t angels?” I cut back at him with lashing words, even if they are still breathless and weak-sounding.

  A slow smirk, cruel and carving, pulls across his hard features. “Don’t flatter yourself. Wet fae pussy isn’t anything special. One of the reasons your kind is considered beneath us is because you’ll cum for anyone. Fucking is just fucking for fae. Seraphs are known for their endurance, little Crow. We choose our own because our own have the power to please us. Unlike the weaker races.” He folds his big arms across his chest, the muscles along his sides flexing those swooping words across his ribs.

  Without Regret. Without Remorse.

  My chin lifts to his harsh words. “Well, Remorseless, don’t let all those godly friends of yours know I made you cum without ever touching your endurance-blessed dick.” His features fall just slightly, and I don’t know why I have to twist the knife even more. “Maybe also don’t tell them your demonic brother made me cum better than you ever did.”

  Without Regret. Without Remorse.

  I don’t believe that for a single fucking second.

  If I did, he wouldn’t be staring at me with so much pain in his deep blue eyes right now. And I wouldn’t feel sick to my stomach for putting that pain there.

  12

  To Grandmother’s House We Go

  Aries

  The enormous leaves hang above like an umbrella, blocking out the warm sunlight as we trail quietly toward the trickling sound of the Iris River. There’s a path here, worn and broken in by many hikes from our busy kingdom to the quiet countryside.

  Many have taken this dirty road. But I haven’t.

  “I’ve never met my grandmother,” I say, not sure who I’m speaking to but needing to say it all the same.

  Damien glances my way, but his attention slips to someone else when they, too, confess something astonishing.

  “I have,” Krave whispers, looking at me from the corner of his depthless eyes.

  My boots scuff the dirt from how abruptly I stop. “You’ve met my grandmother?” I cock my head at the mysterious incubus and all the secrets he keeps.

  Krave’s lips open and then close slowly before he tries once more. “Your father visits her every year on his birthday.”

  It’s a secret. He just gave me a secret of his previous handler . . .

  “He forbids his children and his family, everyone, he forbids them to see her. But every year on his birthday, he’d come to spend an hour with her.” Krave’s so serious right now, it just puts me even more on edge.

  On his fucking birthday. Not hers. How fucking selfish can my father be?

  “Why?” I ask like a command.

  The incubus just shakes his head. “I don’t know. He’d never say. I’d accompany him to her cottage, but I was never allowed inside.” He swallows before he seems to remember something. “I met her once. She followed him out into the night air, and she looked at me like she’d seen a ghost. She said she missed me, but we couldn’t meet like this anymore.”

  I blink at him, unsure what to do with that information. He shrugs, and I press for more. “Was—was she happy? Cruel? Hurt?” Why would he have kept us away from her?

  Why?

  Long, glittering black fingers slip over mine, and with a tingling touch, he holds my hand in his. “She—she was confused, Ari. She asked where her crown was. She said she wanted to go home.” His lips stay parted, but no other words come out for several beats of my heart. And then, unfortunately, he says more. “She has memory fleet, love. Her memories have dissolved, and it’s left her with a helpless sense of loss.”

  The pounding of my heart is pressing so hard, it’s like I can feel it the moment it breaks.

  “Oh,” I whisper.

  The four of us stand there as I stare at the dirt between us. I study the divots and the twigs. I consider each little particle of nothingness as this sense of hurt settles in my chest.

  I’ve never met her. But even if I did, she wouldn’t remember me anyway.

  She doesn’t even remember her own life.

  And Isabella sent me to her.

  Why?

  To help her?

  How?

  “Do you still want to go?” Damien asks gently.

  I nod before he even gets the question fully out. “Yes. Yes, we should go. She’ll probably like the company.” The fucking company she should have had all her life. Instead of being shut away far from the castle like a sickness being contained.

  The rest of the short trip I spend digging my boots into the dirt with every hard stomp I take toward the beautiful shimmering river. Light reflects off of it in shining white colors. It’s calming. It’s peaceful.

  At least she has this piece of perfection to keep her company. It’s a nice little relaxing slice of nature.

  It would be good for the elder fae to grow old with.

  It’d be nice for a senior to rest near.

  It—a blade strikes out and slices just beneath my jaw. “You newcomers dropping by to steal my crown?” A woman barks out at us. The sharp end of her blade never wavers for a single second. Which is impressive when I spot the small old woman holding the hilt of it.

