by Liza James
Copyright © 2020 by Liza James
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Editing and Proofreading: Amy Briggs
Cover Design: BooksMoodsCo
Contents
TRIGGER
BLURB
DESCENT
PROLOGUE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Epilogue
BONUS
Acknowledgments
About the Author
TRIGGER
Trigger Warning: This book confronts potential triggers such as sexual assault, blood play, dubious consent and violence. It also contains scenes in which sexual content is explained in explicit detail. Recommended for ages 18+.
STELLA
I’ve become something unrecognizable.
My body and mind are split with demands that terrify me. I know the only person who can help satisfy the hunger is the one person I want to kill—Danner.
But I have my own theories, my own intuition that implies someone else can feed me like no other. I’m drawn to him like a spark to his flame. He ignites my spirit but amplifies the excruciating appetite.
Because he won’t give in, and now I’m left in haunting nightmares of temptation.
Hungry. Reckless. Wild.
I’m losing myself to the darkness, but I think I like the destruction.
NATHANIAL
She’s a thorn in my side, that one.
The ever-present pain that agonizes my thoughts and fuels my anger.
She awakens my corruption, stirring my need to dominate and ruin her.
She doesn’t know what I am. She doesn’t understand what I’d be able to do.
But she can never know.
I made a deal with the Devil a long time ago and there’s no going back.
The darkness shelters our secrets and keeps them hidden.
Spotify Playlist:
https://geni.us/descentplaylist
“It’s Danner,” she says, and I feel Nathanial tense around me when she utters his name. “He’s an Incubus, and he’s trying to find his Succubus.”
I’m running.
Constantly fucking running.
I’m either awake and seeking out anything that will minimally satiate my hunger for a brief stint in time, or I’m asleep and he’s coming to find me.
I don’t know how to fight him off. I don’t know how to hide from him while I’m sleeping. So, the night terrors begin every time I fall asleep and I’m tormented until I’m screaming and begging for someone, anyone to save me.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep saying no and that’s the worst part—the scariest part. Every ounce of my being hates him. I loathe him for what he did to my sister and I’ve been manipulated and groomed to want something so toxic over the last few months that I’m lost in this void, craving someone I want to kill.
These are the thoughts that plague my mind and worry me the most.
I do want to kill him. I want his blood on my hands for what he’s done and yet he’s the only person who can satisfy the aching hunger that resides inside my bones.
“My sweet, Stel-la,” his crude voice scrapes against my mind while my fingers absently twist in the sweat soaked sheets around my body. I’m too hot, uncomfortably so, but I can’t get away from it.
“Leave me alone,” I grind out mentally. I’m surrounded in darkness, the dream slowly building and coming to fruition around me. It’s always the same place. A dark, cold cellar with that awful, circular, bloodred bed and the same binds laced through black leather straps in each of the four general corners.
I’m trapped where my conscious mind is overcome by restless nightmares. It’s a gray area in the middle, when I’m perceptive of everything happening within my dream, but I’m still asleep. I’m vulnerable, losing myself to the new Demons who have come to bear home.
“How can you say no? You remember all of this, don’t you?” His voice drops into a husky flow of filthy secrets that I try to ignore. I still don’t see him, just the sick construct of this fragile nightmare.
I hate that I ever enjoyed this. I loathe myself for not realizing who he was sooner. I played right into his hands like putty—willingly went to him, slept with him, sought out his touch when he had been involved in capturing and almost killing my sister. My only family.
I didn’t know, God, I swear I had no idea it was him. But eventually, after meeting Elijah and Nathanial, when they revealed an entirely new world to me, I started putting things together.
Suddenly, that itch in the pit of my stomach grew into hesitation when I was around Michael—Danner, that is. We only ever went to his place, and he never minded when I went out to clubs or parties without him. Honestly, I should have known then. I should have realized something was changing inside of me as soon as I even wanted to go to a club. That had never been me before.
I didn’t go out often. I stayed home and watched Netflix, binging the shows that have strangely become a surprising extension of my actual reality. I was the planner, the strategic one. I made conscious decisions and calculated the consequences of those choices. I was cautious, overthinking each detail until I knew, without a doubt, what the right choice was.
Until I didn’t anymore.
All of a sudden, Danner was eliciting these strange new feelings from inside of me. I had never been incredibly sexual. I wasn’t afraid of sex, I had plenty of it. But I didn’t seek it out, I didn’t do one-night stands or casual hook ups. Too many risks, not enough reward.
