Demonic Affairs: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Fantasy Romance (Angel's Guardians Book 2)

by Callie Stone

  “There,” I said, feeling proud of myself. “That should hold him.” Then, in a moment of clarity, I remembered that me and Zavier were on opposite sides. Zavier was looking at me with a mixture of grudging respect and arousal. “Zavier, what are you doing here?”

  “Saving your ass, apparently,” he responded with a wink. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or sarcastic. “He’s not dead yet! He needs to be drained of his demonic mana, which I can take care of now.”

  Zavier knelt down next to the still-writhing demon priest, who had deflated further into a pile of reddish grey mangled wrinkles. He was moving, though, there was life still in him indeed. There was near dead silence in the room as we all watched apprehensively. Zavier placed his hand on Kalgin’s head, and began speaking to his demon father.

  “I am your son, and you are my father. You gave me my powers, to do with as I please. It is your time to sleep, and never wake from that sleep.”

  There was a gaseous, rancid stink, like sulphur and stale rubber, and Kalgin released some weak words into the air:

  “You are my son, you could have had everything.” The massive room grew thick with that rotten, rubbery stench as Kalgin’s words became laboured and halting. “It’s not. Too. Late.”

  “I doubt that,” Zavier told his father. “And I was just a tool for you, regardless. I do not take kindly to being a tool in anyone’s little schemes. You should have realised that those little demons have such big mouths.”

  Zavier stood, clenched his fist and drove it straight into the shriveled, squirming husk of his father’s form. There was a horrid cracking sound as Zavier crushed something buried within those dying demon wrinkles on the ground. That crackling, crunching racket was followed by a sudden, deafening hiss, like air escaping. The room smelled like burnt flesh and smoke mixed with that rotten rubber.

  As Zavier continued to crush his father’s demon heart— or whatever he was doing to whatever it was—Kalgin let out a pained howl that continued to echo off the walls for a few long seconds even after the demon was silent forever.

  “Thanks for my wasted time, asshole,” Zavier spat as he removed his fist. The hole he’d left in Kalgin’s dead body continued to leak a thick, noxious, hissy cloud.

  With a wave of Zavier’s outstretched palms, Kalgin’s body fell into the portal with a thud, all the stinky clouds surrounding it followed the body automatically, hissing violently. It only took a second or two, and the portal snapped shut as if it had never been there in the first place.

  The room was left in a dead silence. At least it was for a lengthy moment as all of the creatures present adjusted themselves from the intensity of the world-saving battle to the new, much more peaceful reality we were suddenly living.

  Zavier stood alone, staring at where the portal had once stood, as everybody else in the room began to mill about, checking in on their friends and compatriots and speaking to each other awkwardly as if the whole thing had suddenly become some office cocktail party.

  I turned to where Troy was standing with his fellow fae, the one who sort of resembled him but I had never seen previously.

  “Can you get my people and I back home?” The Troy-looking fae asked Troy.

  “Yes, I can get us back home, Dad.” Ah, that made sense.

  “I have missed you. The Kingdom of the Fae has missed you, whether you realise that or not. The royal court has been incomplete for eons in your absence.”

  Troy looked over at me. I tried my best to maintain a neutral expression. We needed Troy on the team for the congregation, but it was not my place to influence him one way or the other when it came to his father’s remarkable invitation.

  Troy’s eyes softened and widened noticeably as he kept looking in my direction. He was, quite clearly, bloody chuffed to be offered a return to his place as prince in his old kingdom.

  I tried my best to feel excited for him, and hide how crushed I felt that he could be leaving us.

  By then Kieran, Alexander, and Michael had gathered around us as well, and had become absorbed in listening to the conversation. They were standing behind Troy, and by the looks on their faces their feelings were as mixed as mine.

  “I am honored, my father,” said Troy. “But I cannot, I am more needed here.”

  “Oh, thank God!” I shrieked out loud. Fortunately, even the king laughed.

  “While my heart breaks at your choice, my son, I will not even question it.”

  “I will answer anyway,” Troy responded, looking at me still. “There’s someone I need to be here for, in the human realm.”

  “Will you accompany me on a visit back to the royal palace?” The king asked his son.

  “I would be honored,” Troy turned back to his father. “My home may be here with the humans, but you will be seeing a lot of me, if you’ll have me that is.”

  “We would be honoured.”

  “Oh, and you dropped this,” Troy handed his father a worn yet gorgeous jewel-encrusted crown. “King.”

  The king accepted his crown. “Thank you kindly. I will never be able to express how proud I am of you, Prince Troy.”

  Father and son, king and prince, embraced.

  Troy then turned to me. “Natasha, I can transport you and your team back home as well,” he said. “Will you come with me?”

  I didn’t even need to think about it. I just nodded, because I may have been, just maybe, close enough to bursting into tears that saying a single word may have done it.

  “Travel safe, everyone.” Every single creature in that room, including all the fairies, turned to look at Zavier standing awkwardly by where the portal had been.

  “What? What’d I say?”