  Her big black wings are graying at the ends. They match the silver color of her long wavi
ng hair.

  Grandmother Hyval.

  “Your Highness,” Krave says with a sweeping bow. “Your son, Lord Gravier, sent us for an exclusive meeting regarding the renovation of your castle that you’re still waiting on.” His charm oozes out in layers that make me gag.

  Her gray eyes get a long-lost look in them as she stares at the incubus. “Gravier sent you?” she asks absently, as though she hasn’t heard his name possibly ever. As if she’s only heard it in the echoes of her thoughts. “Gravier,” she says once more, her features smoothing with a bit of remembrance slipping across the lines of her face. “Yes. I apologize. He should have sent word of your arrival beforehand.”

  “Yes, yes, he should have,” Krave says with a quick nod.

  Her frail hand sweeps back to the small wooden cottage seated near the riverside. “Please come in.” Her thin ivory gown drags the dirt as her bare feet pad over to the little house.

  We follow quietly behind her.

  The boards let out a slow whine when my boots settle just inside the small home. I expected one of two things inside this house: immense luxury or immense poverty.

  I didn’t expect . . .

  “Stones,” Damien whispers.

  Starting high above the window over the kitchen counter, there’s a pile of stones tossed atop one another. The smooth black exterior of the little rocks looks polished. So flawless, they seem wet with a shine I can’t take my eyes off of.

  The black metal mantle holding up the thousands of little stones bows in the middle where more and more and more of the things continue to make trailing line around the entirety of the room. The mantle drifts down, uneven on some walls but still doing its job of containing all the shining rocks. The beam of metal juts out from the corner on the south wall and expands into a larger section that’s big enough to host a breakfast at the castle. Instead of food on the table, it supports the thousands of stones that rest at the center of the room like an odd wishing well. If I toss a new stone onto that pile, will my heart’s desire be granted?

  Would I finally find peace in my life?

  “They’re remembrance stones,” Hyval says, cutting through my thoughts and catching my attention when I spot her graying wings expand from her small frame. They carry her just a few gentle beats, and her dirty bare feet land on the smooth countertop. I’m surprised how steady her hands are as she lifts a large bowl above her head and pours out its contents onto the trail of piled stones. The trickling sound of water rushes from where she stands, it slides over all the rocks, rushing through the mantle’s path that surrounds us. I listen to the sweet sound of gushing water.

  Then it comes to a slow stop at the center of the room just inches away from me, where the largest of the mounds of stones are. In the middle there, with the rocks poised right into a towering heap of décor, it’s like art.

  Art I don’t understand the meaning of one bit.

  “Pick up that one nearest you,” Hyval instructs as she floats down to the wooden floor after thoroughly watering her rocks.

  The rock at the corner of the wooden stand is slick against my palm. It’s light. It’s the kind of thing you’d want to toss across a serene lake and count how many skips it beats across the water before sinking down into the deep nothingness.

  I wait with it held in the palm of my hand, but . . . it’s just a rock.

  “It’s a very nice rock, Hyval,” I say with a small forced smile.

  “Queen Hyval,” she corrects.

  “Yes, Queen Hyval,” I say respectfully to my grandmother. The one who doesn’t even know who I am.

  “And you’re using it wrong.” Her gray hair swishes as she tilts her head at me, really staring at my features for a long moment. “You remind me of someone,” she says with that shake of uncertainty she had in her tone when we first arrived.

  Do I tell her the young son she had grew up? He grew up hateful, and he tried to instill that hate into the three children he had.

  “I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting you, my Queen,” I say instead, the smile on my lips nearly falling into a wavering frown.

  Her silver eyes light up a little with a soft smile that blooms pain through my chest.

  I look like her. I remind her of herself, but she doesn’t remember herself.

  She . . .

  Fuck!

  Why! Why did my father keep her out here alone, with only the crumbling memories in her mind to keep her company?

  I bite my lower lip hard enough to almost compare with the pain that’s building in my chest, and I have to turn away from her kind eyes to face the wall and feign interest in the rocks that look just like all the others. Except these ones are so glistening, they reflect the dampness in my eyes as I peer down on them.

  Gentle fingers slide down my spine over my shirt, but Damien never says a word.

