Demon Night

A loyal warrior prince must choose between duty to one’s king and kingdom or to one’s heart when he finds himself falling for his brother’s betrothed.

Nic was prophesized to bear the heir that would save their kingdoms with her marriage to the King of Athelon. Yet, it is Wren, the man who comes to escort her to her betrothed, she yearns for. Her life is pledged to another, yet Wren's is pledged to protect hers at all cost. Tailed by a demon lord determined to kill her in order to prevent the prophecy, they fight a desperate battle against their forbidden desires. But when Wren's life hangs in the balance, Nic will make a decision that could damn the future of Athelon, or bring daylight to the Demon Night.

Read below for a prelude to Demon Night and an introduction to my Demon Trilogy.

The Birth of the Demons - A Legacy of Night

  
         It was believed the first man ever created had a twin, a reflection that was meant to balance out the creation of mankind, as all things in nature were meant to balance out. North and South. Earth and Water. Day and Night.

         Adam was Day, conceived of light and warmth, gifted with hope and love. Daemon was Night, birthed from darkness and cold, burdened with pain and envy. Life coursed through Adam’s veins, filled his golden eyes with laughter and instilled in him an unwavering belief in innocence.

         But anger thrived inside Daemon, hatred feeding the soulless steely eyes that stared back from a face sculpted from only the most beautiful of angels. The emotion whirled inside him hot and volatile, and consumed him with a need to kill. A need to feed. And feed he did, on Adam’s firstborn, ripping the newborn’s neck to drink of its blood. That first taste of the elixir of life surprised Daemon. Rich and incredibly sweet, seductively filling, it filled him with a new emotion. Something deeper and more elemental. Dangerous.

         Hunger.

         And as the last ripple of blinding pleasure left his body, he knew a different need, a building thirst. It became insatiable, the gnawing hunger driving him past the brink of madness. He wanted another sip of the elixir of life.

         Broken and consumed with grief, Adam banished Daemon, unable to bring himself to kill his own brother. For the first time, pain numbed him and an unholy desire sickened him, filled him with both horror and terrifying unease. Fearful that he may one day give in to the vengeance simmering within him, Adam did the only thing he could. He closed Daemon off from his reach, taking away the temptation, sealing his twin in Xanthos, the forbidden area between realms. In the north did Xanthos lay, an invisible layering of realms hinted at only by the slight shift in the wind, the occasional disturbance of voices past and those yet still to come.

         And there Daemon waited. There he planned, unable to break free of his imprisonment, hatred simmering as he watched from a reflective looking glass of the life his brother led. Adam had bred more children, the pain in his golden eyes now only a distant echo, replaced by joy and surrounded by much needed lines of laughter.

         And the rage inside Daemon built. He should be the one free and gay. He deserved the same life as Adam. They were, after all, brothers birthed of the same womb. Whatever blood flowed inside Daemon flowed inside Adam as well, and though Adam hid his true emotions well, Daemon knew his brother could not forget, as he could not.

         And so his patience was rewarded when on the one thousandth year of his imprisonment, on the exact hour both brothers had once faced off, Adam once more faced his brother from the other side of the looking glass at the entrance to Xanthos.

         “I have forgiven you, brother,” the golden twin spoke, the first words between them since that fateful event, his voice solemn, wizened. “I will never forget, but to not forgive is to punish myself as you are a part of me. You are the reason for the incompleteness that’s accompanied me all these years and I’m weary of fighting it. Let there be peace between us, and peace within us.”

         Daemon lowered his lids, his hands fisting at his sides, the nails that had long since grown long and sharp bit into his leathery palms. “I'm weary too,” he whispered, his voice low. “Your children have bred more children, and those in turn have bred more children. You’ve surrounded yourself with life and your woman’s love but condemned me to an existence of darkness and loneliness. You have everything and I have nothing, brother.”

