by Riley Moreno
Copyright 2015 by (Riley Moreno) - All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Mated By The Demon
Desired By The Two Alphas by Riley Moreno
Destined By Two Alphas by Riley Moreno
My Journeying Highlander by Riley Moreno
Majestic Highlander by Riley Moreno
Highlander Games by Riley Moreno
Fire In The Highlands by Riley Moreno
Highlander Messenger by Riley Moreno
Her Highland Laird by Riley Moreno
Pregnant By The Alpha Russian Billionaire by Riley Moreno
Harsh Winds: The Cowboy Who Strolled Into Town by Riley Moreno
Shifter Love by Riley Moreno
The Billionaire’s Russian Prize by Riley Moreno
Alpha Aquila by Riley Moreno
Zeta Cygnus by Riley Moreno
URSA-Minor by Riley Moreno
Mated By The Two Alphas by Riley Moreno
Leo Minor by Riley Moreno
Wanted By The Russian Mafia by Riley Moreno
Rescued By The Seal by Riley Moreno
Pregnant By The Seal by Riley Moreno
The Seal Seduction by Riley Moreno
Seduction Of Wrath by Riley Moreno
Highland Captor by Riley Moreno
Mated By The Alpha Billionaire by Riley Moreno
The Billionaire’s Baby by Riley Moreno
New York Rain by Riley Moreno
The Billionaire’s Doubt by Riley Moreno
Vigilante Cowboy by Riley Moreno
Seduced By The Two Alphas by Riley Moreno
Caged By The Mysterious Billionaire by Riley Moreno
Pregnant By The Mysterious Billionaire by Riley Moreno
Highland Confiner by Riley Moreno
The Modern Cowboy by Riley Moreno
Highland Hills by Riley Moreno
To Love A Highland Outlaw by Riley Moreno
Highland Captor Highland Repress by Riley Moreno
Double Dosage by Riley Moreno
Scotch Swords Muskets And Love by Riley Moreno
Highland Prophecy by Riley Moreno
Love With A Stranger by Riley Moreno
Conjured Lovers by Riley Moreno
The Other Highland Laird by Riley Moreno
Desired By The Alpha Tiger by Riley Moreno
Claimed By The Russian Billionaire by Riley Moreno
Mated By The Panther by Riley Moreno
My Uniformed Tiger by Riley Moreno
Pregnant By The Panther by Riley Moreno
Mated by the Demon
Paranormal Fantasy Romance
By: Riley Moreno
The Hunt
It was times like these that she missed her wings. Demelza Saint twisted mid fall and slashed her sword across the demons chest. The demon howled as the fire that made up its essence began to freeze. Enraged by his imminent death the demon lunged at her, pummeling her hard against the rock face. Demelza felt the alabaster skin on her face and arms tear off, the pain a blinding light in her head.
When you betray Him, you don’t just fall once.
You keep falling. That is your eternal penance.
Demelza had tracked the demon to the abandoned lumberyard at the top of heavily forested hill. The demon, Golsan, had been stealing children from the small town of Creekwood below; their burnt and decimated bodies left in the forest for their loved ones to find. Demelza had dealt with this kind of demon before, in the ancient city of Sodom. This would be a piece of cake.
Except that it wasn’t. Golsan had somehow known of her coming and had put up defenses. It had taken Demelza half the night to get through to the main cabin where she had finally engaged in battle with Golsan, a fire demon who had set the cabin ablaze around them.
And now they were falling down the hill and clawing at each other, Demelza’s fiery red hair coming undone and blinding them both.
“I am a demon,” Golsan cried, “I cannot die, foolish girl!”
“I’m not a girl,” Demelza said, “and neither can I,” and used his flame wreathed body to kick herself away right before they reached the ground, pirouetting in the air to land lightly on her feet.
Golsan had mercifully fallen in a clearing of jutting rocks, reducing the risk of setting the forest on fire. His flame was dying, his body torn to pieces by the fall on the rocks, and the frozen shards from Demelza’s sword were spreading to the extremities of its body. He’d be dead soon and he knew it, his breathing was labored and he stared at her with sudden clarity and then began to laugh, choking on his laughter and wheezing because his lungs were solidifying in to blocks of ice.
“Oh I know who you are,” he wheezed, “You’re the one He let fall; He took your wings but never gave you the mortality you craved,” Golsan spat out a wad of steaming lava, “how does it feel to live like a dirty human without the mercy of death?”
“It is a far superior life to that of a demon,” Demelza sneered lifting her sword for the final, fetal blow her violet eyes glowing neon in the night.
“I know of him too,” Golsan whispered, “Dorian. He’s alive you know. I could take you to him.”
Demelza’s hand stilled. She stared at the pathetic ruin of the demons body; her own crystal white blood was spattered across the clearing amidst the long grass and rotting leaves. Golsan was a scheming, conniving creature, a paragon of his species and demons were known to entice nothing but mischief. So it shouldn’t come to her as a surprise that Golsan would want to wreak havoc in her life with his dying breath.