  I push my hands over my face slowly before tangling them through my hair. A deep breath hits my lungs, and I blink away the lingering pain until I’m sure I can look at her without bursting into tears.

  I smooth my hands on my jeans and turn back around.

  Except she’s gone.

  “Where did she go?” I hiss to the four men standing there, like they let her escape.

  “Calm down,” Krave says with a tilt of his head toward the open door. “She’s out watering the river.”

  “Watering the river?” Zaviar repeats with a lift of his dark brows.

  Krave nods as if it’s all in a normal day’s work.

  I stand there looking out the wooden doorframe, watching the gray-haired woman sway to a humming tune as she dips her bowl into the river, and then slowly trickles that water right back down into the sloshing running water.

  She’s . . . happy, I think. Obliviously happy. Tormented with happiness.

  My heart hurts looking at her. My fingers run absent-mindedly over the smooth surface of the warm rock in my hand. I worry at it, sliding across the rounded edges over and over and over again.

  Until my surroundings disappear.

  Fluttering lashes blink repeatedly. They fan in front of me as I gaze out the glass window at the rain pounding down on the river water gushing ferociously. White lightning strikes hard with a howling gust of wind alongside the little home.

  My sight isn’t my own. My body moves at the pace of someone else’s steps, and the movement and the flow of my gait is wobbling. Entirely not my own.

  What the fuck?

  I peer out the side window near the little door, and I realize I’m still in Hyval’s cottage. But it’s no longer morning. Nightfall casts across the dark sky, and I’m alone in the tiny house.

  Her face peers back at me in the reflection of the window. Her face . . . and mine.

  I want to gasp, but once again, I’m reminded this isn’t my body.

  Total serene calmness is all Hyval has within her gentle-beating heart.

  “Dravle simply cannot stay here. It’s romantic but . . . it’s drafty. Bitterly cold. I—” She turns us to look around. Her attention shifts from the kitchen counter to the stack of stones in the center of the room. She’s alone. “I want to go home,” she whispers to only herself.

  Her dry lips close, and I feel the confusion in her mind. I feel her fear prickle across her flesh. She just won’t show it. Her shaking breath slips from her lips, and she starts quietly toward the bed in the next room. At the last second, she sets the stone down next to the others.

  And then the bright morning sunlight flashes before my eyes.

  “Aries, are you fuckin’ okay? Aries?” Strong hands grip my shoulders, and the anxiety rushing through his words shake through me as his hold on me wavers with a little jolt.

  I look up at intense blue eyes. Those dark eyebrows of his are shaded over his eyes, just as they always are, but not from anger this time.

  Zaviar’s worried. About me.

  “I’m fine.” I blink slowly, my hand loose against the stone as I try to understand what just happened. “The remembrance ston
es capture moments. She’s capturing moments for herself. She knows she’s forgetting, and she’s trying to help herself,” I tell them, looking around the room and finding more and more of the black stones shining in hiding spots all around the house. One rests atop the door frame. Another is dropped in the corner. Several line the floors along the wall, and I spot even more glinting in her bedroom. They’re everywhere. Thousands of them.

  And one of them has what Isabella sent me here for.

  “One of these stones has captured something important. We need to go through the stones one by one and find what Isabella knows is hidden here.”

  “Are you fucking kidding? That’ll take months, Crow,” Zaviar’s calloused hands slide down my arms, and he winces, turning his head from me and pushing his fingers over the bridge of his nose.

  I tilt my head at him, but he ignores me.

  “Why can’t you just ask the little shadow cunt what she knows?” Zaviar demands, shaking off whatever he felt earlier as he glares at me with that lovely little aggravation that I’d almost missed.

  “Because the guard doesn’t trust Aries,” Krave says for me.

  My attention cuts to the overly watchful incubus.

  But he’s right.

  And though it takes many more grumbles and a lot more cursing from Zaviar, we get to work. Hours pass in a haze of someone else’s mind. I watch Hyval from the beginning. I watch her as she starts to realize in the political meetings in the offices of the castle that she’s forgetting things here and there. She starts the stones early in her life to remind her of agendas and important key figures in her life. At one point, she cries.

  She’s young and beautiful. Alone after the death of her husband. But entirely alone to the life she leads. And she’s forgetting it, bit by bit.