         “I was rash.” There was no guilt in Adam’s voice, as Daemon had hoped for, only a deep resonating sadness filled with quiet resolution. “It's been too many years and I’m weary. Give me peace. Let me make amends. Anything you want.”

         Daemon’s lids lifted. “Anything?” He knew greed brightened his eyes but he was past caring. Finally, he was going to get his due.

         Adam cast him a wary look. Daemon suspected his brother saw far more than he wanted to reveal, but there would be no lies between them.

         “Anything that doesn’t endanger my wife and children, Daemon. Do to me what you will but I’ll have your word that they shall not come to harm by your hands.”

         Daemon licked his lips. He’d thought long and hard on what he wanted and had no intention of holding back.

         “For every year that I’ve been imprisoned, that many times I shall bed your wife. You deliver her to me. One thousand nights for the one thousand years you’ve taken from me. Let me know the same pleasure that you’ve known all this time. And for every year that I’ve been imprisoned, that many number I shall have of your children, for my blood runs in theirs as well. One thousand of your children I’ll choose and make my own, for I’ve a long ways to catch up with you. No harm will come to your wife or to your children by my hands.

         “And for every year that I’ve been imprisoned, that many times I shall feel you suffer, knowing that I’ve taken from you what you’ve taken from me. One thousand days of you locked in Xanthos as I roam free. I drink from your cup and eat from your plate as you look on through the same looking glass I’ve looked through all these years, surrounded by darkness and filled with silence. That is the price of my due, brother.”

         “And what of what you’ve taken from me? He was my firstborn, Daemon, my heir.”

         “But you have many others.”

         “Nothing replaces a firstborn. If you were a father, you’d know my pain.”

         Daemon eyes narrowed. “And for that, what would you demand of me?”

         Adam met his gaze. “I agree to all your terms, but you’ll not drink from my cup nor eat from my plate. You shall remain north of Athelon in Kathros with the division of Xanthos between us. You’re forbidden to enter Athelon for I don't fully trust you.”

         Daemon smiled. “Very wise of you, brother.”

         “And you’ll not have my son Chas as yours, for he is to rule Athelon when I am no more.”

         “I’ll have a son from my own loin as heir. It is agreed then, aye?”

         Adam shut his eyes and his Adam’s apple bobbed. The lines on his face strained before relaxing and when finally his eyes opened, they were blank, withdrawn. “Aye. One thousand days then we are even, all forgiven. And I shall finally be at peace.”

         Daemon hid his triumph and waited as Adam released him from the spell that imprisoned him. When finally he stood truly before his brother, he took a step forward, ready to get his claws into Adam, but encountered an unseen wall.

         Adam lifted his chin in answer to the confusion and rage quickly darkening his brother’s features. “You’ll not cross into Athelon, Daemon. I shall send my children to you and let you pick your one thousand. And tonight, I’ll return with Eva, my wife and my heart, and will myself to Xanthos for a thousand days. This day the heavens have born witness to the pact made between us. If you renege, may your death end at the hands of the heir of Athelon. And may all relations be severed between us for now until eternity, brother.”

         And so Adam bid all his children to the border of Kathros where Daemon chose the one thousand who would become his own. Obediently, they obliged their father’s orders, crossing into Kathros and embracing the darkness that up until now had lain dormant within their bloodstreams.

         And that night, Adam delivered his wife to his brother. The beat of a woman’s heart whispers a thousand emotions, her eyes speak a thousand words. Her heart shattered into a thousand pieces that fateful day her husband bid she give her body to another man.

         Daemon waited until Adam had properly secured himself within the area between realms before releasing his fury, using the magick he’d kept restrained all these years to seal Adam in Xanthos for all eternity.

         Eva had suspected, her woman’s intuition never once failing her. She’d warned her husband but knew guilt had guided Adam’s actions. In the end, she watched as her husband was lost to her forever. And though she did not possess the powers her husband and his brother seemed to share, she had her own artillery, a subtle, more powerful weapon. And that day she used it on the man who would now own her body but never her heart.

