Realm of Demons (The Desert Cursed Series Book 9)

  Realm of Demons

  THE DESERT CURSED SERIES, BOOK 9

  SHANNON MAYER

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  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

  About the Author

  Realm of Demons

  Copyright © Shannon Mayer 2022

  All rights reserved

  Published by Hijinks Ink Publishing

  www.shannonmayer.com

  .All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a database and retrieval system or transmitted in any form or any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the owner of the copyright and the above publishers.

  Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Cover art by Ravven

  Created with Vellum

  Acknowledgments

  This book was a beast in all the ways it could be. I hope you enjoy the last ride with Zam, Maks and Lila as they (hopefully) get the HEA that you’ve all been waiting for. I say hopefully, because sometimes characters don’t go quiet, even after the story is done.

  I want to thank my amazing team, editors, proofers, Beta readers, author peeps, and my trusty as ever, bottle of Aleve. I could not have gotten through this book without you.

  Chapter

  One

  Nico

  Two demons stood staring at the one they hoped would help them get to Asag. She stood on the beach, an array of shifters spread out in front of her with a herd of unicorns milling about.

  Exactly as planned.

  “That complicates things,” Soleil sighed. “Why would she put her family in danger if she loved them? Asag’s demons will not spare them.”

  Nico barely gave her a glance, though she was easily the most beautiful demon in all the realms, whether on this side of the Veil or the other. He tried not to think about her in that way. Not anymore. “Maybe she didn’t call them. She is rather independent.”

  That many unicorns, though . . . that would make things easier.

  “They will suffer even more if she dies in front of them.” Soleil looked away from the reunion. Nico tried to ignore the pain that vibrated off her. He knew pain well; it was one of his one gifts, and he used it well to his advantage. Soleil let out a slow breath, her wingtips nearly brushing his with the subtle movement. “There is not much more we can do to help.”

  “True.” He scratched at one of his horns. “True. We have given her and that mate of hers all the chances we could when it comes to life and death.” He knew what she was asking. One more time. Could they help her one more time? The rules were clear: they could not, and they both knew it. They could not bring her back from the brink of death if she fell to the darkness once more.

  Even though she was so very close to reaching Asag, closer than anyone else had ever come.

  “As long as we don’t stop her from being killed . . . I do believe that was what was written.”

  He smiled and snapped the claw-tipped fingers on one hand. A scroll materialized in front of them both. The contract made between Asag and the demon realms. The silvery material unfurled, smoke rolling from where the words appeared across it.

  He frowned as he saw the one name he hated more than any other appear.

  Soleil’s son had done more damage than Nico had ever thought possible. All because of a perceived slight against his mother. Nico snorted to himself.

  His eyes drifted down to the last section. “There.” He pointed at the paragraph. “Three times may the life of any challenger or their teammates be saved by another demon for any reason they see fit, whether to harm or help Asag.”

  Soleil frowned. “We have done that; we have helped them three times. So we are—”

  “We are not saving her life if we give her a direction,” Nico said.

  His former wife looked at him, delicate brows furrowing. “The others, they would stop us.”

  “Not if we were in another’s form.” He was warming to the idea. “A body near death would be easy for us to take for a short time. None of the other demons would recognize us then.”

  Soleil’s wings brushed across his back as she joined him at the lookout. He stifled a shiver of desire that nearly derailed his mind. He’d thrown away his kingdom once for her; he would not be so foolish as to do it again.

  “Your plan . . . she would not trust us. They know what we are now. We must reach him, Nico. Or our world is lost. The realm is falling apart because of this breach between the two. It must be healed.”

  Yes, pain, the pain of a mother was exquisite, there was nothing quite like it. He closed his eyes to keep from feeding off her pain as he once would have. She was working with him now, he did not need to piss her off. He cleared his throat and waved a hand at the shifters and their unicorns. “As I said, we need bodies, or at the very least one body. Who would make a deal with a demon? Not one of them. They are all too . . .”

  “Aware.” Soleil nodded. “The girl and her mate, they know about us. I have a feeling that he . . . spoke with a hunter.”

  Nico tapped his claws on the rock, scratching out little gouges. “Roshawn?”

  “Likely. The boy carries his blood. It would make the most sense. Roshawn was there, when Asag was bound. He might try to take the boy’s body as his own.”

  “To think that we saved one of Roshawn’s is galling, to say the least.” Nico couldn’t help the bitterness in his voice. “But that does not mean he will stay alive forever.”

