
Introduction
Heaven has its God.
The human world has its emperors.
So who rules Hell?
Growing up in the barren wastelands, Zevran Mordis never cared about questions like that. His only concern was surviving another day in a land where the weak were nothing more than prey for the strong. Every demon dreamed of serving one of the great Houses. Zevran only dreamed of staying alive.
Everything changes when he uncovers the ruins of an ancient court buried beneath the ashes of a forgotten city.
There, a voice calls his name.
Not as a warrior nor a king but as the next Judge.
From that moment, the laws of Hell begin to awaken. Ancient relics respond to his presence, powerful Houses hunt him across the underworld, and truths buried for thousands of years refuse to stay buried.
The greatest of those truths is one no demon dares to believe.
Hell never had a king.
It never needed one.
Long before the great Houses existed, twelve Judges ruled the underworld with laws so absolute that even demons feared to break them. Then, in a single night, every Judge disappeared, their names erased from history as though they had never existed.
Now the laws that once held Hell together are collapsing.
If Zevran wants to survive, he must uncover who destroyed the ancient Court before Hell tears itself apart.
But the deeper he digs, the more horrifying the truth becomes.
The Twelve Judges were never defeated.
They were sentenced.
And somewhere in the darkness, the one who passed that sentence is waiting for Zevran to take his place in the court.
Because the trial that ended an age...
...was never truly over.
Chapter 1
The dead were supposed to be silent. That was the first lesson every corpse collector learned. The second was never to look into their eyes.
Zevran Mordis ignored both.
The crimson dawn stretched across the battlefield, turning black blood into shimmering red. Smoke still curled from shattered siege towers, and the bitter scent of burnt flesh lingered long after the fighting had ended.
Around him, dozens of corpse collectors moved across the wasteland with iron hooks and battered wooden carts. The Great Houses didn't pay them to mourn the dead. They paid them to make them disappear.
"Quit staring and move!" a gruff voice barked.
Old Garrick limped toward him. His broken horns and bent back showed decades of hauling corpses, but his eyes remained sharp.
"The sun's already up," Garrick said. "If House Nocthar's officers arrive before we're finished, they'll dock our pay again."
Zevran lowered his gaze and nodded. "I'm moving."
"You always say that."
Garrick shoved an empty cart toward him. "North ridge. That's where most of the bodies fell."
Zevran pushed the cart over the uneven ground, the wheels rolling over broken weapons, shattered shields, and severed limbs without slowing. Crows circled overhead, their cries swallowed by the endless silence that always followed war. He hated that silence more than the battle itself. During war, everyone screamed. Afterward, no one did.
He stopped beside a young soldier wearing House Nocthar's black armor. The demon's eyes remained open, his sword still in his hand. He hadn't died in fear, but in surprise.
Zevran crouched beside him. "I'm sorry," he murmured, though he never really knew why he apologized. The dead never answered.
He pried the sword loose, placed it in the salvage pile, then lifted the body onto the cart. Everything valuable belonged to the House. The corpses were all the collectors could claim.
He pushed onward. The battlefield seemed endless. Thousands had died here yesterday when House Nocthar fought House Morvain over another border dispute. People like Zevran never knew why wars began, only where they ended.
A shout rose from the eastern slope. "I found another survivor!"
Several collectors rushed toward the voice, but Zevran didn't move. Survivors rarely lived long out here. If they belonged to the wrong House, soldiers finished the job before questions could be asked. He kept working, body after body, cart after cart, apology after apology whispered under his breath.
By midday, sweat clung to his neck despite the cold wind. His stomach growled and he ignored it, because food came after work, and only if there was enough pay, and only if the overseer decided they hadn't worked too slowly.
He reached a shallow crater near the northern ridge, and unlike the rest of the battlefield, it was strangely untouched. No broken wagons. No shattered weapons. No blood. Just one body lying in the center, and that alone was unusual enough to make him stop.
Zevran climbed down carefully. The demon wore neither House colors nor armor, only plain black robes covered in dried ash, his face peaceful, without a single wound on him. Nothing at all.
Zevran circled the body slowly. "How did you die?" The question slipped out before he realized he'd asked it. His eyes drifted to the demon's hands, long fingered, clean nailed, without a single callus. Not a soldier. Not a laborer. Not a noble either. Something about him felt wrong in a way Zevran couldn't name. The battlefield was littered with violence, yet this corpse looked as though it had simply fallen asleep.