But the more Danner touched me, the closer we became, the more I sought it out not only from him, but others as well. At first, I thought he would be angry with me. Possessive over our relationship. But he wasn’t. He encouraged me to go out and meet others, as long as it was him I went home to at the end of the night. He was the one who introduced me to Pandora’s Box. He showed me the possibilities and let me take flight from there.
He gave me the filthy and dark things I craved from sex willingly and awakened the sexual vixen inside of me. Then he fed me, god did he feed me. Until I became addicted to
only him. I fed off of sexual tension from others, I had a great time with anyone else I slept with. But only he could give me what I really needed. He was the only who could satisfy me. It was foolproof, truthfully.
When I’d leave it gave him time alone to plan and corrupt and conspire against the people I had grown to love. I fucked, drank, and lost myself in the aching desire to connect with other people. Then I came home to him almost every fucking night to finish it off. To go to bed on a full belly, if you will.
Until I met someone else. The one person who gave me the tiniest flicker of hope that I could get away from Danner eventually. Unfortunately for both of us—we hate each other. Nathanial—Elijah’s brother and current stand-in ruler over the Fallen Angel race—stepped in front of me that first moment we met and I was genuinely shocked by how I felt around him.
It was almost as if I already knew him, and not in the way we later realized was true. This was different, like our souls had known each other before we were ever born. As if we were going to know each other long after we died. Something inside of me was drawn to him. I couldn’t get him off of my mind for the rest of the night, and every day since.
But it will never be anything more than a constant fight between the two of us. I know he’s hiding something—something important—and I think it involves the condition I’ve found myself in.
My life began a little rocky, I grew up in foster care with my sister, we were both abandoned as children. But none of this prepared me for discovering I’m half Angel and half Demon. Danner made sure to control my Demonic side. He grew it and fed it until that little vixen became a Goddess, a Succubus who thrives off of the sexual atmosphere around her. While I’d think that would be enough for me to get by—it’s not. Danner is an Incubus and after living off of what he gave me for so long, I can’t be satisfied by anything else. He’s the only Incubus I know and for that reason, is the only one I know without a doubt, can satiate this desolate hunger inside of me.
I fucking hate him.
But I need him all the same.
Even at the end, when I wanted to leave him, when I knew there was something wrong with this relationship, I couldn’t. I still needed him.
“You’re hungry, let me take care of you,” his hot breath blows on the back of my neck and while goosebumps break out across my skin, my stomach rolls with nausea.
“Stay away from me,” I say, but the whimper in my tone draws attention to my weakness.
No, no, no. God, I don’t want to want this.
“You don’t mean that. I’m the only one who knows what you really need, my Stella.” I feel it, the soft brush of his fingers across my arms. I look down, only to realize that I’m already naked. Of course. I’m always fucking naked in these dreams.
I step forward and out of his reach, forcing my mind to control the heady demand inside of my body.
“I can take care of you, Stella. Tell me where you are and I’ll save you. You’ll be strong, so powerful.”
A bitter laugh rolls out of my throat as he appears before me. He sits on the edge of the bed, his long pale torso is bare and he leans to the side as he trails his fingers across the leather straps.
“I don’t know where I am,” I say honestly and I’m so thankful for that fact. Elijah and Luna made sure to have Esme place wards around the property of our new home. It disguises the area from Amelia and I, because we’re the only two who would ever compromise our safety, whether we intended to or not.
He yanks a strap towards him until it snaps in a loud crack around us. I flinch back, but the heat in my blood spikes and travels through my limbs, pooling between my legs in a regretfully sexual memory.
“Come here,” he demands as his eyes lift to meet mine. His lithe body radiates dominance and control while my aching form begs to go to him.
“No,” I say, but my voice comes out weaker than I intend it too.
A smirk tugs at his lips as he stands before me. He’s much taller, towering over my small stature when he takes a step forward. His leather pants are unbuttoned and split against his lower abs. He’s already hard, already ready, and I hate the fact I even looked.
My heart rate kicks up and I move to step away, but he already knows what I’m going to do. We’ve been here too many times to count. His long, wiry fingers shoot out and grip my hip tightly, biting into my flesh as he pulls me against him. He drops his rough lips to my ear as he begins spinning us, turning so that my back is against the bed.