         “My husband may be misguided in his kindness, but I am not. The heavens have born witness to the atrocities you’ve committed this day, Daemon. Any child of your blood shall be poisoned, their souls restless, their hunger unending, peace always out of their reach. They day you taint Athelon with your darkness, may the heavens strike you, a sword through the heart wielded by the hands of the true heir of Athelon who will demolish all that you are and restore peace to Athelon. And may I be barren, never bearing you the demon heir you so want.”

         And so Eva’s prophetic words became truth. Daemon bedded her for one thousand nights as Adam watched from the looking glass, unable to do naught but shed silent tears as his brother pillaged his wife’s body and slowly stripped the life from her, leaving only a subdued shell of a woman unable to bear children.

         After the one thousandth night, Daemon cast her aside and staked his lusts on Adam’s children, now his. He planted a child in each of the daughters’ wombs. A child born of vengeance and hatred. A demon child. And when the darker lust claimed him, he violated the sons, using them to satiate the forbidden desires that clawed at him.

         Any male child born that resembled his brother, Daemon killed, giving in to the hunger to drink from them. Those that resembled night he let live.

         As for the female children born of his loin, the darker ones he allowed to inbreed with his sons, for his unearthly lusts surely ran rampant in them. And the female children born with sunny locks and golden eyes he raised until they were of age to bear children, their breasts blossoming with the first blushes of youth, their hips beginning to widen. Daemon plowed them, stripped the last vestiges of innocence from them and ensured their bellies were swollen with child even though they were very much still children themselves.

         And thus his children multiplied, his army of dark-eyed demons grew, quickly crowding Kathros, consumed with the same unholy needs and hunger as their father. Restless. Their souls poisoned.

         And still, it wasn’t enough for Daemon. Even imprisoned, Adam had managed to deny Daemon the two things he wanted most: freedom to walk on Athelon soil at will and a true heir born of his loin from the womb of Adam’s wife.

         And as this knowledge simmered within him, a constant slap in the face, Daemon vowed he’d find a way to take Athelon and its heir from Adam. Waiting was something he was good it. In due time, his turn would come, all would balance out. Adam may still retain the upper hand in their age-old feud, but just as day must give way for night, Daemon knew eventually he would take the upper hand.

         And so he waited and strengthened his army of demons.

         In the Athelon, Adam’s son and heir, Chas, kept a steady and vigilant eye toward the dark northern border that divided his kingdom from Kathros. He knew the day would come when the demons would be released and they’d battle. However, that day would not occur during his lifetime. There was little he could do but pray for his parents’ souls. It was prophesized the true heir of Athelon would bring an end to Daemon’s reign. Chas would provide that heir.

         With the loss of his parents came many unnatural changes within Athelon, changes that did not bode well for the future of the kingdom. No longer immortals, Athelonians were now subject to live only a mere one hundred years at most. The magick that had coursed strong and rampant in their bloods now went into dormancy. Chas feared he’d lost his magick, as had many of his siblings. Only very few Athelonians possessed the ability to awaken and call forth the magick that still slept in their bloodstreams. Of those, not one could command the full extent of the powers that had been passed down from Adam.

         But Chas would do his duty to provide an heir for Athelon, who in turn would provide an heir for the kingdom, and so on. Embodied with the same unwavering hope his father possessed, Chas knew in time his mother’s prophecy would be fulfilled. Even if it took several hundred lifetimes, Athelon shall have her heir to battle Daemon, and all shall once more be restored within Athelon.

         Chas too was a believer all things would balance out. It may seem the sun no longer shined in Athelon though in truth, night and day took their rightful course; but the sun would surely rise again to cast its rays on the kingdom and banish the darkness once and for all. Adam had taught him that. And so long as there was breath in Chas, he would believe those final words his father had spoken.