Kinky's Carnival Book 4: Bound To The Demon
Автор
M. L. Smith
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Raven’s life takes a wild turn when her own coven serves her up as an offering to a fearsome demon king. She’s ready to fight her fate—until she locks eyes with the Centaur King, whose presence hits like a spark she can’t ignore. He’s powerful, dangerously charming, and far too tempting for a witch on the run from destiny. Bael knows the moment he meets her that she’s his—every instinct, every breath tells him so. And he’ll stop at nothing to make her his, even if it means sealing their connection with a contract that’s as dark as it is delicious. Two stubborn souls. One irresistible pull. And a deal that could change everything.
The Sacrifice
Book 4: Bound to the Demon
RAVEN
“Please let me go!” Raven Asher pleaded dramatically, struggling against the manacles chaining her wrists to the freshly painted pentagram on the concrete floor.
She added a faint tremor to her voice, keeping her breathing shallow and her hands shaking—the perfect illusion of a frightened damsel in distress.
She nearly rolled her eyes at her own pathetic behavior, but if pretending to be a hysterical, terrified woman helped her spot a weakness among her captors—and use that to her advantage—she’d do it.
Although, as a cold chill raced down her spine, she wasn’t sure she was entirely pretending.
She cast a beseeching glance at a few of the fifteen coven members forming a loose circle around her. Each one wore a ghastly black robe with a thick hood pulled over their heads, concealing most of their faces from view.
They looked right at home in the coven’s sacrificial chamber beneath the large manor, while Raven stood out in a red, silky nightgown.
In her defense, she’d been snatched from her bed in the middle of the night, so she hadn’t exactly been given a chance to dress for the occasion.
How did one dress up for their own murder, anyway?
She felt a tremor of fear skate down her spine, but she ignored it, determined not to show an ounce of her distress to these traitors.
She couldn’t believe her shitty luck. And to go out like this?
Death via sacrifice was so unoriginal.
Frustrated, Raven yanked her arms against her restraints in a poor attempt to free herself. The chains attached to the manacles on her wrists rattled loudly against the floor but otherwise didn’t budge. No one even looked in her direction, treating her as if she were irrelevant.
Maybe they were too afraid to meet her gaze, given that Raven was one of them. She’d grown up in this coven, and while witches weren’t exactly sociable creatures, they stuck together.
And yet they’d betrayed her without a single care—not that she should be surprised. Witches coveted power more than loyalty. Whatever they were planning to sacrifice her for was likely to benefit them all at her expense.
Assholes.
As the daughter of North America’s head coven leader and a tenth-generation witch, Raven’s power was immense. She shouldn’t need to resort to scrounging for help when a minor flick of her wrist could snap someone’s neck.
Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be breaking any bones tonight.
Besides her heavy manacles, Raven now wore a special collar around her neck; the enchanted item completely bound her magic. The stupid enchantment left her all but mortal.
Mortal!
How much more humiliating could tonight get?
They’ll pay for this, she thought furiously, sending an evil glare to the cloaked figures filling the room she lay imprisoned in. As soon as I’m free, I’ll kill every one of these bitches that betrayed me.
Even her own mother.
That last betrayal stung the most out of everyone here, and despite her building rage, her heart ached pitifully.
Raven shouldn’t have felt so upset—her mom, Abigail, wasn’t a caring woman. She’d raised Raven with cruelty and malice, beating every weak emotion out of her at a young age while nurturing her darker inclinations.
Love, happiness, and similar emotions were pathetic and useless. All that mattered was power and doing whatever was necessary to gain it.
Her mom was probably sacrificing Raven for that very reason; power was addicting. It was everything.
Not that this offering to the dark king would work.
No one had successfully summoned Beelzebub in centuries, and Raven doubted it would happen tonight.
Based on the enthusiastic whispers of her fellow coven members, they vehemently disagreed with her.
What did they know that she didn’t?
It doesn’t matter. Just get the hell out of here!
