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

by A. K. Koonce

They whisper around her. Her ladies in waiting and her advisors. They whisper when she exits rooms.

  “Headless Hyval called out for her husband again in the middle of the night. The poor King died five years ago. Let him rest.”

  “I heard old Headless Hyval shook hands with her son this morning and asked if he was the new war commander.”

  “Did you hear Headless Hyval blew a trade deal with the Kingdom of Crowns in the north? Couldn’t remember the bloody King’s name even though she’s met him a hundred times. She was at his son’s wedding, for fae fuck’s sake.”

  “Do you think . . . do you think we should consider carefully suggesting resignation for Headless Hyval?”

  It’s late in the night when my eyes flash open. The pounding of my heart is so overwhelming, it’s all I hear.

  It’s all I hear until bickering cuts in.

  “Stop watching it! It’s rude!” Damien yells across the room as he tosses another black stone in his messy pile in front of him.

  Krave shakes his head at the man. He’s seated cross-legged on the floor and has just one stone in front of him.

  One.

  “It’s not rude,” Krave argues with a half-smile and a wave of his hand. “It’s research.”

  “What are you talking about?” I finally ask, like I haven’t solved our problem only to be tossed right back in the Broadway shit show of The Demonic Housewives TV special.

  Gods, no wonder people fear going to hell.

  These two would be there to bicker their brains out.

  “I’ve gone through a hundred and two stones, and Krave keeps coming back to the one where your dear old grams fucks an incubus named Dravle.” Ryke pushes his big hands down his face and releases a long slow breath.

  “She didn’t just fuck him. Don’t be crude. They were in love,” Krave says with a slightly dreamy, slightly lustful sigh.

  My lips are parted as I look from one man to the next and still have no words to solve their petty argument.

  “Anyway,” I say instead. “I know what Isabella was trying to tell me.”

  “Thank fuck,” Zaviar growls, his eyes closing tightly as he steels his jaw against what seems to be a migraine. His hand shoves over his left pectoral muscle, though.

  Krave, Damien, and Ryke stand at once. When Zaviar stands, his knees give out. He lands on all fours with a shaking groan.

  I’m in front of him in seconds. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” he says on a harsh breath.

  “Zaviar!” My hands push over his smooth shoulders, but his head hangs low as his pink wings shake from how hard he’s breathing.

  “I’m fine,” he repeats, his tone still screaming the opposite.

  His arms give out, and he lowers himself down on his knees and forearms, breathing through whatever pain he won’t admit to.

  “He shouldn’t be here,” Damien whispers.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Zaviar snaps.

  My own breath cuts out as I blink down at the beautiful angel who’s sitting in a worshiping position.

  He doesn’t belong here.

  He certainly doesn’t belong bound to me.

  And yet, he refuses to leave.

  “Come on. I’m getting you help,” I say, hauling him to his feet. He stumbles, and Damien ends up slipping an arm around him to keep him upright.

  But he does come.

  Because he needs help. Now.

  Even if we both know it’ll come at a price.

  13

  A Vow

  Zaviar

  I was starting to think the castle was worse than the treehouse with Corva looming over us.

  Gods, was I fuckin’ wrong.

  Corva is so much worse than the assholes prancing around the castle pretending they’re better than everyone else because they’re sinless.

  Corva though, she’s not petty.

  She’s deadly.

  Her smoky black hair wafts around her pale face as she tilts her head this way and that from above me. I lie flat on the wooden couch and hold back every searing sting of pain that stabs through my heart. It feels like my heart is splitting. Like—like it wants to tear in half and just end my agony right here, right now.

  “He needs to go back to the gods,” Corva says to her sister, who stands only inches away from me.

  Aries hasn’t left my side all night. Her pretty face is pinched in a look of concern that I’ve never seen her have for me.

  That look warms my cracking heart.

  “He, uh . . . he can’t go back,” Aries whispers.

  Everyone in the room shifts to face her.

