Satanic Shadows (The Broken Realms #1)

by Leigh Rivers

Dane is powerful, but I don’t think he realizes just how powerful he is.

I can feel Dane’s eyes on me as I put my books into my leather satchel then fold my paperwork to add it to the bag. It’s weird that I can suddenly sense him everywhere. He could walk into the room, and with my back turned, I’d know he was there. It’s like the energy changes around me, but only I can feel it.

There’s a knock at my door the second after I press send. I open the door an inch. “You’re fast.” He looks bored. “Speed is one of my powers. What list?” “Yet it takes you an hour to type one word.”

“Shut the fuck up. I have two questions left. Would you fuck your teacher?” I shrug. Might as well be honest. “If you mean Valin Mallory, then I probably would.” His grip tightens on my wrists and throat, but not enough to cause pain. Dominance—that’s what he’s trying to prove.

“Last question.” He lowers his face until his cheek grazes mine and whispers against my ear. “Do you want to fuck me, mortal? Do you want me to slide my cock between your legs and make you forget your precious professor?” My eyes widen as he lifts his head to look at me. Silver eyes with dilated pupils stare back. “Absolutely not!” But as the words fall from my lips, so does a loud scream as invisible nails stab into my brain.

It was an in-the-moment rush of desire from being pinned beneath him. Nothing more. Nothing less. Dane isn’t ugly, and he’s muscle upon muscle all over. He smells good. His eyes are mesmerizing. And he’s tall. Really tall. Who wouldn’t want to fuck him while he’s on top of them?

“I’m the heir to the Shadow Realm, and he doesn’t like that. Never has.” I whistle. “Wow. You’re an heir, yet you’re here, acting like some bratty teenager and fighting with your professor.”

When I wake through the night, a heavy arm is snaked around my waist. Our bare legs are intertwined, and Dane Dalton, in only his briefs, is attached to me like a sloth to a tree. The shadows and silhouettes swim around my room, but instead of searching for something, looking for their source and savior, they’re calm. At peace.

A thin layer of sweat covers my skin, and when I try to sit up, so I can go wash my face in the bathroom, an immovable object stops me. Said object being the heir to the Shadow Realm. No age. No patience. Someone who doesn’t know when to leave a woman’s bedroom.

For some reason, he isn’t leaving, and I’m not telling him to. A few moments pass, then I’m pulled against him again. “Just to be sure we did the full six hours,” he whispers against my ear. “Okay?” I nod. “Okay.” We fall asleep for what feels like hours, but in reality, going by the sunlight still barely lighting up the room, it’s only been about twenty minutes. But his hand is on my hip, and the electricity strumming between us is intense and indestructible.

The walls are empty of shadows as Dane reaches down and grabs my inner thigh, the other hand pushing under my pillow and snatching my throat. Firm, yet gentle—enough to show he can dominate me without even trying. My erratic pulse is thudding against his palm. His fingers dig into my flesh as he dips his face to the space between my shoulder and neck. “Do that again,” he orders quietly through gritted teeth.

Eventually, his eyes meet mine then trail down the length of me before he shakes his head and mutters deeply, “Fuck.” “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Dalton. I’ll see you soon for task three. Wear some ChapStick.”

Just to play tricks and piss him off, and to see if he’s trying to pry into my mind, I think about Valin and I training as he holds a sword to my throat. He tells me that Dane isn’t good enough before bringing his lips to mine. Dane’s shoulders tense, and I try not to chuckle. Slut. My pencil falls from my fingers, and I glance back over to him. Did he say that out loud?

“Dane’s from an extinct realm. He was the heir, but some people now know him as the Prince of Darkness. When their world perished, most of them lost the ability to contain their power, but somehow he kept all of his. Dane doesn’t have full control. But yeah… It was pretty nasty from what I’ve heard.”

His eyes shift at my proximity—once green, now the brightest silver, almost as if he has the full moon in them. With him not bothering to stand, I forcibly kick his legs open wider, making sure it hurts.

The corner of his mouth curls into a half-smile, and I shake my head. “Shut up. Can you make your eyes green again? So it feels like I’m kissing an ordinary person.” I lower to my knees between his legs, but annoyingly, he still towers over me. With lazy eyes on my face, he eliminates some of the distance by leaning his elbows on his knees. “I can’t control them.”

He fights a grin, and his eyes shift back to green, and he at least looks human now. “I don’t usually know when it happens.” “They’re silver a lot around me, so I guess being pissed off brings them out.” “Something like that.” He huffs.