Sighing, Raven began her cries anew, pitifully whimpering, “Please, someone help me—”
“Stop your whining, child,” Abigail, her mother, interrupted wearily. “Your sacrifice today is a great honor to ourselves and to the demon, Beelzebub.”
An honor? What honor was there in dying like this? She was going to bleed out on the floor like a stuck pig!
And her mom wouldn’t give a shit when her only daughter died. The ache in Raven’s chest swelled. She pushed that traitorous emotion down, focusing on her anger and refusing to let anything else seep in.
“Beelzebub won’t give a damn about my death,” Raven hissed, dropping her pretense of a scared, fragile woman altogether. It didn’t suit her, anyway. “He hasn’t graced our coven with his presence since we gave him a bride who betrayed him and fucked his brother.”
And although Raven had never taken part in any of the summoning rituals, she knew that every decade her coven attempted to call on the king. He simply never responded.
Granted, they’d never sacrificed anyone to him in the two decades she’d been alive, but she doubted that would make a difference.
I’m going to die for literally nothing, she thought miserably, a hint of hysteria bubbling up before she could squash it. Now wasn’t the time for fear—she needed to act. To find a way out of this mess.
But how? Without her magic, she was useless.
“Our misfortune changes tonight,” Abigail declared loudly, earning delighted cries from the other coven members.
Raven groaned in exasperation. “We were lucky he didn’t wipe our coven off the face of the Earth in retaliation for the slight against him! Do you really think killing me in his name will do anything beneficial?”
Abigail ignored her, another normal occurrence, turning toward a hooded warlock whose lower face was exposed. Raven narrowed her eyes, spotting a very familiar mole on the left side of the warlock’s chin.
Spencer, that little shit! He was a part of this? Not only was her mom going to murder her, she had Raven’s ex-boyfriend helping!
Unbelievable.
Silently, Spencer handed Abigail a dagger, the sharp silvered edge gleaming in the candlelight.
“Perfection,” Abigail murmured, and Raven curled her lip in disgust.
“This isn’t about calling on our king, is it, Mother?” Raven spat, yanking on her chains uselessly. They rattled ominously throughout the room once more. “You just want me out of the way. You can sense that my magic has grown stronger than yours, and you’re threatened I’ll take your place as coven leader,” she guessed, lifting a mocking brow.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Raven. I’m not killing you,” Abigail finally answered with a huff. “Our bloodline has a beautiful destiny.” She looked around the room at the various coven members scattered about, purpose shining in her beady little eyes.
Destiny? What did she mean by that?
Abigail raised her voice dramatically, as if she were preaching in church. “Tonight, we right the wrong committed against our liege, Beelzebub, King of Hell!” A roar of approval went up through the crowd, and for the first time tonight, Raven actually felt a genuine stirring of fear. “Tonight,” her mother continued, “we bestow upon him a new bride! A mate to rule his kingdom!”
A bride? A mate? Oh, hell no.
“What?” Raven screeched, a cocktail of panic and growing terror swirling inside her. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t keep the emotions at bay, and her hands trembled.
Was her mother out of her mind? She wouldn’t mate with that male. Marriages could be annulled, but a mating was permanent unless the other died.
And Raven would never bind herself to another.
That level of intimacy was so abhorrent that bile rose in her throat. No one in her coven mated. Sex was normal, sure, but trusting someone enough to create a lifelong bond with them?
No. Absolutely not.
“I can’t marry a demon king!” Raven sputtered in denial, searching hopelessly for a way out of this mess. “He killed the last bride our coven gave him!”
“Yes, our ancestor Francesca Asher was a terrible selection.” Abigail shook her head in disappointment. “Long ago, a seer prophesied that our bloodline would merge with the benevolent ruler, Beelzebub, thrusting our coven into eternal glory. If only that whore hadn’t fallen victim to King Asmodeus’s charms, our history would have been drastically different. Now, instead of lavishing in riches, we fight over meager scraps of power against other covens that seek to destroy us!”