“You lie,” Demelza said calmly.
“Granted the boy is more spirit than the man he ever was,” Golsan gasped, “but still alive. The one loved so much by an angel she fell from the heavens for him only to lose him to the first coven. Oh, yes, I know the story.”
“Then you must also know that I have no love for demons,” she spat and raised her blade higher till it glinted in the eerie moonlight. “And I wouldn’t trust one as far as I could throw them.”
“He is in America,” Galson said with a wicked smile, “On the same continent as you. And I know exactly where. I could save you a heap of time finding your lover; I could give you the one thing you most crave!”
Demelza plunged the blade deep in the demons throat, severing his frozen neck completely. He was fast turning in to a river of ash water, sinking in to the earth beneath. She sheathed her blade breathing heavily.
Dorian.
The name made her heart constrict with longing. How many centuries had it been since she had last seen his face? Eons had raised mountains and crumbled them in to dust on the wind since she had last heard his voice.
Demelza had seen the glowing blue-green called Earth orb catch the half-light from the sun that blazed at the heart of this solar system; she had seen countless planets just like it with people just as half-witted, fragile and beautiful in their limited ways. But only one had caught her eye.
Dorian.
She had watched over his unkempt head before he was born, forming a connection with the spark of his soul when it resided in a seed in the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. She’d watched his toes and fingers form in the womb and then she had seen him emerge in all his glorious beauty and his cry had pulled her with a force
she had not anticipated.
Dorian.
The young boy who would talk to the clouds as if he saw angels behind them, gazing down at him; the boy who would sing the birds down from the trees and coax the wolves to sleep with the sheep as friends; the young man who swam through the clear waters like a fish, the sun dappling his skin a polished bronze of youth.
She had loved him since his beginning and that had meant her end. The fall had been brutal, burning her wings to stumps at the back of her shoulders, tearing at the soul that resided within her, twisting the immortality out of it.
Demelza had fallen for Dorian like a meteor falls to earth; an inevitable consequence of gravity, and what was love if not the gravitational pull of two souls?
And he had found her, half drowned by her fall in the sea, her stumps bleeding and raw.
Dorian.
The man who had healed her body and soul, who had kissed her that night she had discovered the stars, the man who was taken from her too early, too cruelly.
Dorian.
The man she had killed.
She remembered that night; it was seared on her mind. They had taken Dorian a fortnight ago, the attack of the vampires had left the village annihilated with only three captives, people they had let turn for their beauty. Demelza hadn’t found Dorian amongst the dead. She had followed them, tracking them to the caves of Qumran where their shadows danced against the walls in their hedonistic joy. Dorian was caught in the embrace of his Creator, his Master, a she-vampire of astonishing beauty and youth. Ameera. She had cackled when Demelza had asked for her to return Dorian.
He’s going to be my little pet.
A battle had ensued and Demelza had slain many of the covens in her rage at Dorian’s turning. She charged towards Ameera who guarded Dorian with her own body, marveling at her own strength after the fall, and struck out with the blade she had carried all the way from the village. Ameera had ducked just in time, leaving Demelza with her blade hilt deep in Dorian’s heart. His skin had turned ash white, his pupils had dilated with the relief of death. He had died in her arms.
Dorian.
Taken from her too soon; cruelly, senselessly and with a vengeance that was purely divine in nature. She had turned the blade on herself then and discovered how deep the treachery went. She felt the pain and she bled copiously but she didn’t die. She never could. She was left to roam an Earth without her love, her heart buried in the caves of Qumran, to never die, to never know peace.
He is in America.
On the same continent as you.
Demelza frowned deeply, then shook her head and put the demons words out of her mind and headed down the hill; avoiding the paths she knew would be crawling with night patrols that had been set up since all the children started going missing. No child would be in harm’s way now; they could all sleep at ease. Her job at Creekwood was done and she would be moving as soon as they discovered where she was needed next.
The Priesthood kept a strict eye on her movements and she felt stifled by it at times. They were originally a band of monks she had stumbled upon during a Viking raid. Stabbed through the gut with a long spear she had scrambled in to their hiding place. They had looked as pale as death and were frightened of her wounds. They didn’t know at the time that she could not die, but they found out eventually and so kept her close for their protection.
The Priesthood had then grown, taking expeditions in to the wild where rumors of demon mischief and spirit hauntings were rife. They had enlisted her help and she had given it willingly, not informing them of her own personal history, her penance and fall from grace. All they knew was that she had the gift of immortality and was fighting the fight of God; they didn’t pry in to it further.
She had traveled the world with them, on foot, on ship and recently on plane. She had watched The Priests initiations and seen them die, in combat or of old age. But she had always been there, a symbol of eternal piety and the fight of good against evil.
The Priesthood had trained more humans to operate a larger area as it had grown in to a large secret organization; they would infiltrate the infested community as a small family; happy parents with their only teenage child, case the area, look for clues and hunt the supernatural source behind the attacks down. It was effective but only Demelza had a stellar record with zero Priesthood fatalities.
