Destruction of Two: A Reverse Harem Series (Origins of the Six Book 3) Read online

  Destruction of Two

  A.K. Koonce

  Aleera Anaya Ceres

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 31

  Also by A.K. Koonce

  Also by Aleera Anaya Ceres

  About A.K. Koonce

  About Aleera Anaya Ceres

  One

  Phoenix

  Nothing like waiting around with your dick in your hand. Except maybe waiting around with three other men with your dick in your hand.

  Where the fuck is Iz?

  This is borderline awkward. I can tell because Malek hasn’t said a goddamn word in thirty minutes but Saint hasn’t shut the fuck up.

  “Have you ever considered wearing eyeliner? Not like a lot but just around the bottom lashes to really make your honey eyes less asshole-glaring and more asshole-adorable?” Saint lifts his fingers to brush back Malek’s dark hair but the wolf swats him away before he ever gets close enough.

  Why does Malek fight it? It’s just going to make Saint try harder.

  Syko pushes a breath from his lungs and it just echoes around the heavenly room. The pure white stars from the vaulted ceiling reflect in his depthless black eyes and he looks like he’s ten seconds away from walking out and dragging Izzy here himself.

  Sounds like a plan really.

  One dance, she’d promised she would dance one more fucking song with Heaven and Sasha before following us here. Though the astronomy tower is towards the back of campus, the old stone building doesn’t do much to drown out the sounds of the stairway to heaven party going on out there. I can hear every pulsing beat of the music, and I know it’s been more than one fucking song.

  “I’m going to go get her before Saint’s sister uses her as a prop in a fucking three-way.” I shove off from the wall with irritation and all three of them are right behind me.

  “I imagine it’d be hard just to be a prop in that sort of setting,” Saint whispers to himself and though he doesn’t say anything, I can feel Malek’s annoyance mingling in with my own. Having new unexplored feelings is just plain shit. A part of me wishes I didn’t care anymore. I shouldn’t but there’s a thrum of... anxious adrenaline... building inside me whenever I think of Izzy.

  Like I’m fucking excited to see her or something.

  My palm barely brushes the cool metal knob when the door bursts open with violent intent, shoving me backward into Syko, but the man is only behind me for an instant.

  Because his little sister stands in front of us.

  Kayos’s pigtails are caked in dry mud and twigs, her eyes as big as saucers, but Syko doesn’t notice a single thing out of place as he yanks her forward and hugs her like he’ll never let go.

  “Kayos,” he whispers like a lost prayer.

  Her small hands brace against his shoulders and she’s pushing him off as she looks at him with her wild flickering eyes.

  “They took her.”

  That single statement claws apprehension into my spine.

  “What the fuck do you mean they took her? Took who?”

  But I already know. I can sense it in a way that I can’t explain.

  “Izara. A demon of some kind, he took her in the hall of Building Z.”

  “What? Hardly anyone uses that building. It’s for the upper elites,” Syko says slowly.

  “I know. I’ve been living in the basement. It’s very quiet and quaint.” His sister blinks repeatedly as if she can’t see straight.

  “Excuse me, you said a demon took my mate and now we’re discussing a housewarming party? Where the fuck is Izara?” Malek shoves Syko aside and kneels until he’s face to face with the thin girl. “Where did they take her?” he asks with as much forced composure as he seems to possess, but it seems like it’ll fracture apart in an instant. His nails curve into dark claws that he curls into his palms until blood trickles out.

  It’s as violent as I’ve ever seen him.

  “I don’t know. The demon didn’t say. He just mentioned her father.”

  Her father.

  We all share a look the instant the words pass Kayos’s lips. The silence of what we want to say in the backs of our throats burns. A thousand fucking emotions I never knew existed inside me swirl to life as if they always inhabited my body and needed this one little thing to tip them over the edge.

  Her father.

  Her fucking father.

  A descendant of the Messenger of Chaos...

  Fuck me.

  Two

  Izara

  Pain.

  That’s all I feel; the agony of smoke choking my lungs and licks of fire flickering around me like demanding fingers that reach for my soul.

  My body is weighed down. And the first thing I try to do when I awake is move my arms, my legs... my wings... but I can't feel my extremities.

  I can only feel pain.

  When I slowly blink my eyes open, the sensation of it is like my lashes are crusted over, and I realize my face is coated in ash. It rains down from the black and red sky, from the roiling storm clouds that trip over each other and thunder their rage.

  There’s a kink in my neck that screams as I turn my head side to side.

  My body drifts through a barren wasteland of ash and fire and though I feel the suffocating pressure of heat, it doesn’t burn me. Voices flitter through my mind in hissing rasps, gargles, grunts, and hums.

  It takes me a moment to realize I actually fucking understand them in choppy bits and pieces.

