Reluctant King (Reluctant Royals Book 1)

by Montana Ash

  “I’m not worried,” Sabre assured him. “After all, he’d have to take that stick out of his arse first before he could do any real damage to me. And I’m sure that would take a lot of time. And a lot of lube.” Brax’s laugh brought a smile to her own face and she found herself sighing like a fucking schoolgirl with a crush.

  “Do you want to tell me the real reason why you’re holding some poor sap’s windpipe?” he finally asked.

  “He lied to me,” Sabre revealed. “And then he told the truth. But he lied first. So I killed him.”

  Brax took the news like a pro, merely raising an eyebrow, “Uh huh. And just who was the poor schmuck?”

  “Dra’mon, demon lord and second in command of the third ring of Hell.”

  Brax had been nodding his head but froze when he heard that, “What?”

  “Yeah, Lucifer was kind enough to drop him off this morning. He was the only one who didn’t pass the King of Hell’s questioning about the basilisk. I’ve already informed Lucifer of my findings. That’s a part of the deal we made,” she informed Brax.

  Brax pointed to Sabre’s bloody hand, “That is the trachea of the guy who owned the basilisk?”

  Sabre nodded, “It is. He told me the basilisk died because its fangs were broken.”

  “Because it hurt itself piercing my father’s skin-armour,” Brax stated.

  “Correct.”

  “Why did he order it to?” Brax began to pace, looking more and more agitated.

  Sabre felt bad for him but told him the truth, “He maintained that he didn’t.”

  Brax stopped moving, “And you believed him?”

  Sabre waggled her head from side to side, “Not really, no. But he seemed to believe himself and trust me, there’s no point trying to get blood out of that stone.”

  “So you ripped out his trachea?” Brax stated, trying to follow along.

  “Among other things,” Sabre agreed.

  “So you have nothing,” Brax’s voice was flat and disappointed, bordering on bitter. “Again.”

  “Hey! I managed to find a witness, the real cause of death for your father, made a trip to Hell to talk with Lucifer himself, have ruled out your cousins, and have now ruled out one of the beings capable of controlling a basilisk. I’ve accomplished more in the past two weeks than you have in a whole year!” Sabre yelled the words, feeling insulted and unappreciated. And considering she was hearing Dra’mon’s suggestion of love over and over again in her brain, Sabre was also not surprised to feel a little bit hurt, “Oh, and I also think Carlisle has something to do with something,” Sabre revealed, thinking of her den master.

  Just the evening prior, she had updated Carlisle with how her work for the king was going. She had, of course, lied her arse off and told Carlisle exactly nothing. Especially about the basilisk and her trip to Hell. The incubus had been particularly shifty and closed-mouth. It was definitely making her suspicious and she vowed to put Hound on his trail as soon as he finished his angel research for her. Hound was damn good at sniffing things out that didn’t want to be sniffed out because he was so damn charming.

  “Who the fuck is Carlisle?” Brax snarled, sounding surly and put-out.

  “He’s the owner of the Blue Devil,” Sabre spoke slowly. What does Brax have to feel put out about? she wondered.

  “Your assassin den? Does that make him your Master?” Brax pushed.

  She nodded once, “Yes.”

  Brax stared at her for a moment, jaw clenched but working rigidly as if he were chewing broken glass. “What makes you think he knows something?” he finally asked.

  Sabre explained about the comment Carlisle had made about wanting to keep close tabs on her because he knew someone who wanted to destroy the throne. The longer she talked, the more Brax’s eyes seemed to glow until finally they looked like iridescent fireflies, shining angrily in his sexy demon face. Yep, he was definitely good and pissed, Sabre marvelled, feeling a tingle begin between her legs. Angry demon equalled sexy demon.

  “And you’re just telling me this now?!” Brax yelled.

  “Why are you mad?” Sabre didn’t understand men at all.

  “Because you’ve been keeping something pretty integral from me, that’s why,” Brax exclaimed. “What else have you been keeping from me?”