Footsteps crunched behind him. "Found something?" It was Garrick.
Zevran stepped aside. "I can't find any injuries on him."
The old man glanced down for barely a second before grabbing Zevran's shoulder, hard. "Leave it."
"What?"
"I said leave it." For the first time, Zevran heard fear in Garrick's voice. The old demon glanced around before whispering, "Load every other corpse. Not this one."
"Why?"
"You want to keep breathing?"
"...Yes."
"Then stop asking."
Garrick turned and started climbing out of the crater. After a few steps he stopped, and without looking back, said quietly, "Some bodies aren't ours to touch." Then he walked away.
Zevran stayed where he was. The wind grew stronger, and ash drifted across the silent corpse while his curiosity fought against his common sense. Garrick had raised him after his parents disappeared, and the old demon had never spoken to him that way before. He knew he should leave. Instead he took one cautious step closer, then another.
The corpse's eyes were still open, still looking up at the dark red sky. Zevran sighed. "No one should be left like this." He reached down to close the demon's eyes, and the instant his fingertips brushed the cold skin, his vision exploded.
A deafening sound echoed inside his head, not screaming, not thunder, but something heavy striking stone. Once. Twice. A third time. Darkness swallowed everything, and then rows of towering pillars rose out of the shadows, endless and ancient and broken. Massive black chains stretched across an endless hall. Twelve enormous thrones stood in a circle, every one of them empty, the floor beneath them cracked and stained with old blood. Somewhere in the darkness, footsteps echoed, slow and measured.
Zevran tried to move, but his body refused. A voice rang through the hall, not loud, yet carrying an authority that pressed against his chest like a weight. "So." Silence followed, and then another voice answered from somewhere unseen. "Still no successor."
Everything shattered, and the vision was gone.
Zevran stumbled backward, gasping for breath, his heart pounding so violently he thought it might burst through his ribs. The battlefield returned around him. He stared down at the corpse. It hadn't moved. Had he imagined the whole thing?
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and laughed, a short, nervous sound. "I need sleep," he muttered, then reached for the body again. This time nothing happened. Just cold skin.
He grabbed the corpse beneath its shoulders, and the moment he lifted it, something small slipped from inside the black robe and landed softly on the ground. A coin, he thought at first, but it wasn't a coin. It was a perfectly black disc, smooth as polished glass, with an unfamiliar symbol pressed into one side, a pair of balanced scales.
Zevran frowned. He had worked battlefields for years and knew every crest belonging to the Nine Great Houses. This symbol belonged to none of them. He glanced toward the hill where Garrick had disappeared, then bent down and closed his fingers around the black disc. It felt strangely warm, almost alive.
The wind died. Every crow fell silent.
Then, somewhere beyond the northern mountains, a deep bell rang.
Garrick stopped halfway up the hill.
He turned.
His face went completely pale.
"Zevran!" he shouted.
"Throw it away!"
Before Zevran could react, the black disc burned in his palm.
A drop of his blood fell onto its surface.
The symbol of the scales began to glow.
Far away...
Inside the highest tower of House Vaelmor, an ancient black crystal shattered.
An old demon slowly opened his eyes.
"Impossible..."
"The Court has chosen a successor."
Last Chapters
#42 Chapter 42 The Order
Last Updated: 9/5/2026#41 Chapter 41 The Second Copy
Last Updated: 9/5/2026#40 Chapter 40 The Names That Remained
Last Updated: 9/5/2026#39 Chapter 39 The Original List
Last Updated: 9/5/2026#38 Chapter 38 The Mark on the Bronze
Last Updated: 9/5/2026#37 Chapter 37 The Open Grave
Last Updated: 9/5/2026#36 Chapter 36 The Seven Documents
Last Updated: 9/5/2026#35 Chapter 35 What Happened Seventeen Years Ago
Last Updated: 9/5/2026#34 Chapter 34 The Northern Road
Last Updated: 9/5/2026#33 Chapter 33 The First Name
Last Updated: 9/5/2026
You Might Like 😍
A Queen Among Darkness (Book 4 in the Gods' Saga)
For centuries, she has been on the run, helping the supernatural community under the cloak of anonymity while she works to clear her name and save the very people after her from destruction.