  “The Master… intact… hurt… No…”

  I try not to groan from the pain that suddenly slices up and down my spine like a thousand tiny knives piercing my skin, from my arms to my legs. I’m hovering scant inches from the ground, being carried over ash and sand by tiny claws that rip through my golden dress and scrape my sensitive flesh.

  Please don’t be ass demons, I pray as I feel claws at my backside. Because that’s just what I fucking need, right? Ass demons to rip through me? I try to struggle against their sharp hold when a panicked thought races through my mind: Why the fuck can’t I move?

  What did that shadow demon do to me? It had been a face of nightmares, sallow darkness that peered at me with gaping holes where evil dwelled.

  Then it dragged me through the portal and straight here. To hell. I recognize it from when I traveled with Phoenix. The fire, the sense of hopelessness… it’s all here in the center ring of hell.

  But I’m not hopeless. I killed a demon, I controlled my Prod, I flew. If I can do that, surely I can make it out of here, right?

  The gliding sense begins to slow just as the guttural voices increase in volume, in bodies, until a thousand tiny, thunderous voices roll over each other into a cacophony of deafening sound.

  And all at once… the voi
ces stop in a shuddering wave of silence.

  I can hear my heart beating fast and hard against my chest and feel the stillness of it all. The clouds have stopped rolling, the sky has stopped breathing.

  And then… I hear it.

  Footsteps.

  Thwomp.

  Thwomp.

  Thwomp.

  Thwomp.

  Massive, steady, and threatening. Feet that plant themselves firmly on either side of my head.

  I gulp and look up the long length of gray, rippling muscle. Long, thick legs lead up to a waist clad in a loincloth, a wide bare torso, and an even wider chest.

  A gargoyle of a demon looms before me, his skin gray and cracking like he’s made entirely of stone. Among all the death and decay this world has to offer, it’s his eyes that look alive, pulsing black and red like the very fires of this place live inside him.

  He smiles, and it takes all I have not to cringe away from the gesture that seems almost unnatural against his stony face.

  I’ve seen him before in the pages of books. But he’d been just a drawing then, a scrap of information me and the others had looked for relentlessly. He’d been far away, a shadow of an ancestor, a relative whose blood runs through my veins and makes me the destructive person that I am.

  The Messenger of Chaos looks me over, to the scrap of a gold dress that still clings to my figure, but is tattered and covered in ash and blood with singed ends. Black wings span from his back, leathery compared to the rest of him, black with hellish red veins coursing through them.

  Wings like my own that are uselessly spread out beneath me at the moment.

  My father looms above me, and when he opens his mouth to speak in a language I hadn’t cared to know, but am now glad I recognize, a shiver races through my body.

  “Rhalaal Alrrajah bab, mali groemmel.”

  My mind takes a few moments to translate the sentence, and I gulp when I do.

  Welcome to hell, my daughter.

  Probably the shittiest welcome in the history of welcomes. The Messenger of Chaos—I refuse to think of this asshole as my father right now when he sent his lackeys to kidnap me from my first prom experience and yes, I am pissed—turns from me and stomps away in great hulking strides while his little—hopefully not ass—minions sink their talons into me and follow after him.

  They crest through hills with hot winds that blow soot into my mouth. I choke on the debris and try to memorize my surroundings, but how one can memorize a vast expanse of nothingness is beyond me. There must be some landmark, some hint of anything other than ash and sand to help guide my way when I plan to escape…

  I catch sight of a hint of ivory poking out of the darkness, thick and protruding, like a crumbling remnant of a pillar.

  When I squint to get a better look, I realize it’s not a pillar.

  It’s the bone of some enormous creature.

  I am going to die here.

  I don’t let the thought take root in my mind. I can’t afford it to. I can’t afford to let the fear sink in. I shove it all aside and replace it with grim determination. I won’t die here. I can’t die here. Because if I do, I’m sure Phoenix, Saint, Malek, and Syko will barge through the portals of hell and destroy this shitty place to the ground. It’ll fuck up the space time dimension continuum, or some scientific shit like that.

  Besides, why would I want them here? It’s still unclear as to why I’m here. Perhaps my father just wants to chat. Catch up on all he’s missed the past twenty years of my life.

  Bastard should’ve started with a postcard.

  When we finally reach the first sign of civilization, I almost wish we could just stay out in the dust. I crane my neck backwards as the enormous castle towers before us. It looks to be made of burning paper. The outside is a dark gray, borderline black, that sets off the tiniest hint of red sparks. It’s crumbling and weak, but a massive structure that reaches up to kiss the storming sky.

  Winged creatures circle above it like vultures and let out cries that make me go cold all over. Demons that look strangely like gargoyles perch on the edges of the tall castle, wings rustling, teeth glowing in the darkness. A bright sliver of green liquid runs down their teeth and falls, landing right beside my trailing body with an acidic hissing sound.