  “Hey, now,” Sabre’s voice lowered in anger. “I haven’t been keeping anything from you.” She quickly crossed her fingers behind her back because it was totally okay to lie as long as one’s fingers were crossed. Jinx had assured her of that. “I’m telling you things as soon as they become pertinent. What more do you want from me?”

  Brax stared at her for a few seconds before dropping his head back on his neck, “I’m sorry, okay? I just –” He raked his fingers through his hair in agitation. “I just feel like we take one step forward and two steps back. None of this makes sense. We’re no closer to finding the killer than when we started. I’m just … tired. I’m tired, Sabre.”

  Sabre’s anger deflated in an instant and she stepped up to him. Reaching out her non-organ-holding hand, she rested it on his chest. “I know you are. I’m sorry. I’m trying the best I can.”

  Brax gripped her hand with his own, holding it against his chest so she could feel his heart beating beneath her palm. “I know you are. And I appreciate it. Thank you.”

  Becoming steadily lost in the heat of his eyes, Sabre cleared her throat, yanking her hand with more force than necessary from his, “Anyway, dead demon lord could still prove useful.”

  “Useful, huh? Too bad he can’t talk anymore, what with having no throat and all,” Brax said, drolly.

  “Hey hey, the King has a sense of humour. Who knew?” Sabre fired back. “I don’t need him,” she then said. “If I did, he would still have a pulse. All I need is this,” she held up the somewhat macerated trachea.

  “I don’t understand,” Brax admitted.

  “Gage,” she replied in one word.

  “Gage? Warehouse owner, cage fight organiser and secret evil lair landlord?” Brax questioned, clearly very curious about Gage’s origins.

  Sabre nodded, “That’s right.”

  “How can he help? And what is he? If I didn’t know better, I would say he was human. But he doesn’t smell right. And those black eyes of his … definitely not human,” Brax decided.

  “You’re mostly right,” Sabre admitted. Wondering if Gage was going to kick her arse for revealing his secret to Brax. “Gage is a zombie.”

  Brax did a double take, “A what?”

  “A zombie,” Sabre helpfully repeated.

  “That’s not possible. Zombies are nothing but animated corpses. They don’t talk or laugh or smile. They certainly don’t have friends,” Brax pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, Gage is special.”

  And he was, Sabre thought. Brax was correct when he said zombies were little more than walking dead bodies. They retained no memories of their previous lives and only maintained gross motor function due to their primitive hind brain. It also meant their desires were based purely on survival, and that meant food. Yep, zombies craved and ate flesh. The human movies from the Earth plane had gotten something right when they portrayed rotten, decaying flesh, moaning mouths, and stumbling corpses seeking out brains. Zombies were what happened to humans who entered Purgatory – and died here – when they had no magic or any kind of supernatural-ness about them. A human who died in Purgatory and not on their own plane, meant their souls weren’t looped into the death planes of Heaven and Hell. Thus, their soul’s kind of went walkabout causing their bodies to do the same. Purgatory really wasn’t a fun place to die if you were fully human. It didn’t have too many zombies because non-magical humans were few and far between. But sometimes, one slipped through.

  Which is exactly what happened to Gage some fifty years ago. But Gage wasn’t your typical zombie. In fact, he was more of an akuji – a name Sabre herself had coined in reference to Gage because he was just so unique. Akuji was a name of African
origins that literally meant ‘dead and awake’. Kind of like a zombie but not. Just like Gage. Because although Gage was technically dead and did in fact need to eat flesh to keep his body animated, he was still in possession of his soul. Gage had been killed in Purgatory, therefore his soul had left his body, unable to find rest or solace in either Heaven or Hell. But fortunately for him, Sabre had contacts and had been able to place his soul back into his body. Unfortunately for Gage, his body had been left to decompose for too long and rigor mortis had set in. His resurrection had been incomplete. It was a phenomenon Sabre had never come across before and at first, she had considered killing the man all over again. But Gage had acted surprisingly like the human he had once been, and she had given him the benefit of the doubt. She was beyond glad she had. Not only had she owed him a debt – the life of one she held dear – but he had also become a true friend to her. She sometimes thought he was the only reason she had any humanity left in her at all.