  Soleil laid a hand on his shoulder, her warmth sinking through him. Just as he’d refused to swallow the pain, he would not allow himself to be comforted by her. That was not what they were any longer. This bargain they’d struck was for one reason only.

  To save the demon realm.

  “We need them to blaze the path to Asag. He has been chained for far too long. We need to take him home.”

  She didn’t take her hand from his shoulder.

  Nico stared past the reunion on the beach. “Asag . . . has done much damage. I wish that we could just . . .”

  “Kill him,” Soleil said softly, at last removing her hand. Did she finally understand he could never turn to her like that again? Did she even realize she’d spoken those words out loud? Surely she did not still hate Asag?

  “We cannot,” he growled and lifted himself so he perched on the rock ledge as the monster he was, “or the demon realm would be destroyed. We must continue to find our way to my son. We can do this, Soleil. This is our best and perhaps only chance. Never before has anyone not only breached the challenges, but actually brought with them what was needed to break Asag’s chains.”

  Chains that both held him captive here, and yet
also kept him from returning to the demon realm.

  Her swallow was audible. “And if Lilith is involved? What then? Your daughter would destroy—”

  “She will die.” Nico’s face hardened as he lied through his teeth. “She will die, and I will cast her into the demon realm to do the killing myself.”

  His former wife didn’t look away from him. They had for years lied to one another, did she suspect that his end game was different than hers?

  No, she was too trusting, even now.

  “Then we must find a body that we can convince to take at least one of us,” Soleil said. “And fast. One that Zamira and her mate will trust, if such a thing is available.”

  Her wings spread and she let herself tumble off the rocks. Not that they truly stood there in the flesh; no, they existed in the in-between. In between the world and the demon realm. In between the world and the dreamscape. No one could see or hear them. Slipping through a crack that opened as the demon realm shattered from within, they had managed to find their way to this place of limbo.

  They had not been called to this world and so they could not truly affect it. Not yet.

  Nico watched her fly for a moment, letting himself remember what it was to be with her, to own her body, to see her smile turn his way, to feel her touch and to know that she’d chosen him above any other demon.

  Those times were done, though. He knew that she wished to heal the demon realm, and she believed that he was going to help her.

  But that was not what he was here for.

  Shaking what remained of his feelings off, he spread his monstrous red leathery wings and fell from the rocks. They flew side by side toward the beach, their wingtips brushing over the people there, not even fluttering their hair.

  Zamira was the only one who noticed them. Frowning, she turned toward them for the split second that they passed her by.

  That one was trouble. Nico knew it in his gut that it was a dangerous game Asag played with this shifter. For all those who’d tried to end Asag, this one was different. He could feel her bloodlines stretching out across the different species, and that made her unpredictable. It was best that she was unable to reach her own power.

  That was a particularly clever trap that Asag had set.

  “Where shall we look?” he called over the wind.

  “There was a shifter that rode with her mate across the desert. He was lost when the Storm Queen took the Jinn,” Soleil called back to him. “I don’t believe he will be far.”

  She was not wrong.

  The one they sought wasn’t far, but he was well hidden, his heart rate difficult to pick up on as it stuttered and slowed. Hours ticked by before they found him. But he would be perfect for what they needed. He lay in the sand, under a thorn bush, skin torn, body frail, sobbing as though his heart was breaking.

  “Heat madness.” Soleil landed next to the rocking man, circling him carefully. “That will make it easy for you to take him.”

  Nico didn’t disagree. “If he dies while I am in him . . .” They would be spun straight back to the demon realm. It had taken a long, long time and great patience to escape that realm, even to get to this in-between. He was not sure they would have another chance.

  “He won’t die, I don’t think. He is heartbroken, injured, but far enough from death that we should be able to take safety in him.” Soleil dropped next to the sobbing man. Spreading her wings wide, she tipped her head back and pulled the power of the sun into her until she began to glow, her image appearing in the corporeal world.

  Fallen angel, she was that still. Her compassion was her undoing every time—as it had been his once. He shook his head again as the dark-haired, green-eyed man lifted his face to her beauty.

  “My daughter,” he whispered. “I see her in my dreams. I see her with the Beast from the East. This . . . how did this happen?”

  “I will take you to her,” Soleil whispered, brushing her wings across his face. “But you must take me and my mate with you.”

  The man held up his hands, palms toward Soleil. “Anything for my Reyhan.”

  Chapter

  Two

  ZAMIRA

  The feeling of wing tips brushing across my face had me turning to the sky, even while my brother, his wife and the others of our shifter pride threw questions at me.

  Was I okay?

  Was there a battle to be fought?