  Epilogue: La Palais

  Natasha

  There may have been a cough or two during the minute or so of silence following Zavier’s question.

  Finally, Michael let out a couple of heart laughs.

  “You know what,” Michael said, breaking the silence. “I never thought I’d say this about such an evil bastard, but this Zavier guy is alright.”

  The silence was broken as there were a couple of small, stray laughs then everyone stared milling about the room and talking, shaking off some of the pent-up energy from the battle.

  Kieran looked around the large space as he approached Prince Troy and me.

  “What is this place again?” he asked. “I know I found it, but...”

  “Madrid,” I answered.

  Apart from Troy, I didn’t think I’d ever heard a fae laugh before. Mostly, I’d just seen them act angry. However, as the King of the Fae laughed at my joke, it was like the ringing of deep, lush, sonorous bells.

  “I like you, Natasha.”

  It was, in a way, a mild-mannered compliment. The king was certainly a seasoned diplomat, though, the way he had figured out my name during the height of all that insanity and used it when addressing me.

  And, I was already feeling emotional to begin with, so I simply smiled and nodded. Because you know what they say:

  Every time a fairy laughs, Natasha cries.

  Happy tears.

  “I know what this building is, actually.” Zavier approached us, about as shy as I had ever seen him. “Metro de Madrid Headquarters,” Zavier smiled lightly.

  “Why did you and your father choose this for your portal then?” Kieran sneered.

  “There is a transit strike,” Zavier replied, not really explaining. “So it wasn’t going to work anyway.”

  “I am sure there were reasons,” I said softly. “But it doesn’t have to matter now.”

  “What?” Zavier seemed confused.

  Also, the rest of them were staring at me like I had three heads.

  “Zavier,” I asked him, “why are you still here?”

  “Um... Is that a trick question?” he asked me in return. “Because we won?”

  “But why are you still here, specifically?”

  He was silent for a moment.

  “I don’t know,” Z
avier admitted. “It never occurred to me to leave. Does it matter? I’m not my father.”

  “Of course,” I told him. “I’m sorry, I just…”

  “It is over,” said Zavier. “I saw that, I don’t want it. Humanity won.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not over. That was just one demon, and a portal. There are more. There will always be more, it seems.”

  I had always sensed some hidden sadness in Zavier, and I sensed it even now.

  He had started out this whole recent odyssey to help himself, and he ended up helping nobody but, well, everybody. We had witnessed him close the portal and put the last rather hefty nail in the coffin of Kalgin’s plans. He saved the world with nothing in it for himself, and he knew that only he was to blame for still being met with scorn and distrust.

  “Zavier, we need competent people.” As I listened to my own words leave my mouth, a bit shocked at what I was saying, Alexander appeared beside me and immediately echoed the sentiment that I wanted to shout at myself:

  “Are you mad, woman? What are you saying?”

  Zavier just looked towards the ground and chuckled quietly at Alexander’s yelling. For once, I was not sure what Zavier was thinking. Yet I could tell he was uncomfortable, which was also a first.

  “Wait, this isn’t happening.” Kieran seemed to have suddenly started to realize what I was implying. “Natasha, you know what he has done to us, and you.”

  “He cannot be trusted,” Michael added, his voice as even, calm, and brimming with uneasiness as I had ever heard it.

  “I’ll be on my way, then,” Zavier said, seeming to have little to no interest in the odd drama I had started.

  Yet everyone’s objections, even Zavier’s, were having the strange effect of making me feel more sure in my decision to, well, welcome Zavier aboard to the side of good.

  “The past is the past.” I shrugged. “We need to move forward, and with his background, Zavier could be an invaluable asset. He can help us close that last portal, for one.”

  I noticed Zavier, despite his words, had not made any moves to leave.

  He had nowhere to go, after all.

  “You know how I trust your decisions, Natasha, and even your intuition. But this...” Alexander pointed in Zavier’s direction. “This idea may very well be beyond my ability to stomach.”

  “We’ll be able to call upon the help of a demon any time we need it,” I said. “Just think about that.”

  There was a pause in the conversation, an almost surprising silence considering how high passions seemed to be running.

  It seemed possible that my teammates were actually considering this.

  “I have to say, I’m still unsure. What if this is a trick?” Michael said.

  Zavier stood there, not speaking a word.

  “It’s a risk, but I trust Zavier,” I responded. “Because I have—all of us have—been granted trust, in good faith, when we needed it most.”

  “None of us have done what he has!” Kieran shouted.

  “He’s right,” agreed Zavier. “While I want no part of my late father’s world any longer, I could not ask to be accepted into the congregation now.”

  “Do you want to be?” I questioned him point blank.

  Zavier went from looking vaguely in our direction to gazing back down on the unfinished flooring. I knew that if he wanted to say no, he would have said that immediately.

  I could feel the change in tone at the lack of an immediate denial from Zavier. It was as good as him admitting to us that, yes, he was actually considering this.

  And that was enough to give me a bit of a scare and consider what it was offering a little more.