  “Gage is really a zombie? And that means he can get memories from the flesh he consumes?”

  Brax’s incredulous question brought Sabre back to the moment and she refocused her attention. “He kind of is a zombie, and yes, he can access the life and memories of the person he eats. I’m hoping he can tell us a little more about Dra’mon and his fangy friend. Gage prefers to be called an akuji,” Sabre admitted. “But I still like to call him a zombie just to fuck with him.”

  “Of course you do. Fucking with people is your hobby or something,” Brax said, dryly before leering at her. “And I would know. You fucked me after all.”

  “Shh!” Sabre hissed, looking around frantically. Draven still wasn’t back and there was no one else within ear shot, but Sabre didn’t want to run the risk of anyone hearing that. “We are never speaking of that again! Just like we are never doing that again!”

  “Are you sure?” Brax purred, getting all up in her personal space, “Because you don’t sound so sure. And those pretty little nipples of yours, poking against your shirt certainly don’t look so sure. They look aroused to me,” he pointed out, reaching out a hand and gently brushing it over the erect tips.

  Sabre gasped, her traitorous body instinctively gravitating toward his touch. She allowed her body to hum with pleasure for all of two seconds before she swept out her foot and knocked Brax to his back. Quickly moving her booted heel over his man-junk, Sabre sneered down at him, “You’re awful easy to take down for a demon General.”

  Brax breathed in a shocked breath, eyes darting down to his very vulnerable balls, “You fight dirty. Why am I not surprised?”

  “There’s no such thing as fighting dirty when you’re fighting for your life,” Sabre promptly replied.

  Brax relaxed back against the ground, searching her face. Looking for what, Sabre had no clue, but the focused scrutiny was making her uncomfortable and she shifted her foot, intending to remove it. But large, warm hands on her calf halted her movement and she raised her eyebrows in silent query.

  “And is that what you think you’re doing? Fighting for your life?” Brax asked.

  “That’s what I’m always doing. That’s what I’ve always done,” she informed him. Only this time, she knew she wasn’t just fighting for her life. No, she was fighting for something much more important; her heart. The thought made her want to flee and she was turning to do just that when Brax surprised her by toppling her to the ground and quickly rolling them over so that his heavy weight pinned her beneath him.

  “You know, if our clothes fell off right now, we could accidentally have sex again,” the sexy demon above her stated, a purr rumbling in his chest.

  Sabre looked up at him, but it was hard to keep a straight face when Brax’s own face had taken on a playful, almost boyish look. The man above her was relaxed and happy in a way she hadn’t seen him before and she felt pride surge within her knowing she had contributed to that. For some reason, she had the ability to make him happy … And he did the same to her.

  “We agreed we weren’t going to do that again,” Sabre finally said, trying to sound stern.

  “I don’t remember agreeing to any such thing. If I remember correctly, in the last phone conversation we had yesterday you yelled something about it being the ‘best worst mistake’ of your entire life before you stuttered, dropped your phone and then finally hung up on me.”

  Sabre felt her face flame. Even though she had been doing her best to hide from seeing Brax face to face, the man had been persistent with his phone calls and texts. Only now they were worse. The demon was sexting her. Sabre had no idea how to flirt and certainly no idea how to talk dirty or have phone sex – as Brax had been trying to cajole her into the previous evening. She remembered muttering something like Brax just said before panicking and dropping her phone, only to have a night filled with erotic dreams. “Yeah, well. It was true then and it’s true now. Now get off me. No more hanky panky for you, Your Majesty.”

  “Hmm,” Brax hummed as he sniffed at her neck. “Okay, no more hanky panky. How about just some panky then?”