  “What the fuck do you mean, I can’t go back?” My teeth grind together with slicing pain shooting once more through my chest.

  Corva’s thin brows lift in surprise as she looks at her little sister. The smile on her lips is unsettling, to say the least.

  That smile clings to her lips as she speaks. “You bound him, didn’t you?”

  “Ahh,” Krave says with a smirk as well.

  The two of them are not fuckin’ helping right now. “What!” I holler. “They did that demon binding. It’s for demons. It’s fucking useless on seraphs.”

  “Ha-ha, that’s where you’re wrong, my pretty pink-feathered friend,” Krave says with a shake of his long glittering finger.

  Fucking incubus.

  I grimace once more, but this time, it has nothing to do with physical pain.

  “It’s a ritual created by high fae magic. You’re bound to my sister,” Corva says with gleaming excitement in her eyes.

  “I—I have to go back,” I say sternly.

  “Yes. Yes. You do. But when a binding is stretched,” Corva claps her hands together, and as she slowly pulls them away, a thread of golden magic disperses between her palms. It becomes thinner and thinner. Until it snaps with sparking colors. “It won’t be pretty for you, Angel.”

  “Fuck,” I growl out, my palm pressing over my pec to sooth the carving agony.

  “If you stay, it’ll hurt. And if you leave Aries, it’ll really fucking hurt,” Krave explains in layman’s-blunt-stupid-fucking-incubus terms.

  I’d say something back to him, but the next jolt of throbbing terror hits my heart like I’m dying with a full breath in my lungs. Dying while my head throws back.

  And a beautiful gift from the gods looks down on me. “I’m so sorry, Zav.” Her tone is hushed and intimate along my ear. Her breath skims my skin while her fingers thread through my hair.

  Maybe I am dying.

  I’m dying a sweet miserable death that I deserve.

  “Can you help him? Can you reverse the bindings?” Aries cries, her voice shaking so hard, it hurts to hear.

  “No.” Corva’s long smoky dress fumes around her as she turns away from us. “You can pass the binding along to someone else, allowing them to inherit your angel. That’s the best you have right now,” she calls over her shoulder as though she’s done for the night.

  She’s so much fucking worse than the pretentious castle fucks.

  “That’s bullshit! Numb his pain! I know you can.” Aries is standing and storming across the floors to her sister so fast, it sets the entire room on edge. The men around me shift their stance toward the woman dressed in all black.

  If Corva were to so much as scratch Aries, those three idiots would die avenging her slight discomfort.

  Corva’s eyes are so bright, they’re like hellfire glinting in the dim lighting. Her amusement is enough to give me chills. “I’ll help him,” Corva says with that slow crawling smile catching her lips. “But I want something in exchange.”

  Ryke groans at the sound of that statement.

  I glance toward him and his thick etching scars are all I can focus on while the two women talk less than three feet from me. I can’t help but compare Aries’s smooth flawless body to Ryke’s in this moment.

  He’s been touched by Corva’s dark fae magic for over a century. But it all started with him needing one
thing from her.

  Just like Aries does right now.

  “Aries. Aries, don’t.” My hand pushes beneath me, but when I try to sit up, my arm gives out, and my head bangs against the wooden armrest. “Fucckk,” I hiss.

  “What do you want?” Aries continues on as if I never said a godsdamn thing.

  Corva’s smile dips. It falters into a low frown. “I want to be with my family, Ari.” Her tone is so gentle, it’s alarming. I’ve known this woman for a while now, and I’ve never fucking heard that kind of sincerity.

  I don’t believe it for a fuckin’ second.

  Aries’s iron-like eyes shift across Corva’s face as seconds pass in silence. “I know,” she finally says.

  Fuck me.

  “Aries,” I call to her, but once more, I’m just the forgotten dying seraph in the background of everyone’s thoughts. Pain slices through me, and I groan from it as much as I’m groaning in annoyance.

  “I want to come back to court,” Corva the Conniving Cunt says.

  “I know.” Aries looks at her sister with too much kindness in her pretty eyes.