Yells from the crowd echoed around the room, and a shiver of dread slid down Raven’s spine.
“You sound insane,” Raven replied adamantly, tugging on her chains so hard her wrists would have bruises. “And you’re lying. I haven’t heard anything about this Francesca woman being related to me!”
And her mom had damn sure never mentioned this woman as family before. Then again, Raven wasn’t close to her mom, even though Abigail was her only remaining relative.
Turns out getting beaten for days at a time in her youth didn’t count as family bonding.
Abigail scoffed, her grip tightening on the dagger. “Like I would publicize who Francesca was to our family? She was a weakness. A blight on the family name, and now you, daughter, will fill her role and restore our rightful place alongside the king. I am giving you quite the honor.”
Raven sputtered, shaking her head so hard her charcoal-colored hair fell into her eyes. “This isn’t an honor, otherwise you would have married him when you were younger. I can’t believe you would sell me off like cattle!”
Being sacrificed might have been the better choice after all.
What did a demon king even look like? There were seven of them, but she’d never seen one in person—only in drawings and art throughout history.
Did Beelzebub have a forked tongue? Horns? Was he a freaking goat?
She’d heard one demon king was part snake, part man. Could that be him?
She really didn’t want to find out.
Abigail approached her with the knife, and the coven members encircled the pentagram drawn beneath Raven, beginning a chant she had never heard before.
She held her breath, sending up a silent prayer that the king wouldn’t show up to this summoning either. He wouldn’t, right? He’d ignored their coven for hundreds of years; surely he wouldn’t appear now.
Unfortunately, the pentagram began to glow, illuminating her body, and whatever hope she had of escaping evaporated into thin air.
“H-How about I promise to sacrifice my firstborn daughter to Beelzebub instead?” Raven lied hastily. “I’m sure she’ll love to marry a demon.”
Abigail crouched in front of her, sending Raven a mocking, sympathetic look. “Time is of the essence, I’m afraid.”
“How is time of the essence?” Raven spat out. “You don’t even know which witch from our bloodline the prophecy spoke of!”
It could have been Raven’s aunt, grandma, or even Abigail herself. Yet none of those women had ever endured this. They’d all died of either old age or in feuds with other covens.
Her mother leaned in, whispering, “You’re right. But Bertyl’s coven is seeking to overthrow ours and take leadership of North America. We need this alliance with Beelzebub to ensure our place as head coven remains intact. So even if you aren’t who the prophecy spoke about, you’re still marrying him.”
“Are you joking?” Raven hissed in disbelief. Bertyl was twice Abigail’s age, and her shoddy little coven wasn’t a threat to theirs at all. “What happens when you give him the wrong woman again? He’ll kill us all!”
Abigail didn’t answer, but her face hardened. Grabbing Raven’s hand, she turned it over, palm facing the ceiling, and sliced her skin open with the blade.
Raven yelped in pain, trying to squeeze her hand shut to keep any blood from dripping onto that damned pentagram. But her mother caught her fingers, prying them open before she slapped Raven’s wounded palm onto the chalk on the floor, completing the last portion of the summoning.
Quickly, her mother backed away.
The chanting from the witches swelled, bouncing off the stone walls and echoing harshly in Raven’s ears, filling her with so much panic she felt blinded by it.
Suddenly, the bright white glow beneath her morphed into one massive blood-red beam, covering her and the circle completely in brilliant light.
Screaming, Raven slammed her eyes closed as the smell of sulfur filled the air, half-expecting to burst into flames at any moment.
Instead, the chanting died out, gasps and excited exclamations filling the air.
“What is the meaning of this?” a deep, husky voice stated from high over Raven’s head.
She shivered, both from fear and a weird stirring of desire in her womb as the unknown male continued, his words like heated velvet sliding over her skin. “You dare summon me, witch?”
Just as quickly as her desire began, it dissipated, leaving behind only ice-cold fear.
Oh, gods.
It was really him—Beelzebub.