  What should they do?

  “Zam,” Bryce barked my name. “Are you listening?”

  I lowered my eyes from the sky, even though I’d thought, just for a moment, I’d seen something there above us. A glimmer of wing tips?

  I reached a hand for my brother and pulled him into a hug. He smelled like home, like the musk of lions and desert, like sand and the heat that baked the world I knew. I held onto him for perhaps longer than he’d thought I should, and finally he just held me out at arm’s length.

  “I am listening,” I said. “I didn’t want you to come; I was injured, but I am okay now. It seems that the world has other plans.”

  I truly did not want them here. With every fiber of my being, I wanted Bryce to take the pride and run. Take the unicorns and run. Even though the Storm Queen was dead and gone, and the threat to the unicorns dead with her, their arrival had me uneasy. Sick to my stomach.

  He snorted and looked me over, his nose wrinkling as he took me in. “You look like shit. You know that, right?”

  Lila leapt from Maks’s shoulder over to mine and she hissed at Bryce. “Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all this unkindness. Or I’ll kick your ass myself.”

  I reached up and tugged her tail. “It’s okay, Lila. That’s what brothers do. They state the obvious, because they’re rarely smart enough to realize that stating the obvious is likely to get them a punch in the mouth. Or an ass-kicking from a dragon.”

  Maks leaned in close. “Merry Wives of Windsor, Lila.”

  “Damn it!” she grumbled. “I thought I’d have you on that one, Toad.”

  Bryce’s smile was tight, restrained. “Yes, brothers are something like that. You look run-down, Zam. Like you’ve just come out of a battle.” He held a hand up to Lila. “Is that more acceptable?”

  She huffed and smacked his hand with the tip of her tail. “Barely.”

  I let him go and went to Kiara next. She held me tight. “Sister,” she whispered. “We felt you dying. Are you truly okay?”

  I breathed out a sigh. “It was temporary.”

  She gave me another squeeze. “We’re here, we are with you doing whatever it is that you need to do this time. We aren’t leaving.”

  The thing was, I believed her. I knew it to the marrow of my soul that my family had my back. Sure, my brother could be a dick (but let’s be honest, a great deal of creatures with testicles had that tendency, which was why Balder was such a gem) but he had my back when the crunch time came.

  And I had his.

  Balder stuffed his nose into my hands and I cupped his muzzle, bringing his nose to my lips. “My friend, you found them out in the desert? Is that why you took off so easy when the golems came? They were why you didn’t fight to stay by my side?” Not that I’d wanted him to, but every other time I’d sent him away, it had been difficult. This last time he’d taken off like a damn explosion had lit under his ass.

  He breathed out and flicked his ears back and forth. And he winked one eye. I was sure it was because he’d sensed the pride getting closer on the backs of the rest of the unicorns. He’d know his family was drawing closer, just as I’d known mine was.

  The little black mare that had carried Reyhan was next to greet me, but Maks beat me to her. “Queen, how did you make it back here?”

  I turned to him. “You know her?”

  “I traded Batman for her.” The catch in his voice said it all. Letting go of the old black gelding had not been easy. Leaving a friend behind never was. “He couldn’t keep going. And Balder had picked her out.”

  I slid my hand into h
is and gave his fingers a squeeze. I understood how hard it would have been to leave Batman behind. “Maybe we’ll go back for him? To the trader?”

  Maks squeezed my hand back. “Yeah, after this.”

  After this.

  After we dealt with the demon known as the Beast from the East. Asag. After we survived that encounter.

  With Balder and Queen with us, we had a chance now to fix at least one of my mistakes.

  “We have to try to catch Reyhan,” I said, pulling myself up onto Balder’s back. “We can’t leave her with the aqrabuamelu, and they can’t have gone far. We can still catch them.”

  In one swift move gone so very wrong, she’d been taken away from us—essentially taking my place. The scorpion stinger that had hung around my neck and would teleport me to the aqrabuamelu and from there to Asag, the one I’d planned to put on the Storm Queen . . . Reyhan had put it around her own neck instead. My guts clenched, seeing it all over again. Fen holding tight to her neck, Reyhan whispering that she was sorry. My jaw ticked as my throat tightened.

  Maks jumped up onto Queen. “You know where she is?”

  I didn’t want to try and explain yet that it was my fault that she’d been taken. The scorpion stinger had dug into her flesh, transporting her to the aqrabuamelu: a giant scorpion with the upper body of a man attached to the torso, several stories tall. He’d been somewhat reasonable, letting me go, but it had been with a catch.