  “You’ll help me, then? You’ll help me come back to the castle?”

  No. Fuck no. “Aries,” I whisper on a shaking breath, my entire body trembling with agony.

  Damien looks back at me. “Shh,” he says with a small shake of his head, like I’m interrupting a fucking family moment here.

  What the fuck is this shit? Why is no one listening to me? I have one little heart condition, and all of a sudden, I’m the horse looking down the barrel of a shotgun?

  “I can’t trust you, Corva.” Aries lifts her chin high in that sexy little dominant stance of hers.

  That’s my fucking girl!

  Gods, she’s so much smarter than she looks. Sometimes. I mean, she’s . . . whatever.

  “You’re one to throw stones,” Corva says with an arch of her brow. “How’s Nathiale, Aries? How’s my sweet little brother? Tell me.”

  Aries doesn’t flinch from those sharp-spoken words. She doesn’t even blink with the confrontation thrown at her feet. She’s fucking fearless.

  Why am I so turned on right now?

  “I can’t trust you, and you can’t trust me. Why in all the realms would you think anything has changed in the last twenty-three years, Corva? This is what father raised us to be. Not family, but not quite enemies, either. We can’t trust each other. But we can help each other.”

  Shit. Aries might act like nothing gets to her. But her family, they get in nice and deep under her skin, it seems.

  “Take a vow with me,” Corva says swiftly. And all of a sudden, I’m pushing to my feet. I stumble just slightly, but I right myself on the corner of the couch.

  “She’s not fucking doing that,” I growl out.

  Finally—fucking finally—Aries looks at me. Her eyes are big and shining in a way I couldn’t see before. It cuts into me deeper than the pain that’s already tearing me open.

  “You should rest,” she whispers.

  “I’m fine,” I say for what must be the hundredth time.

  “Aries Sinclaire, I vow never to harm you, never to hurt you, never to kill you,” Corva announces in a scripture-type tone that chills my bones.

  Aries turns to her sister then, her chin held high, her features fearless.

  “Corva of the Unknown, I vow never to harm you, never to hurt you, never to kill you,” Aries repeats.

  Fuck.

  The two women clasp hands and pull one another in nice and close. Their heads tilted down to their joined hands held between them.

  “Until I take my last breath,” Corva whispers, breathing purposefully across the back of their knuckles.

  “Until I take my last breath,” Aries agrees, doing the exact same, washing their hands with the unbreakable vow she’s spoken.

  Silver light mingles together with ashen smoke. It slips from their palms and hovers around them, encompassing them in the powerful vow they just promised one another.

  She said she doesn’t trust Corva, but on some level, she does.

  Trust is a dangerous thing. Not enough can get you killed. And too much, well that can get you killed even faster.

  14

  Time for Healing

  Aries

  I stand at a close distance as my sister lowers herself down to where Zaviar lies on the wooden couch. He can say he’s fine all he wants, but I can see the way he can hardly catch his breath.

  The righteous bastard.

  Damien shifts so he’s peering out the window into the deep darkness of the night. Ryke tenses at my side, but he watches my sister begin her work without looking away. It surprises me how much Krave is paying attention. There’s no elaborate smile on his face. He seems almost worried.

  “Hold still,” Corva instructs as she slides her index finger over Zaviar’s chest and settles above his heart.

  I swallow hard, and I don’t know when it happened, but without realizing it, I’m holding Zaviar’s warm hand in mine. His dark lashes flutter as he looks down on our joined hands. He peers up at me with a question burning in those sweet blue eyes of his.

  Someone’s hurt him too much in his life. That’s where all that anger and aggression comes from inside of him.

  I won’t let anyone else hurt him. Not ever again.

  At least . . . after my sister’s done with him, that is.

  Her finger presses hard into his skin, and the tips of her black nail drag across his flesh with a sizzling sound.

  Muscles jump along his jaw as he steels his body hard, clenching every single muscle against the feel of Corva’s rune magic.

