Demon Sworn: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Witch's Rebels Book 3)

by Sarah Piper

  I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “Actually, I was just gonna say ‘spending the day at the beach with a hot guy.’”

  “Well, I suppose that works too.” Liam laughed, pressing another electrifying kiss to my palm. “Come on, Breaker of Rules, Violator of the Natural Order, and all-around Maker of Trouble. You and I have a gateway to find.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said, letting him lead me along the shore toward whatever the realm had in store for me next. “But as soon as we get back home, we’re getting bubbles.”

  “What are these ‘bubbles’ you speak of?” he teased, but before I could answer, I watched the smile fall from his face, replaced instead with a look of sheer horror.

  “Look out!” He shoved me backward so hard I fell back on the sand. Half a heartbeat later, a bolt of lightning shot from the sky and slammed into the earth where I’d just been standing, lighting up the beach like a nuclear bomb.

  “Liam!” I shouted, reaching for him. But by the time I got to my feet, Liam was gone.

  And I was standing at the base of a mountain in wet clothes and flip-flops in the middle of a blizzard.

  Twenty

  Asher

  “If you bitches don’t shut the fuck up right now,” a voice boomed from down the hall, barely audible over the sound of McKenna’s wailing, “I swear to God Almighty, I’ll—”

  Sadly, God Almighty would never know what he’d do, because as soon as Reverend Dickface rounded the corner, I bashed his pious head into the wall.

  Dragging his body over to the box, I pried open his eyelid and shoved his face in front of the scanner. The reader beeped green, then displayed his name: Derrick Benson. The electronic lock on the bars snicked, the hum of fae magic dissipating immediately.

  “Good eye, Benson. Thanks for looking out.” Dropping the dead weight, I grabbed the bars and tugged. They slid open easily. “Haley, McKenna, help me figure out who can walk and who needs help. We need to get back to—”

  Bensons’ comm device beeped. I fished it out of his pants pocket and hit the answer button.

  “Benson,” I grunted.

  “Look alive, Benson,” the guy on the other end said.

  Yeah, hate to disappoint you, but…

  “We’ve got a situation on A-block,” he continued. “Apparently Jon’s vampire bitch set a bunch of these fuckers free. We caught her, but we’ve gotta lock it down up here while we round up the rest of ‘em.”

  Damn it, Fiona.

  “That all?” I barked. I needed to know whether they’d found the burnt corpses of Shears and Smokey Joe. Whether anyone had heard about my escape.

  “Pretty much. Still no sign of Jon, but you know that motherfucker. Probably in a dark alley shooting himself up with shifter blood. Anyway, just sit tight down there till you hear back. Keep those bitches quiet.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  I clicked off the call, wondering how much time we had before—

  The unmistakable sound of half-a-dozen pairs of boots tromping down the corridor answered that question.

  Six guards, rapidly picking up the pace, all of them yammering into their comms. I caught a mention of Shears, then something about the demon getting out of his playpen.

  Guess that would be me.

  Quickly, I checked the stash I’d taken from Shears and Smokey Joy—the keycards, baton, lighter, stun guns, knives, flashlight, and a comm device—trying to calculate my odds. I could probably take all six of the guards, but definitely not all at once, and not fast enough to prevent them calling for backup. They had weapons, too, and who knew what else.

  I couldn’t risk the witches getting fucked up in the chaos.

  “Everyone get back,” I whispered, slipping into the cell with them and sliding the bars shut. The sound of the electronic lock snicking back into place pissed me off, but we didn’t have a lot of options.

  I’d be able to get the lock open again. Dead guards and eyeballs were a dime a dozen in this place. I just had to focus on the immediate crisis first—six angry, ‘roided up hunters barreling down the corridor.

  I ducked into the darkest part of the cell, crouching in the shadows, hoping they wouldn’t spot me. The witches sat in front of me, blocking me from view just as the guards filed in.

