Reign Fall

A Demon Princess Novel

by

Michelle Rowen

Copyright 2012 Michelle Rowen

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form. This ebook may not be resold or uploaded for
distribution to others.

This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used
fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination,
and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE DEMON PRINCESS SERIES

REIGN OR SHINE

REIGN CHECK

REIGN FALL

Prophesies, demon slayers, dragons, homework…

It’s going to be a hell of a week!

It’s been a dangerous ride for Nikki Donovan since she first learned she’s a demon princess. And the ride isn’t over yet!

She’s just found out that her best friend is a demon slayer in training, one who doesn’t know that Nikki is exactly the prey she’s sworn to hunt. Nikki’s demon king father has signed her up for lessons on how to master her erratic half-demon powers, and that’s on top of her regular homework! Also, she’s torn between two boys—Rhys, the faery king she’s prophesied to marry, and Michael, a Shadow whom she’s forbidden to love.

To top it all off, a dark force is haunting Nikki, something mysterious and evil that wants the demon princess dead…but who—or
what
—is it?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you so much to everyone who helped me to make this third
Demon Princess
book possible: Eve Silver, Jennifer Black, Bonnie Staring, Cecily Cornelius-White, and Lori Devoti.

You all rock!

And thank you to
every single reader
who e-mailed me wanting a book three. You guys were kinda relentless. I like that! This book would never have happened if I didn’t know there were awesome readers out there who wanted to read it. I appreciate your love for the series more than you know and I hope you think it was worth the wait!!

Intro

My name is Nikki Donovan, your normal, everyday sixteen-year-old.

At least, I
was
normal until a month ago when I found out the truth.

I’m actually a princess.

A
demon
princess.

I know. It’s hard to believe. But it’s all true.

When I turned sixteen, I finally got the chance to meet my estranged father, a demon king, who is stuck in his castle and can never leave. He rules over the Shadowlands, another dimension which sits right between the light and the dark worlds. If it wasn’t for my father, the dark worlds

—the Underworld and Hell—would be able to spill over to the light worlds—the Faery and Human ones.

I learned that some demons really wanted to visit here. Or, in other words, dominate, enslave, and destroy the Human world. Not necessarily in that order. That was what the Shadowlands worked to prevent. No demon could get through to the light worlds without permission from King Desmond, my father.

Since I’m only half-demon that makes me something called a Darkling—the first of my kind in a thousand years. Half-human/half-demons aren’t welcomed with open arms in the dark worlds. Or any other world for that matter.

I just wish I could tell my mother that my father hadn’t purposely abandoned her when she was pregnant with me—he had absolutely no choice in the matter. And that he loves her to this very day. He refuses to admit it, but I
know
he does.

He, of course, has sworn me to secrecy about all of this.

I’m kind of getting sick of keeping secrets just because I’ve been told to.

We’ll have to see what happens next...

It’s not easy being best friends with a demon slayer.

Not when you have a secret like mine.

In the hall by our lockers, Melinda looked...upset. Seeing her so unhappy made
me
unhappy.

The first day back at school after the winter break was turning out to be worrisome, and first class hadn’t even started yet.

I’d last seen Melinda on New Year’s Eve. Instead of going to a big party, she’d been asked to babysit her cousins, five kids all under eight. She’d agreed, which was my first indication that something was wrong. The Melinda I knew would have made any excuse to get out of that obligation so she could go to a party instead. Since I wasn’t really feeling in a partying kind of mood myself, I’d stopped by and helped out, putting the kids to bed by eleven and then we watched the new year ring in on TV.

She’d looked at me then and said, “This is going to be a good year, Nikki.” It wasn’t said with enthusiasm. It sounded way more desperate than that. Like she hoped against hope that things would be better. It made my heart break.

Then I said something I had a feeling I would come to regret. “You know you can tell me anything, Mel. Right? Anything at all. No matter how difficult it is.” She stared at me so long that it began to make me nervous, like she could see right through me and know what I was holding back from her. She reached over and clutched my hand so hard it made me flinch.

“You’re my best friend in the whole wide world, you know that?” Her voice broke a little as she said it.

“And you’re mine.”

I wanted to help, but I knew I couldn’t be honest with her about my own problems. If a demon slayer—even one still in training—found out her best friend was half-demon, things wouldn’t end very well.

So that was
my
little secret she didn’t know.

But I knew hers. And that made life complicated for me.

I also knew she’d recently stopped her intense training sessions, uninterested in the commitment it took to follow through. I didn’t understand how it worked, really, but I knew her decision wasn’t acceptable to her trainer, Patrick. He’d promised to come back and try to convince her otherwise. For all I knew, he’d been successful.

So here we were, back to school. Back to normal.

Only...I wasn’t totally sure what normal was anymore.

