Page 29 of Demon Demands

It just never fucking ended. When we planned somewhat thoroughly, said plans never came into fruition. And when we didn’t plan… everything went to hell. The actual battle was not the part that failed. It was all the little details that we couldn’t or didn’t account for that kept fucking us in the ass.

Gods. I sounded like the downer version of Novak. Even to myself.

But really. We’d rescued Jack as planned. We’d killed the demons that we’d found that were part of the hellish resistance as well. All that had gone right only for us to have our mate chase after one of the most dangerous demons in the Underworld.

Maybe I was just ill. Being hangry and sleep-deprived would do that to any sane person. Demons barely ever slept, and vampires didn’t sleep at all, but fae fucking did. And I needed my eight hours every night.

Being up for over twenty-four hours and traveling to a new realm and fighting a small horde of demons? Yeah. I was fucking exhausted. I wanted a hot meal, a long shower, and at least twelve uninterrupted hours of sleep.

After the last demon in the underground bunker was dead, Novak and York wandered off with Hyde and Franklin to ransack the place.

Hyde was as untouched and clean as she’d been before we’d arrived. The vampires were covered in demonic blood and gore, Novak’s white teeth flashing beneath all the filth when he smiled.

York had deep gouges in his forearms, but I’d watched his skin knit itself back together. Perks of the mate bond, he’d said.

I’d wanted to throttle York. I couldn’t just carelessly mate with Sloane. Our bonding would paint yet another target on her back, and she already had so many.

My mother would surely try to kill her the moment she found out I had a mate that she hadn’t approved of. The queen of the winter realm had tried, unsuccessfully, to force me into mating with several fae females of her choosing throughout my life.

When my father had gone missing seven years ago, I’d tried to kill my mother. She was the mastermind behind his capture and abduction, selling her blindly loyal husband off to gain more power.

The kingdom had worshiped at her feet, praising Queen Vex for taking care of her children and the winter people while she grieved over King Reagan.

But she never grieved.

She laughed in her children’s faces as she told us what she’d done. I tried to kill her for it, knowing that I didn’t want the throne but that I could keep our kingdom from falling.

It had taken her six days to get back on her feet, and then she’d put out a royal decree to have me executed for treason. I’d fled my home, leaving two of my younger sisters behind.

My only regret had been not taking them with me. But what could I have done with two teenagers and no way to take care of them in a new world?

Freya had been living in the dragon’s realm with her mate, but that hadn’t stopped my mother from dragging her home kicking and screaming.

Nathaniel King was the only person I knew in the Earthly realm when I crossed through the gateway. The coven master had been friends with my father for hundreds of years, and he’d offered me the sanctuary that I’d so desperately needed. He gave me shelter, food, a job, and together we’d searched for my father.

I’d been with Nate and Novak when an unknown number had popped up on the screen of my phone. How the druid had gotten my number baffled me at the time, but York had later explained.

The druid had met a man named Reagan at the camp he’d been imprisoned in. He’d been secretly feeding the fae king while trying to find a way for him to escape.

One day, York had gone to the nearest town and searched for me at my father's request, somehow stumbling across my phone number.

At the time, I’d called it fate, but I didn’t really understand that notion. Shortly after I’d received the call from my father, the vampire-mage hybrid had drained him dry, giving him a worse death than he’d ever deserved.

The king of the winter realm had sacrificed himself so that Sloane could escape with York, but my father had taken too many of her memories. She’d forgotten the tug of the mate bond that she’d felt initially with York when she’d first saw him.

What’s that saying that humans used so frequently? It’s a small world. Little did I know that Nate and my father had visited the Fates together many years before, and they’d known Sloane was my mate. Nate had sent her to that camp to destroy the supes running it, but in turn she would have found my father and a mate.

My father had made her forget. His last words still occasionally echoed through my mind, his weakened voice sounding nothing like the regal man I’d grown up adoring.

“My son, please forgive me, and let me speak. I do not have much time. I know by now that you have figured out that your mother was behind so many nasty things in our kingdom. Plagues, witch hunts, forced matings, she was the cause of it all. When I told her that I wanted to step down and hand you the crown, she grew angry with me. She wanted to rule, to control, and she did not want anyone taking her place.

“I have met your true mate, son, and she is a feisty creature. I have taken her memories, and one day you will have to give them back to her. Do not let her dwell on the things that she did not accomplish. Do not let her think that my death is on her hands. I chose this. I chose your future and our kingdom above all else.

“Remember the cove where I would take you and Freya fishing as children? When you seal your bond with your mate, I need you to go there. Just you and your mate. There is something there for you, but she will be the only one that can help you find it. She will be the one that can help you and your sisters take back our kingdom. I love you, son, and your sisters as well. Please tell them, and please forgive me.”

His last words played in a loop, suffocating me until all I could think about was fresh air. I needed to get outside, to feel a breeze on my face, see the sun or the moon beaming down at me.

I had no idea what time it was in the Underworld, and there was no way to know in the dank, candlelit bunker we were in. I needed something light to calm the chaos in my mind.