“I will find you,” he whispers. “And I will kill anyone to get to you. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you’re safe.” One of his hands holds me in place while his other wraps the leather tightly around my small wrist. Tears build in the back of my eyes, breaking free and spilling down my cheeks while a soft whimper slips from my lips.
I’m always torn, a complete split between what my body is craving and what everything else is telling me—to run. I hate him, I hate this game we play. I truly don’t want it, but I struggle to control the Succubus inside of me from taking what she believes is necessary.
“No,” I choke out as I attempt to pull my hand from his grasp before he has the chance to secure both of my limbs in place.
Wake up.
I feel him—Nathanial. Even though I don’t see him, I know he’s near. He’s the only one who can sometimes permeate my dreams with Danner.
Wake up, Stella.
His voice bellows in my head and I cry out as I cling to the sound of him.
Danner laughs a sick, repulsive noise as he watches me struggle. He knows what’s happening, he enjoys watching me fight to get to Nathanial while he continues controlling me.
“Help me,” I beg him, hoping he can do something to wake me from this nightmare. End it before it goes too fucking far.
“No one can help you, sweet Stella. Don’t you know that by now? You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.” Danner wraps the last leather bind around my wrist so that I’m spread out before him. I pull and yank on my hands but can’t break free from the hold they have on me.
I close my eyes as I feel his weight dip the bed and he slowly moves to hover over my torso, and while my heart races and my skin heats in hunger for him, my mind stays focused on trying to wake myself up from this mess.
“No!” I shout as he laughs in the space around us.
Come back to me, Stells. You can wake up.
Then I feel it, the warmth of Nathanial tucked tightly behind me. It’s the one feeling that breaks through my mind and reminds me this is a dream doctored by Danner himself. Nathanial must be in bed with me, pulling me against him and urging me to wake up. He offers me his strength, reminding me that he’s here and I can be in control of this fucked up disaster I’ve been thrown into.
“No!” I shout again as I pull my hands free and the entire dream shatters around me. I pry my eyes open while strong hands hold me together. I’m shaking uncontrollably, screaming against his chest when I finally realize I’m free of the nightmare.
“You’re safe, Stella. I’ve got you,” Nathanial’s deep voice slips into my ears and my fingers dig into the thin fabric of his shirt. I’m sure I’ve scratched his chest in the process, I’m practically burying myself into his warmth while I regain my sanity. His hand is tucked tightly around the back of my neck as his thumb glides possessively across my skin. I savor the feeling of him, in these moments where there’s nothing between us to fight about. When I have a flicker of hope that things could be different one day.
“I’m never safe,” I mutter, defeat lacing my tone. I don’t want to look up at him, I don’t want to see the disappointment on his face or show him the embarrassment on mine. But I do anyway, because even in the midst of my chaos, I turn to him for comfort. His hard eyes bore into me, a mix of so many emotions I can’t decipher. Frustration and regret are the closest I can recognize, because they’re reflected in my own as well.
Three Months Later
I’m starving.
I’m fuckin
g starving, and there’s little to nothing I can do about it unless I find Danner. But I can’t really do that either. I can’t ever give into what he offers me. I have no choice but to find humans who are willing to let me feed from them.
Even that hardly takes the edge off though—and I know that everyone in the house is becoming more and more worried about my health.
Yeah, you aren’t the only one.
Every morning I wake, every time I step out of that godforsaken bed, I feel like I’m dying. Hell, even when I’m in it, when I’m asleep—I can’t escape the hunger and need. My body has become weaker. It’s riddled with chronic pain from both exhaustion and my lack of satiation. The reduced sleep demolishes my logical brain and causes me to make reckless decisions, resort to things I usually wouldn’t, all in the name of a feeding. I’ve held back so far on most things, but I can feel my self-control dwindling, and I’m terrified to find out what I’ll eventually end up doing in order to feed.
So, I’ve resorted to having our driver—Alf, who was hired after I snuck out and got lost through the wards around our house too many times—bring me into the city. It would be easier if I found a club that was filled with other supernaturals, but unfortunately, I haven’t had the best luck in nailing one down. Even Pandora’s Box is mostly filled with humans. So, I opt for the slinky, underground bars that generally house other people who simply want to fucking escape. Whether their choice of poison is alcohol, drugs, or sex—we’re all there for the same reason.