“What are you doing Friday night?” Melinda asked as she grabbed her binder for first class from her locker.

“Friday? No plans so far. What are you thinking?”

“Sleepover. At my place.”

I shrugged. “That sounds like fun.”

“Brittany and Larissa are coming too.”

It was getting less fun by the minute. Brittany and Larissa were two of Melinda’s long-term friends. Two friends that didn’t approve of my sudden inclusion to their social circle—although Larissa had been way more vocal about it. I was still the new girl here and had only moved from the States to Canada and enrolled at Erin Heights High School in the fall. Some people resisted anything new and unfamiliar—and Larissa had resisted
me
. She’d mostly ignored me lately, deciding the part of “Melinda’s best friend” would be up for grabs again very soon.

If Melinda ever found out I was a little bit demonic, it would be. Because I’d be dead, either by Melinda’s hand or by her trainer’s.

Let’s not think about that.

Hard not to. My life used to involve homework and trips to the mall. Now it involved deception and potential destruction. And stress. Lots of stress.

“Okay, here he comes,” Melinda said nervously under her breath. I think she was speaking to herself, not me.

I turned to my left and tensed immediately at the familiar form moving down the hallway toward us. Tall and very cute, with chestnut-colored hair and chocolate brown eyes, he looked vaguely uncomfortable in a casual T-shirt and dark jeans. They were human clothes, after all.

And Rhys, the king of the Faery Realm, wasn’t all that used to playing human.

And yet he still tried.

Rhys’s parents had recently been murdered, which meant he had to become king at sixteen without having any say in the matter. Then he learned about me, the demon princess who was prophesied to be the “destroyer of worlds.” That prophecy had thankfully turned out to be false, manufactured to get me in serious trouble.

Last month, he came here to investigate if I was a threat. And also enjoy life as a “normal” teenager before taking over his throne full-time.

I hadn’t seen him since the last day before school break, which was almost two weeks ago. It was the day he decided he and Melinda were going to officially start dating. She’d had a crush on him from the moment he started here as a “foreign exchange student.” Melinda had no idea this meant he came from a different world, one that had to be accessed through a magical gateway. It was a place where there were a lot of trees, a lot of bubbling streams, and at least one unicorn wandering freely about.

But he was back. I wasn’t totally sure he would be.

“I’m glad to see you. You look beautiful today,” Rhys said.

I opened my mouth to reply, but he leaned in and...kissed Melinda.

He hadn’t been talking to me.

“Thanks. You look great, too,” she said when they parted. She pushed her light blonde hair back over her shoulder and jostled her binder and book in her arms.

Then Rhys glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as if to gauge my reaction to his public display of affection.

I just stood there placidly. Patiently. With what I hoped was a very “who cares?” expression.

His eyes narrowed and it felt as if we had a wordless conversation.

Jealous?
his eyes asked.

Not even remotely,
my eyes replied.

Seen your boyfriend lately?

Not for a while.

Too bad. I know you think you two are meant for each other. You know, if you don’t take
our
prophecy into consideration.

The prophecy that you wanted to ignore?

You can’t ignore prophesies, Nikki. Not forever.

If that’s so, then why are you stringing my best friend along and trying to treat me like crap?

Ditch your Shadow boyfriend and maybe we’ll talk.

Since I wasn’t a mind reader, and Rhys and I weren’t bound by any telepathic abilities, this was all just my imagination talking. But still, given our history, I didn’t think I was too far off.

“Talk to you later,” Rhys said to Melinda and gave her another quick kiss before he took off to first class without a backward glance. The entire time, not counting our intense eyeball exchange, he hadn’t said a word to me. Not even a “hello.” He was so annoying, I couldn’t even believe it. He wanted to make my life more difficult than it already was.

This was a different prophecy than my “destroy worlds” one that stated that the faery king, namely
him
, would one day marry the half-demon princess, namely
me.

Since faeries hated demons, he hadn’t been happy to hear this. Neither was I. Not only wasn’t I interested in him like that, we were both sixteen years old. I wasn’t marrying anyone for a very long time. Period.

My mother had been married four times. That example alone was enough to turn me off the prospect of saying “I do” in the foreseeable future.

Besides, I was seeing someone else. Sort of. I had a complicated and completely forbidden relationship with Michael, a guy I also hadn’t seen since before Christmas. But, for me, the difference between Michael and Rhys was a big one. Just the thought of Michael made me miss him desperately and wish he was here.

Michael was a Shadow, a servant to demonkind. My personal servant, to be exact, assigned to me by my father for protection and guidance. Of course, Michael was also completely gorgeous and I fell for him before I learned such feelings were forbidden. Let’s just say, demons have a lot of stupid rules and interspecies dating was a big no-no with some nasty penalties if anyone found out. But just because we couldn’t be together officially didn’t mean we couldn’t be together unofficially.