She hunts for her father's approval, but the prey she captures may very well be her own soul.
In Demonic Reign, author and illustrator Devorah Leah Barrocas draws readers into a brutal sapphic dark fantasy inspired by Kabbalistic mystical lore, where demonic kingdoms rise on blood, betrayal, and power. Complete with original illustrations, this is a story of ruthless ambition, forbidden truths, and the devastating cost of discovering who you really are.
Once upon a time, a demon king took a human woman.
From that bloodline, Nyx was born.
Nyx is the daughter of Ashmedai, one of the demon kings, raised in a world where power is currency and weakness is a death sentence. To survive his brutal regime, she did as she was told and became a ruthless assassin, chasing the one thing that has always eluded her: her father's approval.
Her greatest advantage is Wisp, a winged, chameleon-like soul creature who can vanish into thin air and speak directly into her mind. Soul creatures don't bond with demons. They never have. But Nyx is not entirely demon, and that human thread running through her blood tipped the scales. Through Wisp, she inherits the gift of invisibility, a power that makes her one of the most dangerous hunters in the realm, and gives her an edge no other demon can claim.
But edges dull, and Nyx is about to discover how quickly.
To earn her father's recognition, Nyx enters the Shadow Syndicate trials, an elite competition reserved for bounty hunters bound to soul creatures, and the proving ground she has spent her entire life preparing for. But surviving the trials demands more than skill. It requires ruthless strategy, and the resolve to keep moving when betrayal comes, because it always does.
Then Nyx meets Elysia.
A single encounter with the mysterious woman pulls Nyx into something far larger than any trial she ever faced. What begins as a chance encounter unravels into forbidden truths that cannot be unlearned, and revelations that shake the foundation of everything Nyx thought she understood. The origins of the world. The nature of Samael and Lilith, beings she had always believed were gods, now something far more complicated. And Nyx herself, her past, her bloodline, her purpose, pulled into a fate far larger than the life she has spent every breath trying to survive.
For the first time, Nyx begins to question everything she has ever killed for. And as loyalties fracture and secrets surface, she is forced to ask how far she will go, for power, for survival, for the validation she has spent her entire life chasing.