“Do you consent to me doing this?” he asks in a whisper, shadow fingers digging into my hips. Not painfully but enough to make my body hum in response. “Do I have your permission to do…” He dips his head fully, and my heart hammers in my chest. His lips are a breath away, and when his nose nudges mine, he takes my bottom lip between his teeth, pulling back until it snaps into place. “This?” I swallow, nodding slowly, both in sync with each inhale and exhale. “Words, mortal,” he hisses. “Follow your own rules and give me fucking words.” “Yes,” I breathe. “Do you?” I tilt my head back, and our lips touch softly for a split second before I ease back to look at him. A low vibration floats between us. “I do,” he replies, and without hesitation, he snatches my nape and smashes his lips to mine.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m kissing my worst enemy. The guy who wants me dead. I’m sitting on him, kissing him, with his tongue moving against mine like a starved animal.

His mouth is like a dark sin. Each lick and slide and bite bounces off every nerve ending. Twisted thoughts rush through me of how his mouth would feel between my legs, and how his hair would feel between my fingers as I rode his face in only my skirt.

God, I want to fuck this man. I hate him. I truly do, but sitting in his lap and tasting him, it’s like something is overriding that hatred.

Before I can even stand up straight, the oxygen is ripped from my lungs as Dane appears in front of me. The closeness of him materializing in front of me nearly knocks me off my feet. He doesn’t speak or ask me anything; he doesn’t even give me a chance to jump in fright. I’m lifted from the ground by the waist, back smacking into the bathroom door as his lips crush into mine. Without hesitation, a whimper slips from my mouth and into his, and I part my lips to feel the softness of his tongue on mine. My towel is dangerously close to opening completely and dropping to the ground, but Dane doesn’t pay any attention to it as he kisses me for a full minute. The sixty seconds come and go, yet we keep kissing. His hands are firmly on the backs of my thighs as he wraps my legs around his waist.

I grasp at the material at my breasts, the other hand gripping his shoulder as I kiss him back. His tongue runs against mine, both of us groaning deeply and in unison as the candles flicker and the energy alters to something dark and satanic. Fucking perfect. His voice is in my head as he swallows a moan from me, breaking the kiss to trail his lips down my throat and nipping at my collarbone.

Fuck. Fucking fuck. She’s perfect. I try not to blush from the words I can hear in his mind. To refrain from mentioning I heard him, I keep a grip on my towel and bury my fingers into the hair at the back of his head. I gasp as he grinds into me.

“Maul? I was merely covering part of task three.” “I think you’re looking for extra credit then,” I counter, and he smirks, wiping the taste of me from his lips with his thumb. I watch his mouth, warmth still at the base of my spine.

Orsen is strong—he has his own shelf in the history section and apparently battled regularly in his realm. But up against Dane? He’s as good as dust. That shouldn’t make me feel things.

Dane steps into me, chest to chest, and I have to crane my neck back to look at him. “I don’t bore you. I awaken something in you that you can’t control. I can see your eyes dilating.” He inhales deeply, and his eyes close momentarily. “Fuck, the smell of your arousal drives me insane.” He brings my mouth to his and slips his tongue past my lips as I gasp. Something explodes in my head, and he pulls his face away. “I can taste it too.”

“So warm and soft, little mortal. If I touch you here…” I let out a whimper as something strokes between my legs, and everything throbs. “Will you be wet?” “No,” I lie, desperate for him to do it again, but instead, the shadows disappear from around my thighs, wrapping around my wrists and pinning me to the wall.

My nipples harden, and I want his tongue to swirl around them, to suck each one into his mouth. “This doesn’t count,” I manage to say. “The kisses need to be sixty seconds each for the—” His tongue glides over the top of my breast, and my thighs slam together, a moan on my lips.

If I kiss her again, it will be done, I hear his thoughts, but I don’t make it obvious. I’m not ready for this to be done. He keeps staring at my mouth. “I can feel how much you want me.” As he runs his thumb across my swollen lips, bringing the bottom one down until it snaps back into place, he smirks. “My room at midnight.”

Stepping away from me, he waves his hand, and my shirt repairs, my skirt lowering to its proper position on my thighs. “And stay away from Valin. He’s looking to claim you, and I don’t share.”

And I’ve been fighting to prove myself my entire life. As a foster kid, as a new sister and daughter, as a young adult in a homeless shelter trying to find work. I mean, I had to go to extreme lengths of overpaying to get my dog Toodles. Everything has been an endless battle, and I just feel like I need a break. Living is so tiring sometimes.

I’ve seen Dane looking angry on numerous occasions, but the way his eyes turn to voids of black, a flash of possession in them, I know this is a side I’ve never witnessed. Get the fuck away from him. Despite him looking like a terrifying demon, I pull my bag up to my shoulder and down my glass of water. Fuck you, asshole.