  “What the fuck happened down here?” one of them demanded. He crouched down in front of the body I’d left. “Benson? Jesus Christ.”

  “Who did this?” another guard bellowed.

  The witches pretended to cower. “It… it was the demon,” one of them said. “He was terrifying. He came down here to attack us. We called for help, and Benson came, but then the demon attacked him.”

  I couldn’t believe the guards were buying this shit, but the lead guy turned to the others and said, “Split up. Find that incubus, or we’re going to have a hell of a lot more than three dead guards on our hands.” Then, to the witches, “You little cunts shut your whore mouths.”

  “Wait!” McKenna cried. “You can’t leave us in here with that… that monster on the loose. Unlock the bars at least!”

  He stepped up close, snarling. It was all I could do not to bolt for the bars and claw out his fucking eyes.

  “Be grateful you’re in there,” he said. “If that incubus catches you outside the bars, you’re gonna die with his dick up your ass, wishing Jon had let me fuck you instead.”

  Ooh, I’m gonna like killing you, fuckhole.

  With those parting words and a final sneer, he left, presumably to go find the big scary incubus.

  The instant he was gone, I was back on my feet.

  “On a scale of one to ten,” Yellow Eyes asked me, “how fucked are we?”

  I considered the question. “Is ten the good end or the bad?”

  “Ten is the most fucked.”

  “In that case, we’re about a three. Maybe four,” I said. “But hey, an hour ago you were an eight at least. Now you’ve got your very own demon—who, for the record, is actually a pretty decent guy, despite the smear campaign—a few weapons, a comm device, whatever else we can get off Benson’s dead ass, and—”

  “And a shadowmancer.” Reva stepped out of the darkness at the back of the cave, grinning up at me like she was the only one in on a big, juicy secret. “I’ve got an idea.”

  Twenty-One

  Emilio

  Someone was watching me.

  It didn’t feel sinister, exactly, but even as I jogged through the desolate woods behind Elena’s house, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone.

  I tried to tell myself it wasn’t an omen.

  It’d been days since Ronan and Darius had left for Vegas and the hell portal, and I was doing everything I could to stay focused on the case instead of worrying about them. Despite the cooperation from my sister’s team, none of our leads had panned out. The hunters in town were lying low, and there hadn’t been any dark fae sightings in days. We were no closer to finding Asher and the witches than we were to finding a cure for death.

  I wouldn’t hear news from the Shadowrealm until my brothers returned. And if they didn’t return, well… I supposed I’d get a message from Liam one way or the other eventually.

  But eventually was always a long damn time away when you were waiting for news about someone you cared about.

  As far as we knew, no other witches had been reported missing or dead anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. But according to my guys back home, the situation in Blackmoon Bay was rapidly deteriorating, with vampire turf wars and shifter skirmishes breaking out all over the city. Illuminae, the fae club where Gray’s friend Sophie had worked, decided to shut its doors for the foreseeable future after a massive brawl broke out inside the other night, destroying the bar and half the club.

  We’d had our problems in the Bay over the years, but we’d kept our supernatural community under the radar. Safe, for the most part. Hidden. Now, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before some human got caught up in the mix. When that day came, all hell
would break loose.

  I dragged a hand across my forehead, wiping the sweat from my brow. My guys at BBPD were holding down the fort as well as they could, but there was no way I’d be able to stay out here in Raven’s Cape long-term.

  I hated the thought of leaving Elena, though. Something big was happening here—I could feel it in the air, like the whole place had been soaked in gasoline, and we were all just holding our breath, waiting for someone to drop the match.

  The wind picked up, rustling through the pines, and I pushed myself harder, my feet thudding against the ground, sweat running down my bare back. If I could run hard enough, fast enough, maybe I could leave all those fears and doubts behind.

