Demon's Captive Mate

Demon’s Captive Mate Court of the Hollow King Book One Sera Bishop Copyright © 2023 by Sera Bishop All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real events, places, or persons living or dead are coincidental and not intended by the author. Cover design by Sera Bishop Demon’s Captive Mate Contents Preface 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 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Epilogue About Sera Preface Three hundred years ago, the world ended. Nuclear war erupted over Earth, leaving few human survivors. The fallout shattered the barriers between realms. Yden, the realm of angels, sank into Hell and was destroyed. The angels fled their home and founded New Yden, this time sealed off from the human realm. Over time, the New Yden and Earth reestablished a tentative era of trade. Then the angels retreated once more, shutting their gates and going mysteriously silent. Until a new threat appeared: demons. They came forth from the land of the dead and marched on the human city-state that housed the last gate to New Yden. The gate opened. Angel soldiers emerged to protect the entrance to their world. The war began. Chapter 1 RONE Rone is dying. The agony of his many wounds has turned to ice, and the sucking cold drags him toward his final end—his second death. Oblivion. His soul leaks through the cracks in his body into the void of the aether, but he’s not afraid. He’s tired of fighting. Maybe death will be a mercy. Rone remembers little about being human, but he does remember the first time he died. It was just like this. Cold. Agonizing. Drawn out. Discarded by those who used him for violent ends, he succumbed to the end—and woke up in Hell. His human and demon lives blur together, butchery and bloodshed, scrabbling out a meagre existence under the iron fist of his various masters. He’s always been a weapon. He allowed himself no moral quandary. His choice was to live as a killer or die useless. But as he watches himself die from outside his body, a tiny, forgotten part of him raises its head and whispers, is this it? Isn’t there more to this existence? Other demons jostle and swarm in the periphery of his consciousness, lifting his stretcher, passing it on, marching. His battalion is fleeing the massacre. Moans of pain and hair-raising howls erupt around him as others succumb to their own end. Soon he might give one last cry himself. The march goes on and on and on. The road back to Hell is long with dozens of wounded. Rone spins in and out of himself, losing a bit of clarity every day. Demons are hard to kill—a captain is harder to kill than the rest. But his own ichor has turned fetid, and it poisons him, black rot creeping across his skin. Only the Hellspring can heal him. “Put the captain there,” someone says harshly amidst the cacophony of other shouted orders. A jarring drop comes next. Rone makes no sound. He forces his eyes open. This isn’t the Hellspring at Mount Hythe, where demons are healed and reborn in the deep, black lake. Rone doesn’t recognize the place through the haze of his injuries. A shrapnel wound carved across his face interrupts one eye, and ichor from the wound seeps into the other. The Hellspring won’t save his eye. But it might save his life. “He’ll go to the spring next?” one demon asks, and the other scoffs. “Nah. They would’ve dropped him there first. The Quartermaster has other plans for him.” No, Rone wants to shout. He needs to be healed. It won’t be long before he can’t hang on. But he doesn’t have the power to speak. “What’s he got up his sleeve?” “Better hope it’s good,” comes the grim reply. “We can’t afford to lose another captain.” “You might get promoted,” says his companion. “Get a bigger and better body.” “Rank is no reward. I’d rather die quick than live through those wounds.” “Coward,” the first demon mutters. Their voices fade, or maybe it’s Rone fading again. The void encroaches, sipping from his soul in sharp, agonizing tugs. A burst of fear and anger makes him thrash. He shouts wordlessly. Are these his death throes? Hands hold him down, a dozen of them, and there’s shouting. “Get the Quartermaster! He’s gonna kill himself.” Rone shakes the minor demons off him with a roar and rockets upright. In a flash his surroundings are clear: a sick room, dozens waiting for their own second deaths, laid out on stone beds that look like crypts. The stench of ichor makes him heave. The floors are slick with it. He looks down at himself and his despair surges—the ichor is his, pouring in thin streams from where his body is cracked open. His scabs have been torn by his struggles. His thick silvery skin is marred by wide swathes of black infection. A commotion in the doorway tears his attention away. The Quartermaster strides in, a massively tall and lanky demon with spiraling horns like a ram’s.