With her ‘parents’ Adrian and Sarah, Demelza had been given the charge of the mid-west in the United States of America. She had cleared out the area of its demons, lone vampires, shape shifters and the occasional spirit haunting.
Demelza spotted the family car idling at the foot of the hill waiting for her. Adrian saw her coming out of a copse of trees and flashed the headlights to give her the green light to come over. She scrambled in to the back and sighed deeply.
“I take it went well?” Sarah asked looking at Demelza’s singed clothes and mussed up hair. The skin on her face and arms had already begun healing.
“It went well,” Demelza said, “as well as it could go with a demon. Could we get some burgers on the way home? I’m starving.”
Adrian started the car and drove towards the city center.
“I’d put the contacts back on if I were you,” Adrian said handing her a small black case, “I know you hate it but the whole purpose is not to draw attention.”
“They make my eyes itch,” Demelza whined but began to put the contacts on obediently.
“You know sometimes I find it hard to believe you really aren’t a regular teenager,” Sarah rolled her eyes. “Whining all the time, and eating like a horse,” she said turning around in the front seat to face Demelza wrinkling her nose in a teasing fashion.
Sarah had alabaster skin and shocking red hair which made it easy to pass her off as Demelza’s mother. Dark haired Adrian had the sharp bone structure and high cheekbones to fill in the gaps. They had been Warriors of the Priesthood when they were younger and were veterans of many slayings. Now they were older and could no longer be absent from their adult lives, not enough excuses or sick days to go around, and not enough employment opportunities when you were constantly on the go. So now they were the parents and guardians of younger Warriors, passing on the baton of wisdom and courage. Except Demelza, the undying, forever to remain in the body of a sixteen year old girl.
“Where are we going next?” Demelza asked stuffing French fries in to her mouth. “Any leads?”
“There have been missing person reports in the Ozark region,” Adrian said.
“Mostly teenagers,” Sarah added taking a bite out of her burger, “all between the ages of 14-17. We’ll get more details in the next few days. We need to shut this operation down properly before we move to the next.”
“So what they just go missing?” Demelza asked intrigued, “No bodies? No trace?”
“Yup,” Adrian said, “although to be fair there were a few sightings, friends claiming they’d seen the missing at night staring in from their windows. But the police wrote them off as hysterics.”
“How many claims?” Demelza asked.
“Six,” Sarah read from her small journal where she made notes.
“So what, mass hysteria?” Demelza scoffed.
“We’re going to find out,” Sarah shrugged and Demelza sat back silently eating her food in deep thought.
Her mind flitted back to the demons claim that Dorian was still alive; still out there somewhere, that her blow hadn’t been fatal. But how could it be true? She had seen him die and watched his body turn to ash. She gazed longingly at the moon, hoping that it were true, knowing in her hearts of hearts that it wasn’t.
Chapter Two
The Coven of Pensmore
The clock ticked away silently as Mr. Brown kept droning away about the Civil War. His face gesticulated wildly and his three chins wobbled with every exclamation. You could tell that he was passionate about the subject at hand, as if he had just stumbled in to class from the battle field and wanted to enlist them in the good fight.
Dorian’s lip curled in distaste.
What do you know of war, you sorry sack of meat? He thought. I was there and there is no glory in the death of the young. We feasted like kings as you blindly killed each other. Human’s never learn.
Mercifully the bell rang to announce the end of another school day. Dorian slipped out of class as fast as he could, his revulsion boiling his insides in to frenzy. He still found it all bewildering. He had spent centuries in discourse with Pherasus as to the nature of their new existence. Dorian found that he no longer needed to breathe to survive. He didn’t eat nor did his body produce any waste; he didn’t sweat, he didn’t cry, he didn’t feel any of the old cravings or desires. For all intents and purposes he wasn’t human at all.
Yet he was not divorced from human emotion. Disgust, anger, fear, loathing, desire, happiness and joy; he felt it all. His dead heart would still constrict at the flash of red hair in a crowd, his hands curl with the need to touch at the sight of alabaster skin.
Demelza.
His lip curled with hate.
He bumped into people as he maneuvered the crowded halls; many of the girls came in his path deliberately and he knew it. His chiseled jaw and blade thin nose topped with bristling thick lashes were an aphrodisiac for the newly blooming virgins’ blood in their veins. It was for this very attraction that he had been sent to one of the many high schools in the area.
Dorian, along with many of his brothers and sisters scattered all over the district and its many tiny towns, was responsible for seducing and luring young blood to the coven where the unsuspecting love struck teens were attacked and devoured by the horde. Hardly any were left whole, the ones who were, were turned immediately. It was especially gruesome when the sated coven decided to play with the food rather than drain it and be done with the miserable victim.
But he was in no mood to start a flirtation today. Dorian sped out of the car park and raced his car out of Highlandville, population 1010 and falling. He sped on the Wood Forks road, taking the sharp turns at reckless speed. There was no thrill, no adrenaline when you knew that a small misstep wouldn’t cost you your life. When the stakes were so low it didn’t really count for anything.
