Sinful

Pleasing No One

Pleasing No One

  Closing her laptop Harper groaned and fell backwards onto the couch, her fingers gentling rubbing her eyes to lessen the dull ache. Five days of bed rest might have been good for healing but it was a killer to her business. She was behind on work, she had to reschedule all the appointments Elena canceled. She worked nearly all night last night, took a four hour nap and continued to complete the many collages she had to finish, organize different books for wannabe models to go to interviews with and a few pregnancy photos. She was swamped and had accepted that she had many long nights ahead of her if she wanted to meet her deadlines and get paid.

   Her rent was due next week and she was cutting it close. Bills to pay, food to buy -scratch that she might have to go hungry for a while if she wanted to get the rent paid.

  Sitting up Harper put her laptop on the coffee table and sighed wishing this supernatural mess she was in would pay for the time it took out of her life then maybe she could get some sleep. Scoffing at the thought she noticed the corner of a book poking out from under the table.

  Leaning over Harper caught the corner of the book in between her index and middle finger. The velvet covered book slid out into her hand and Harper placed it on her lap, staring at the book she took from the Hunters library a few weeks ago. Running her fingers over the title Harper swallowed hard wondering if it was a good idea to read the book. She liked where Kiev and she were headed, the gentler Kiev who was honest with her was one she enjoyed and she didn't want any progress they made to be ruined by whatever she discovered about him.

You don't really know him, a voice reminded her. Kiev knew more about her than she did about herself. Trapping her bottom lip between her teeth Harper hesitated before slowly opening the hard cover over and came face to face with Kiev's father. Pushing the old fears aside Harper turned the pages, she ignored the pages of information that followed the late King's picture and turned to the page to the current King, Cade. By the way Kiev spoke earlier it seemed that he loved Cade.

Skimming through several pages Harper frowned at what was written. Cade was half sex-demon and half fire shaper, one of the first ten children born from Dimitri and one of the least qualified to be acting King of Demons. In fact, based on the information from the book Cade was a solider of the Council, with no education or training in the political ways as was deemed necessary from all future leaders, his mother wasn't a direct descendant from the five families which Harper guessed wouldn't sit well with his people. Cade was a solider, meant to protect the leaders of the Demons from harm, he was a guard in other words not a man fit to rule a kingdom. Harper's eyes skipped the part where Cade married his soulmate two weeks after taking the throne, deeming the information as unnecessary and instead continued on. Assigned to rule over the Demonic Kingdom and all it's people by the heir and only child of Dimitri and Catherine, Kiev.

"Why would he do that?" She mumbled under her breath.

Turning the page to Kiev's fuzzy photo she took a moment to look him over wondering why he would hand over the kingdom to his brother Cade, why not one of his other siblings? Why hand the kingdom over at all?

   Drawing her knees up towards her chest Harper started to read, concentrating on every word she read in the hopes of unraveling the mystery that was Kiev but as she turned the first page over to continue she found another picture staring back at her.

"That's it?!" She exclaimed and whipped the single page back and forth as if another page would magically appear.

  The single page only described Kiev's lineage, that he had hundreds of thousands of feeding clubs for supernatural creatures scattered around the globe and that he was involved in many dealings with other leaders, all dealings apparently unknown by the Hunters. They had nothing on him. She had nothing to go on. The realization caused a growl of frustration to tear from her chest.