  Before I know it, they’re gliding me through those massive doors and into hallways that are as black as the night sky and still seem to flicker even darker shadows that take the forms of nightmares along the walls. Screams of agony and torture reach my ears and I gulp as we pass closed door upon door that do nothing to muffle the sounds inside.

  Then we’re in an open space and slowly, I’m lowered to the ground. Tiny creatures that look like demon pixies scatter away from me, flying like rat-looking mosquitos, leaving behind a trail of chattering noise.

  I crane my neck to look.

  The Messenger of Chaos is still here, and he clamors up a black marble dais where three thrones rest; the one in the middle is the tallest of them with black steel spikes hammered into the back.

  He opens his mouth, and he speaks, but I can’t catch the fast spoken words, I don’t understand them this time. They’re a series of growls, and I was never good at conjugating those in Mr. Jezebel’s class. I should’ve paid more attention.

  The Messenger cocks his head in my direction, his elongated ears twitching as if he’s waiting for a response. He sighs, and it sounds like rocks grating together.

  He speaks again, and again, each sound different from the last.

  It isn’t until he throws out a slew of Ifrit I semi-understand, that I realize he’s trying to communicate in a language I recognize.

  “Do you understand me?” he asks in ancient Ifrit. He should have started with that like he did out in the sand.

  I try not to react, but I must make an expression that he approves of because he nods.

  “The venom of the demons strong. You no move for minutes.”

  Okay, so maybe his Ifrit is a bit choppy. He mixes the language with other ones, the languages of hell I spent an entire semester pouring over and catch in bits and pieces.

  I roll the words silently over my tongue, trying to remember how to speak them.

  The myth that says if you speak two languages, it’s easier to understand a third is a fucking lie. As I try to separate the gags and growls in my mind, my father—the Messenger, I adamantly remind myself—steps down from the dais and sits on the first step in front of the centered, massive throne. The spikes frame behind his head like a distorted crown.

  “You stay here now, groemmel,” he growls.

  Oh, I think the fuck not. And there’s that fucking word again. Groemmel. It hurts to hear it come out of his mouth in such an endearing way that must be considered soft and affectionate for him.

  I try to move, but whatever venom those demons injected into me with their claws makes even the effort unbearable. I feel the twitch of my toes on one foot, and the tremble of my fingers. How long before it wears off?

  I try to coax my Prod out, but wherever she is, the venom must have affected her, because she doesn’t respond.

  My anxious breathing grows labored at my inability to move. I have to get out of here. I have to.

  “What do you want?” I growl hoarsely, the sound rasping painfully in my throat.

  His mouth widens into a smile, revealing pointed teeth. Geez, in the gene pool I’m glad I didn’t get those…

  “You.”

  And then he gets up and gestures at one of the thrones. The smallest one of them all, just to the right.

  It’s molded and arched as if it’s made for someone my size.

  Made for me.

  Oh, hell no.

  I barely wanted to be a manager at Willy Hog Dog Shack. If he wants me to rule hell at his side, he’s got another thing coming. I’m too young to be caught up in just another customer service gig for the rest of my fucking life. Listening to demons’ problems and shit. No, sir.

  “That’s a nice gesture an
d all…” I trail off in English, and he seems to understand me just fine as I discreetly try to move my feet again, doubling my efforts. I feel a twitch. Good. That’s good. “But I don’t think I could. I’m not worthy of that, ya know.” I move a hand; my wrist twitches. Yes.

  “You stay!” he roars angrily and I freeze as smoke billows from his nostrils.

  “I—would love to, but I have school to finish. They’re touchy about missing one class so they’d be kind of pissed if I took a vacation in hell. And really, I’m sure my boyfriends are worried about me. It’s just not the best time for me.”

  Shit. Why did I say that? He’s bringing me here like some sort of hell princess. If he knew I have four boyfriends will he try to rip them apart like some overprotective bully father?

  What a way to establish trust.

  I triple my efforts and move an ankle, all the while I’m screaming at my Prod, trying to coax her out urgently. I feel inside myself for that well of power.

  “Well… I mean… I suppose I could visit like during Christmas. Gonna have to pass on Halloween though. Can’t miss my annual trick-or-treating…”

  He growls and my lips snap shut.

  That’s when I feel it. When I feel the thrum of power inside me. A small sparking kernel of it that beckons gently. It’s not the overwhelming force I’m used to, but at least it’s something.

  I just need to keep him distracted.

  “What do you want from me?” I put enough tremble in my voice to make him think I’m sniveling and weak. Maybe he’ll let me go if he thinks his offspring is lame.

  His eyes narrow on me considerably. Instead of answering, though, he stands and steps down from the dais with rumbling steps until he’s before me.