Enemies are closing in, but an unexpected complication befalls her when she realises she’s been fated to someone who wants her species exterminated. After all, an evil chance seldom comes alone.
A Queen Among Darkness is the 4th book in the Queen Among Series/The Gods' Saga. This is an interconnected series. To see how it ends, I recommend reading the full series.
Books in the series in order:
A Queen Among Alphas - Book 1
Bite-Size Luna - A Queen Among Alphas Prequel (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Snakes - Book 2
A Queen Among Blood - Book 3
A Queen Among Darkness - Book 4
Whole Again - A Queen Among Alpha's spin-off (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Tides - Book 5
Valor, Virtue, and Verve - Tides Prequel Spin-off (will be available under book 5)
A Queen Among Gods - Book 6
Runaway Empress - A Queen Among Snakes Prequel (will be available under book 2)
A Queen Among Tempests - Book 7
Dark Vocation - Darkness spin-off (will be available under book 4)
A Court of Arcane Souls Anthology (side character short stories exclusive to Ream)
Royal Shadow Series (Next Generation Coming Soon)
Dan Belinni: Pregnant by the Lethal Mafioso
Dan Belinni was raised inside violence, trained in the blood-soaked discipline of the Outfit until he became its sharpest weapon. At nineteen, he is already known for illegal fights, brutal enforcement, and a temperament that turns any challenge into punishment. He doesn’t believe in mercy. He doesn’t believe in love. He believes in control.
Milena Lima has spent her life surviving, not living. An undocumented immigrant in Chicago, she works herself to exhaustion just to stay afloat and protect the only stability she has left—her friend María. But when she loses her job and her visa expires, Milena becomes invisible to the law and vulnerable in ways she never imagined.
Desperate, she steps into a Belinni-owned nightclub, hoping to earn enough to survive another week. One stage. One performance. One decision.
That is all it takes for her to cross paths with Dan Belinni.
He is not a man who lets go.
And she is not a woman who submits.
But beneath survival and violence lies a truth neither of them is ready for—Milena is tied to a mafia legacy she never chose, one that makes her both a target and a claim in a world where women are never just women.
When their worlds collide, obsession replaces restraint, and a single night changes everything.
Because in Dan’s world, love is not given.
It is taken.
Bella and Her Beast
.
Locked in her frozen tower, Bella dreamed of warmth, of touch, of freedom and of love. Cursed with the power of ice and snow, she’s spent her life alone. A secret they tried to protect the world from. Her only escape comes in the form of the books she reads. Stories of heat, desire, and the kind of love that could melt even her frostbitten heart.
Damien is the Beast. A dragon King with a temper forged in flame and a soul hollowed by duty. The world fears him. The people call him a monster. But beneath the scales and the rage lies a man who has never been touched by love.
When frost meets fire, the world shatters. She was never meant to leave her tower. He was never meant to find her. But destiny doesn’t bow to kings or care for cages and now the question burns through them both: Can Bella have her Beast? Or will the girl of snow melt in the heat of his desire?
.
"I’m keeping her."
"What?"
Before I can react, he scoops her up. Her small body fits easily in the cradle of his talons. For a split second, she looks startled, but not afraid. Her hand rests against one scaled finger, and she stares up at him with that same curious wonder, as though she’s already forgotten she was ever meant to fear me.
"Put her down," I try to command, panic threading through my thoughts. "You’ll hurt her."
"She’s ours," the beast insists, possessive and fierce. "Our snowflake."
The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)
The saint to my sinner. with her innocent eyes and devilish curves.
A Madonna that was meant to be admired but never touched.
Until someone took that innocence from her.
She left.
The darkness in my heart was finally complete.
I avenged her, I killed for her, but she never came back.
Until I saw her again. An angel dancing around a pole for money.
She didn’t know I owned that club. She didn’t know I was watching.
This time I won’t let her escape.
I will make her back into the girl I knew.
Whether she likes it or not.
2/ Judge and Jury- I can’t stop watching her.
I’m not even sure I want to.
Taylor Lawson, blonde, beautiful, and totally oblivious to how much dangers she’s in.
She’s also the one juror in my upcoming murder trial that hasn’t been bought.
The one who can put me behind bars for a very long time.