I check my phone beside the bathtub. It’s four minutes to midnight. I have a message from Mel, a picture of all the cuts covering Orsen’s body while she sits on his back. They’re both naked. I have no idea if she’s aware, but this is not the way humans act. Well, not most humans. They’ve just had sex, she’s torn his back apart, and is sending me the evidence? On a normal person, the gashes from her nails would be life threatening. He should be rushing to the medical wing for stitches. But he’s grinning, puncture holes in his ass cheeks, with his thumb up.

“You were late.” I narrow my eyes, keeping my breasts covered in bubbles as Dane stares at me. “So you try to drown me?” “No. I simply materialized you into the castle’s lake, left you for a minute to think about your actions, then brought you back.” He leans against the sink, crossing his arms. “I said midnight.”

“If you’re only going to state the obvious, you can leave.” I roll my eyes. “I’m trying to relax, and you’re ruining my mood.” A large hand shoves my head underwater, holding me there by the hair. I know you can hear me. Drop the fucking attitude, stand the fuck up, and kiss me like a good little human.

“When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it,” he says, hissing as my nails drag up his nape to his hair. “So when I say to be in my room by midnight…” I scream as the room warps into a smash of colors swirling around us, until they turn black and my back is pressed to a hard surface in a bedroom I don’t recognize. “You’ll be in my room at fucking midnight.”

They caress my thighs as Dane fucks me with his fingers, watching me, not breaking eye contact as he thrusts in and out, his thumb pressing harder to my clit and making my back arch off the ballroom floor. My breath catches, and I screw my eyes shut as another wave of pleasure smacks into me. I’m tipping over the edge as he snatches my jaw. “Look at me,” he grits, the shadow hands opening me wider. “Fucking look at me.”

For a split second, I recognize the man above me. Really recognize him. The man who fastened my corset after a night of making love then escaped the room before my father caught us. A kiss to my hand. The deafening scream of his mother when a knife lodges in his chest. I gasp and stare at him in disbelief. “Dane?” A tear slips down my cheek, and the recognition comes over to Dane. He nods once, pulling his fingers from my core and wiping away the tears. “If you’re ready—stay. Stay with me.”

The last words I hear are from him. They’re a sob within the screams gathering around us as the curse spirals from my body in a helix and smashes into the vortex above me. “Come back to me, Seraphine. You must come back to me.”

I have no idea why I feel this way, but everything in me begs for Dane to turn around, to tell me why I’m here, to admit to himself that he wants me as I do him. Where do these thoughts even come from?

know what I’m asking,” I say, trying to be confident as I press the palms of my hands to the dresser behind me. “Finish the tasks, Dane.” Blood drips from the open wound on his face. “Don’t say my name.” I challenge him as I drag out his name. “Dane.” I’m either going to strangle her or kiss her. “Don’t you dare kiss me,” I say, wanting the opposite. “It’ll ruin everything. We covered that task, so we don’t need to kiss again.”

Instead of pushing himself away from me, Dane captures the cum trailing down my thigh, his other hand flexing on my throat as he shoves his fingers deep inside me. I gasp, whimpering as he pushes another thick finger inside and fucks me with them until I find my own release.

I want all your firsts, my love. Your firsts and lasts and forever. You can take it. Does it hurt? I’ll stop. You have me until you no longer need me. Marry me, not him.

“Open your mouth and stick out your tongue.” I wince as he pulls his fingers from me, gathers his cum from my thigh, and drives his fingers between my lips, shoving them into my throat as his knuckles hit my teeth. Dane hums. “Such a good little human.” I gag around them, tasting the mixture of his cum and mine as he drags them back out against my tongue with dilated pupils.

Dane glances over his shoulder at me. “If any of you look at or lay a finger on her, your body will be unrecognizable by the time I’m done with it.” That shouldn’t set my pulse into a frenzy, but it does. Dane threatening someone on my behalf is almost… hot.

Do not whimper to your god, little mortal. I’ll burn down the remaining realms before I hear you call out to someone else. My eyes close, and when I try to touch myself, to find a release, vines wrap around my wrists. Not yet.

We just failed task five. “Really, Dane?” I blurt, pulling my fingers out and slapping his chest while he keeps stroking himself with his hand. “You just touched me!” Dane flinches and stares down, his eyes lifting to my hand. “Did you just put your pussy juice all over me?” My cheeks heat, seeing the wetness on his chest as mortification overwhelms me. “No. And please don’t say it like that ever again.”

“No,” he grits, his eyes glazing over. “Your name is Seraphine Dalton, Queen of the realms, and have been for nearly six hundred fucking years.”