  I ran at a punishing pace, the trees no more than a blur as I raced past them, my chest heaving with the effort, heart pounding, blood pumping, air whistling through my hair, across my skin…

  I leaped over a fallen tree limb, shifting in mid-air. My wolf form came easily, effortlessly. My limbs elongated, bones popping and snapping, muscles bunching, cells rearranging, fur covering my skin.

  By the time I hit the ground on the other side, I was on four legs instead of two and running wild, welcoming the night as it slipped over the pines like smoke.

  When I’d finally outrun a few of my ghosts, I paused at a narrow stream, lapping up the cool, crisp water. I was just about to lope away when movement in the shadowy underbrush across the stream caught my eye, a gentle force pulling me toward it.

  I stilled, waiting.

  There it was again—a shape in the shadows, followed by a pull, like a magnet in my chest.

  It looked like a girl.

  It looked like Reva, the young witch from Norah Hanson’s coven who’d gone missing. The one who’d reached out to Gray through the flames at the safe house.

  I bounded across the stream to get a closer look, nosing around the underbrush, hoping I wasn’t imagining things.

  And then she appeared again, fully formed.

  “Detective Alvarez,” she said, flickering in and out. Then, slightly less clear, “Message… Asher.”

  She had a message from Asher.

  I nodded, hoping she’d wait while I shifted back. I needed to be able to speak to her, to ask questions. But the moment I took my human form, she vanished.

  I waited a few minutes, poking around the shadows, but she didn’t reappear.

  Something had caused us to lose the connection. On a hunch, I shifted back, and a minute later, I felt the magnetic pull of her again.

  There she was.

  As a wolf, I had access to intuition and other senses that made me much more open and receptive. But as a wolf, I couldn’t talk.

  Damn it. I couldn’t shift back without breaking the connection. I could only hope she’d tell me what I needed to know without prompting.

  I nosed the ground where I’d last seen her, where I felt the strongest pull, and she flickered back into existence, immediately launching into her message.

  It was broken and garbled, fading in and out, but I caught words like Raven’s Cape, Jonathan, twenty-seven witches, cave, fae magic, Asher, dozens of shifters, poisoned, dead, fae coup, guards, hunters, fish, abandoned pier.

  And then the last, just before she flickered out for good—the word that made my blood run cold.

  Orendiel.

  Darkwinter. Sonofabitch.

  Orendiel hadn’t been on my radar in years, but from what I remembered, he’d been banished from the courts after killing one of the Darkwinter heirs he was supposed to be serving.

  Elena had said Darkwinter were showing up in Raven’s Cape. And now Reva was mentioning Orendiel. Banished or not, there was still a connection there, I was certain of it.

  And, as the universe so kindly liked to remind us, there were no fucking coincidences.

  “I’m telling you, Elena. She spoke to me. It’s the same witch who contacted Gray through fire. It seems she’s got some kind of projection magic.”

  Down at the Raven’s Cape precinct, Elena glared at me across her desk. “Even if that were true, you said it yourself—you could barely understand her.”

  “Orendiel is connected to Darkwinter. That alone is worth investigating.”

  “Agreed, but where do we even start with that? It’s just a name.”

  “Can you spare a couple of men to check out the piers within, say, twenty miles of the Cape?”

  “Emilio. You’re talking a forty- or fifty-mile stretch of beach, much of which is inaccessible during high tide, based on a garbled message from a teenager that you may or may not have even heard correctly.”

  “It’s more than we’ve gotten from any other source or stakeout. It’s worth checking out. If you can’t spare anyone, I’ll go myself.”

  She held my gaze another beat, then finally nodded, reaching for her phone. “Lansky. Yeah, see if you can round up Marshall and Graham. I need the three of you to follow up on a possible lead. I’ll text you the details. Thanks.”

  She disconnected the call, sending the text then setting her phone back on the desk.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She nodded, not saying anything else. And I nodded, not saying anything else either.

  Still, it was the longest we’d spent alone in a room together in twenty years, and I was counting that as progress.

  I thanked her once more, then headed back to her place. I had my own phone call to make.