  Sabre stifled a laugh – the man was incorrigible. “No! No sex of any kind. If Draven comes out and finds us like this, he’ll try to kill me you know? And then I’ll have to spank his perfect angel arse and he’ll get all bloody. There will be tears and snot. And that is something I can’t handle. The snot, not the blood. Tears are touch and go depending on who they belong to. Draven’s would actually be fine. I would relish those tears. I would dance naked in those tears. I would –”

  Sabre’s inane chatter was cut off by a mouth slamming down on hers. She put up a token fight, she really did, but in the end she melted into the ground, her arms and legs raising to wrap around Brax in a cocoon of heat and desire. Brax’s hard length rubbed against her and even through the combined thickness of their clothes it felt amazing. Sabre moaned into the king’s mouth, lifting her hips to aid in the friction and wondered how she had gone so long without this feeling. Lust, desire, need … it felt amazing. Brax pulled away, his lips immediately going to her throat, sucking up stinging marks then laying soothing kisses in their wake. Gripping his hair she – shrieked. There was no other word for it and it definitely wasn’t her proudest moment. But when a hell hound the size of a pony decides to get in on the action and lick inside your ear, shrieking is a justifiable reaction.

  Styx followed up his statement of affection with a headbutt to Brax’s shoulder. Brax grunted, cursed and put up a feeble struggle but ultimately found himself on the ground next to her. Styx, clearly happy with his work and thinking it was playtime, pounced on Brax’s chest. It was Brax’s turn to shriek as one of Styx’s paws came dangerously close to the bulge in his pants. Brax let out a sharp command, cupping his junk, and Sabre fell into hysterics when both males went unnaturally still and stared at each other. Her laughter was all the permission Styx needed to switch his attention to her. This time when he pounced, all four legs landed on the ground outside her body, effectively caging her in as he tried to nuzzle his giant head against hers. It was like the hell-dog was trying to mimic his master and Sabre cooed at the sweet boy;

  “Aww, what a good boy. You’re so sweet. Good boy, Styx. Yes, I love you too,” she promised him, patting him roughly and using her fingernails behind his ears just the way he liked.

  “Styx, off!” Brax demanded, sitting up and frowning in their direction.

  Styx cast his master a side-eyed look that clearly said; yeah, not gonna happen. Before he literally laid down on top of her. Sabre grunted at the weight but was still able to breathe, so she indulged the overgrown puppy, smirking at Brax. “Looks like I have a new favourite man. And his name is Styx.”

  Brax cursed, “Damnit, Styx. I would never cock-block you like this,” Brax grumbled, pushing and pulling on the beast to get him off Sabre.

  Brax’s disgruntled words only caused Sabre to laugh once more, hence fuelling the beast’s excitement and the whole shenanigans of the last five minutes hit the replay button. By the time Styx
was peacefully sitting next to Sabre – because she had asked him nicely – Brax was pouting next to her. Sabre withheld her laughter, belatedly realising that she had laughed more in the last ten minutes than she had in the last one hundred years. Looking at Brax under her lashes she swept her gaze over him from head to toe. What was it about the gorgeous demon that seemed to reach inside of her and squeeze her heart? She liked him, Sabre realised. Liked everything about him; his loyalty and love for his family, his determination to see his job through, the way he made eye contact with her when she spoke as if he was really listening. And his face – man, that beautiful face of his with the hard angles and the couple of days’ worth of beard growth because he was too lazy to shave it off. A curious flutter began in her belly that had nothing to do with lust and Sabre found she couldn’t swallow due to the sudden dryness of her throat. Had Dra’mon been right? Could she be in love with Abraxis? Damn that fucking demon lord! She really wished she could kill him all over again.

  And that reminded her … she had a trachea and several other body parts to deliver to Gage. It was a great excuse for her to flee the scene of domesticity; the whole happy, relaxed man and his loyal hound thing was beginning to get under her skin. Standing up, she found herself unable to move when Brax grabbed her ankle.

  Looking down, she merely raised an eyebrow, “I really don’t want to have to get my pickaxe out, Brax. Let me go,” she warned him. Why the threat of death by pickaxe made the crazy demon smile, Sabre didn’t know. But the mischievous look in his eyes was very becoming. His large, warm hand began to make its way over her ankle and up her calf muscle. It finally came to rest just under her butt cheek at the top of her thigh, causing a delicious tingle to spread upward directly between her legs.

  “Come to me tonight,” Brax whispered, and it was a command rather than a question.

  Sabre quickly shook her head, giving her racing heart a silent fuck you, “No.”