  She’s part demon. And now, Zaviar has a little bit of that essence inside him, too.

  I can’t help but pause for a response from my own demon inside of me.

  Catherine’s silent.

  I shake my head at the strange feeling of emptiness her quietness brings me.

  “There,” Corva says when she’s made several slashing lines intertwine over Zaviar’s heart. It’s harsh and deep-cutting, but it heals quickly with fumes of black smoke. It turns to a thin scar immediately. “How do you feel?” Corva asks with a tilt of her long black hair.

  “Fucking fantastic,” Zaviar spits with a curl of his lips.

  “Does it hurt?” My fingers lift, and I’m tracing the cutting lines across his skin as I speak.

  The muscles jump beneath my touch. His throat clears hard as he shifts beneath my fingers.

  “No. Not at all,” he says on an odd rasp.

  There’s always this slicing look of hate kept on reserve in his gaze. As he looks up at me right now, that cruel sentiment isn’t in his eyes at all. He looks . . . at ease. For once in his life.

  Why do I like you so much, Remorseless?

  It isn’t good for my heart, I know that much. My past. Krave himself has taught me to not get attached to someone who can never be yours.

  But look how that turned out . . .

  “We should stay the night tonight. And possibly tomorrow,” I announce.

  Zaviar’s lips curl back into their natural habitat of disgusted annoyance.

  There’s my angel.

  “Ari, you said you’d figured it all out, though,” Krave whispers, his hesitant gaze slipping from me to my sister.

  Corva gives a false smile and continues to watch us with rapt attention.

  Krave doesn’t want to say too much in front of her. And neither do I.

  “Let’s just stay. For tonight. It’s late, and we should rest anyway.”

  Ryke passes a skeptical look to Damien, but Damien’s still watching his brother like his attention itself is keeping the angel safe.

  No one responds to my new strange life choices.

  I have four strong men surrounding me. Men who have taken magic straight to their heart. Men who have defied heaven and hell just to find their own path in these realms. Men who have changed my life forever.

  And not one of these fuckers has the de
mon balls to question me.

  I shove a long sigh from my lungs and finally grab Zaviar’s hand. His dark eyebrows lift in surprise as I pull him to his feet. And continue to hold his warm comforting hand as I lead him past my still watchful sister. I grab Ryke’s big hand at the last minute and create a sort of train, pulling along my silent men through the winding wooden house. Four sets of heavy boots pound in unison behind me as I guide them upstairs. It’s a repetitive sound that storms through my head and slowly whisks away all the tumbling thoughts there with the thrilling idea that I’m leading them . . . to their bed.

  Cold air sifts in, and it hits my face as I trail higher and higher. The steps give way, and then nothing but netting sways before me in the deep darkness of the night.

  The moonlight scatters in through the enormous leaves above. It hints at the thin lines that cross all along the nest that these men used to love so much.

  “I always thought this bouncy bed was just a kinky setup for you guys to lure women in here,” Krave says huskily, breaking the silence.

  Ryke’s deep laughter follows, but none of us really say anything in response.

  Until Damien speaks.

  “No woman had ever slept here. Just Aries,” he says on a breath that’s just a bit too breathless.

  A shiver slides over my skin, suddenly making me all too aware of how loud my heart’s beating.

  Why did that sound so romantic? It’s just a bed, Aries.

  And then I’m thinking of Catherine. She’d tell me if I was being ridiculous or not. She’d snap me out of my emotions faster than anyone.

  But my advisor I always ridiculed in the past . . . isn’t there.

  Why’s she silent? Why isn’t she there anymore? What did I do? Did I lose her?

  I pushed too far. I slipped into the past of someone else’s life. I was in Hyval’s life the way Catherine was always in mine.

  And I fucked something up by pushing too far.

  I always fuck it up in the end.

  Warm breath hits my ear as rough palms graze along my arms in a calming back-and-forth sweep, “What’s wrong, Aries?” Damien rasps, the heat of his words dancing across my flesh.