I know I should execute her.
After all that’s what I do.
I am the Judge.
I eliminate threats to The Family.
And Taylor is a threat.
But I don’t want to kill her.
Possessing her, making her love me seems like a much better plan for this particular Juror.
3/ Rags and Ritches-
Tango with the Alpha's Heart
“He met her at the Alpha training camp,” he said. “She is a perfect suitor for him. It snowed last night, indicating that his wolf is happy with his choice.”
My heart sank, and tears made their way down my cheeks.
Alexander took my innocence last night, and now he is taking that thing in his office as his Luna.
Emily became the laughingstock of the pack on her 18th birthday and never expected the Alpha's son to be her mate.
After a night of passionate love, Emily finds out that her mate has taken a chosen mate. Heartbroken and humiliated, she disappears from the pack.
Now, five years later, Emily is a respected high-ranking warrior in King Alpha’s army.
When her best friend invites her to a night of music and laughter, she never expects to run into her mate.
Will her mate figure out it is her?
Will he chase after her, and most of all, will Emily be able to keep her secrets safe?
The Billionaire's Mask (A Dark Steamy Romance)
The Alpha Of The Shadow Pack And His Mute Luna
Vanessa, the mute runt of a cursed litter, has only ever known cruelty and abuse. Her voice stolen by a witch’s spell, her freedom crushed by a brutal father, she’s been promised to a monster she doesn’t want. But fate intervenes when she’s left for dead—bleeding, broken, and bound—only to be rescued by Alpha Alfred of the Shadow Pack.
Alfred, fighting against a generational curse that has doomed his brothers to remain wolves forever, never expected his fated mate to be a fragile girl on the brink of death. But the moment he breathes in her scent, everything changes.
Together, they must confront the past, survive betrayal, and uncover the true key to breaking the curses that bind them. Will their bond be strong enough to save them both?
BROKEN TRUST
Neither of them knew she was carrying his child.
Emily’s affair didn’t just end her marriage—it erased the life she thought was guaranteed. Ryan left without looking back, carrying his anger like armor and leaving Emily alone with regret she would never outrun. Three years later, fate drags them back into each other’s world, along with a little girl who has Ryan’s eyes and a truth that shatters everything he thought he knew.
Old wounds reopen, grief masquerades as rage, and love refuses to stay buried. As parenthood binds them together and the past demands accountability, Emily and Ryan must face the question neither of them is ready to answer: is broken trust the end of their story… or the beginning of a love forged through loss, forgiveness, and brutal honesty?
My Benchwarmer Boyfriend's Secret
As the team's benchwarmer, Marco practices harder than anyone, though few seems to notice. There's something about his quiet determination that draws me in, and I find myself falling for the underdog.
But when Marco's true story starts unraveling—about that first night, about who he really is, about the future he's destined for—I realize I might have gotten in way over my head.
And there's another problem: this was always meant to be temporary. His training program has an end date, and we're both fighting against a reality that seems determined to pull us apart.
When everything is on the line, how far are we willing to go for love?
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates
"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."
I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.
Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.
"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."
New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.
Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates
When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.
But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
A pack of their own
Human Capture (Up North #2)
Raised in a starving settlement choked by a vast, unforgiving forest, Lara learned early that survival has a price. To keep her family alive, she became a master hunter—agile, silent, and deadly with an array of mismatched blades. But the forest has eyes, and one evening, the shadows dragged her away.
Nine months later, Lara breaks free from a concrete dungeon, only to find herself stranded in the lawless, rogue-infested wilds of Avers Land alongside four captured werewolf girls. Seeking refuge in the neighboring territory of Illyen, she expects to find a way back to her human life. Instead, she is brought face-to-face with Alpha Rowan, the terrifying, ruthless ruler of the frozen North.
One look into Lara’s eyes, and the Alpha’s world shatters. His eyes turn an absolute shade of black. The bond is undeniable. She is his fated mate.
But a human cannot survive the brutal political landscape of the North, and Rowan openly rejects the bond, dragging her onto a warship bound for a kingdom that views her as a fragile liability. Trapped between a mate who refuses to love her and a court of monsters waiting for her to break, Lara must use every hunter's instinct she possesses. Because in the realm of wolves, a human must either grow claws of her own—or perish in the snow.