  “Our source confirms that at least two dozen witches are being held, along with countless other supernaturals, all of them in poor condition. They’ve been beaten and tortured, starved, poisoned, and experimented on.” I paced Elena’s living room, the phone hot against my ear as I awaited Talia’s reply to the full download I’d just given her.

  My contact on the Fae Council was cold and unpleasant on the best of days, but now, even the soft sound of her breath through the phone made me shiver.

  “This is all very riveting, Detective,” she said, her voice toneless. “But unless I’m misunderstanding your job description, surely this falls within your purview and not the Council’s?”

  Her response got my hackles up, but it wasn’t unexpected. The Council had been backing away from supernatural crimes for months now. Usually, that worked in our favor. I didn’t need their kind of bureaucracy mucking up my cases and preventing me from doing my job.

  But even with help from Elena’s department, the situation here was quickly growing beyond our capabilities.

  “Initially, we’d thought hunters were behind this,” I said, “but it turns out they’ve got help.” I rubbed my forehead, dreading what was coming next, still unsure whether it was the right call. Once the words were out, there’d be no taking them back.

  But after what Reva had told me, I couldn’t sit on this.

  “It’s fae, Talia,” I said. “And all evidence points to Darkwinter.”

  She was silent so long, I thought the connection went dead. When she finally spoke, her voice was like a razor blade.

  “Listen to me very carefully, Detective,” she said. “Do not speak another word of this to anyone, especially on an unsecured line. To do so could be very dangerous.”

  “I understand that, but—”

  “These are not fae to be trifled with.”

  “I can’t sit on this, Talia. Council blessing or not. Too many people have died or gone missing. And whatever’s going on in that prison? It’s about to blow up in a big way. You know this.”

  Another icy pause. And then, “Are you still in Raven’s Cape?”

  “Yes.”

  “We will meet at nine p.m. tomorrow at the Hannaford Distillery and discuss this in person. Until then, you will not utter a word about it to anyone.”

  “And in the mean time?” I asked. “What about the prisoners? You’re asking me to sit on my hands for twenty-four hours while—”

  I was met with dead air. Talia had already disconnected the call, knowing damn well I wouldn’t refuse her order.

  Knowin
g damn well I’d take it for what it was—a threat.

  Twenty-Two

  Gray

  “Wish.”

  The word arrived with a gust of winter wind, buffeting my face.

  “Wish. Wish. Wish.”

  I didn’t know who’d spoken it; only that it was meant for me. I could feel it in my bones, just like the strange compulsion that pushed me onward through the snow, despite the ache in my limbs. The mountain was imposing, the summit still hidden in the clouds, but I couldn’t stop—not until I reached the top.

  There was something I needed up there—I was certain of it. Something that would help me find the gateway. Help me get back home.

  I had to trust it.

  Protective gear now covered my body, but the bite of the wind still stung, and my face was bare. Where I’d once felt the heat of Liam’s kiss, now there was only frostbite. My hair, which had been wet from the beach when I’d arrived, was frozen into icy dreadlocks that clicked as I walked.

  High on a pass blanketed with snow and ice, I took another step forward, my boots crunching on the surface. I’d already been climbing for hours, battling the frigid temperatures and thin air that hurt to breathe, but I was so, so close.

  “Wish. Wish. Die, wish.”

  The words were clearer now. Sharper. But I still couldn’t decipher their message.

  I scanned the skies for signs of more demons, but saw only the falling snow, swirling and gusting, settling on the mountaintops around me like frosting on a cake.

  “Wish.”

  I had to keep walking. The summit loomed above. Snow and ice stung my face, but I pushed on, one foot in front of the other. Breathing was nearly impossible at this altitude; it felt like trying to suck air through a cocktail straw. For every step I took, I had to stop a moment to catch my breath.

  Just one more step, I told myself. One more.

  A wave of dizziness washed over me, but I couldn’t stop. I was so, so close.