  We all knew what Zavier was capable of, but I had long had a special feel for it. There was something in the way he thought I had always been able to grasp—intuitively, as Alexander had implied.

  Thanks to that intuition, I knew that despite his selfishness and callous personality, he was reliable when it came to putting his mind on something, on focusing and taking whatever larger task at hand there was with dead seriousness.

  “If Zavier joins, he is on our side,” Michael said, again breaking the silence. “I hope he realises that,” he continued, staring straight at Zavier.

  Also thanks to my intuition, I knew that Zavier was in that place where all of us had been, that place where he needed acceptance the most.

  “I realise that, of course,” Zavier replied to Michael’s statement. “And if I join, I accept that. It’s what I wanted long before any of this other nonsense.”

  “Do as you wish,” Alexander scowled, seeing where the sentiment was heading and not liking it in the least.

  I looked to Kieran and Michael after Alexander stormed off.

  Michael was just looking down—strangely enough in the same way that Zavier had been throughout much of the conversation. It was a relief to hear Michael laugh softly to himself, even if it was only laughter at the tension.

  “You seem really weirdly determined, Natasha,” Zavier said, finally speaking. “But I don't think I can do that.”

  Zavier offered no reasoning for his refusal, but of course he did not owe me any.

  Resigned, I shook my head.

  “That’s fine,” I told him. “You have no obligation to the congregation or anybody. Just, if you ever need anything, please call on us.”

  “Will do,” he nodded, looking at me.

  I turned from him and started towards where Troy and his father were talking and laughing, thinking about the journey home ahead of us. I spotted Alexander speaking with them as well. It was pleasant to see that he had not gone off to brood alone.

  “Natasha,” Zavier called. I turned to him again, as did the rest of the team. “Thank you.”

  “It was nothing,” I told him. “Just part of the job.”

  He nodded. “I want...do you really want me to be part of it?”

  Alexander, immediately upon hearing those words, had run off to sulk again somewhere. I looked at Troy and Kieran.

  They had both taken to staring at the floor again, which seemed to go into fashion the moment I suggested this whole crazy idea.

  Michael refused to look up, he just shrugged slightly and let out another small, uncomfortable laugh.

  Kieran, however, looked up from his shoes to glare directly at Zavier.

  “That’s up to him,” said Kieran. “But either way, Zavier, just make sure to close up that last fuckin’ portal, would ya?”

  That was not what anyone of us expected Kieran to say.

  “In La Palais,” Zavier said, still looking down. “Consider it done.”

  “Good.” With that, Kieran started walking towards the door.

  Good, I thought.

  That’s what I wanted to believe in.

  To be continued…

  Next in the Series: Mortal Desires

  I must outsmart the human hunters or I’ll end up as their experiment.

  With humans discovering the existence of Creatures, we’re no longer safe. When werewolf pups are kidnapped, my team decides that enough is enough. I’m certain that our combined abilities—my angelic power, Keiran’s werewolf strength, Alexander’s vampire speed, Troy’s fae shrewdness, and Michael’s shifter skills, will lead us to success.

  Yet instead of rescuing the pups, we fall straight into a trap. I wake up in a high-tech cell, separated from my friends, surrounded by scientists eager to study me. Through sheer determination, I manage to find Kieran and escape. Unable to locate the others and too weak to fight, we flee to lick our wounds.

  Keiran nurses me back to strength. His warm body keeps me protected from the cold. Soon, the feelings between us heat up. I can’t resist sweet, loyal Keiran even though I still care for Troy and Alexander. Is it possible to love three men? Can it end well?

  I don’t know and there’s no time to ponder my love life. Keiran and I need to return to the research fortress to get our friends.

  Will we succeed, or will we end
up in a cell?

  Mortal Desires is the third book in The Angel’s Guardians series. The book ends in a cliffhanger. Don’t miss this delicious paranormal reverse harem romance filled with magic, sizzling romance, and heart-pounding action!

  Coming in April 2021!

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  Author’s Note

  Thank you so much for reading Demonic Affairs, and I hope you enjoyed this adventure. I had a lot of fun writing it!

  In the next book, Mortal Desires, even though Natasha and her team have managed to banish Kalgin back to Hell, all is not peaceful. Humans are now very aware of the existence of Creatures.

  Everything is falling apart and the lives of every living Creature is in danger. And the biggest prize of all that everyone wants to get their hands on is Natasha, the angel. Everybody wants a piece of her. Literally.

  Will things ever return back to the way they were? Or will the Creatures have no choice but to turn tail and hide for the rest of millenia?

  I hope you enjoyed it. If you have a moment, please write a short review for it. As an indie author, this means so much to me when it comes to my books reaching more readers. I personally read all of your reviews, and they give me so much motivation to keep writing. Even a sentence or two helps!

  >>CLICK HERE TO WRITE A REVIEW<<

  PS. I'll also be so happy if you’d like to stay in touch for my new release, discounts, giveaways and fun stuff!

  You can also get a copy of the story about Director Emilio and his lifetime lover. You don’t want to miss it!