Nevermore a dark rocksta.., p.1
Nevermore: A Dark Rockstar Reverse Harem Romance, page 1
NEVERMORE
A DARK ROCKSTAR REVERSE HAREM ROMANCE
A. K. GRAVES
Nevermore
Copyright © 2024 by A. K. Graves All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
No part of this book may be used to create, feed, or refine artificial intelligence models, for any purpose, without written permission from the author.
This book is a piece of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment.
This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own individual copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Edited by Epitaph Publishing
Cover Art by Stella Nova of Stellar Graphics
Published by A. K. Graves, 2024
To PSUEC1
For the about five years, you were the only one who knew Leo and her boys existed.
You were the first one to read their story, the first one to love it, and while you got to see me prep to release Nevermore to the masses, you didn’t get to read the final version.
And I wish you could have.
It’s weird to think that Leonor officially entered this world just over two months after you left it, and I keep forgetting I won’t get to tell you about it because you aren’t coming back.
Things might not have always been easy, they were definitely complicated and sometimes it was fucking hard, but at the end of the day we loved each other.
You don’t get to experience that with everyone, that unconditional kind of love that went through all the bullshit and was still standing at the end of every day, but I did, that’s what made you a good mom.
And I’m really glad you were mine.
Thank you for believing in me enough to make sure Leo’s story was told.
Love you to pieces, Ma.
Always,
Your Pinky Lee
11.18.1960 - 05.03.2024
CONTENTS
Author Note
Trigger & Content Warning
Leonor
1. Leonor
2. Leonor
3. Leonor
4. Leonor
5. Lucky
6. Leonor
7. Lucky
8. Leonor
9. Leonor
10. Lucky
11. Leonor
12. Leonor
13. Leonor
14. Lucky
15. Leonor
16. Pete
17. Leonor
18. Mark
19. Norm
20. Lucky
21. Lucky
22. Lucky
23. Norm
24. Mark
25. Leonor
26. Leonor
27. Leonor
28. Mark
29. Three Years Ago
30. Pete
31. Leonor
32. Lucky
33. Norm
34. Leonor
35. Mark
36. Leonor
37. Mark
38. Pete
39. Lucky
Also by A. K. Graves
About the Author
AUTHOR NOTE
This book… my god, is it special to me, more than I can properly express but I feel like I need to make sure anyone who reads these pages knows that Nevermore IS a dark romance. It’s on the cover, it’s in the vibe, but aside from sharing and reliving aspects of an incredibly traumatic past event as well as an inconvenient blast from said past, one could question that. I’m asking you to hang it there, to let these five beautiful souls reconnect and begin to heal the way they needed to, to finally fall in the love the way they deserved all along. Because as soon as things start feeling a little too perfect, I promise, I went in there and royally fucked it all up.
Make sure you READ THE TRIGGERS, Chapter 36 is a doozie and I don’t want anyone walking in blind. I’m not in the business of hurting my readers in any way. I want you pissed and throwing your kindles, or maybe shedding a few tears, but I don’t want you reliving your own trauma or creating new because of something I wrote. Mental health is important and I love you too much to let yours take a hit.
That being said, check the content warning. The dark shit is sprinkled throughout the first thirty chapters or so and when that same shit hits the fan, it definitely hits. So check the CW and make sure you’re good with everything Leo and her boys go through.
Thanks for taking a chance on the very first story I ever wrote (long before the other books that were published first lol), and I hope you love these characters as much as I do.
TRIGGER & CONTENT WARNING
Nevermore is a dark contemporary rockstar reverse harem polyamorous romance that deals with darker themes including but not limited to the following:
*On Page*
Attempted Suicide
Suicidal Ideation
Mental Illness/Mental Health Struggles
PTSD/PTSD Responses
Medical Complications/Chronic Illness
Grief/Loss of a Parent
Pregnancy/Fertility Issues
Sexual Assault
Stalking
Graphic Violence
Blood and Gore
Attempted Murder
Murder
Desecration of a Corpse
Animal Cruelty/Graphic death of an animal
Graphic Sex Scenes
Foul Language
*Mentions*
Drug Abuse
Domestic Abuse
Physical Abuse
Child Abuse
Sex Work
Kidnapping
*Sexual Content*
MM within Harem
Polyamory/Group Scenes
Graphic Sex Scenes
DVP
DP
Triple Penetration
Anal Penetration
Pierced Parts
Cum Play
Breath Play
Impact Play
Bondage
Praise
Dom/Sub Vibes
If you find any of these or other dark topics disturbing, this book may not be for you.
Please contact the author at authorakgraves@akgraveswrites.com if needed.
LEONOR
TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO
Living in New Orleans, I should be used to ghosts.
They’re everywhere; they’re in everything.
Every crack of broken cement, every crumbling brick and rotting plank of wood.
The spirits whisper in your ear as they watch your every move, they run icy fingers down your spine to make sure they will never be forgotten.
The ghosts who haunt every inch of this city, who roam between life and death, they are everywhere.
And they can’t be stopped.
Cemeteries might house the dead, but they can’t contain whatever it is they leave behind.
Broken spirits and shattered souls, bleeding hearts left to wither. Those things leave a mark—a stain on the mortal realm, and with it comes a haunting so tragic it will surely leave those involved wandering aimlessly for the rest of time.
Unless you join them.
A crack of lightning outside my window has me flinching, and I’m curling into a tiny little ball in the middle of my living room floor. My knees are tight to my chest, my trembling hands gripping them until my knuckles turn white.
The room is spinning, the lightning flashing like a strobe well after it stops, ricocheting off the ghosts who haunt me, the ones begging me to return to them once again.
Each corner glows, illuminated by the fires of my own personal hell, the demons and devils snickering amongst their tools of torture while the spirits call to me.
The spirits sing to me.
Sweet promises, gentle pleas.
They hold out their frozen hands, opening cold arms to me, their soothing words ringing in my ears.
But it’s all lies.
They can’t save me, they never could.
I wouldn’t be here if they could have saved me.
I’d be at peace; I’d be with the music.
Another blast of lightning pierces the sky, my entire apartment lighting up, and putting my demons on full display.
I just want it to stop. I want all of it to go away.
I want him to go away.
He’s all I see when I close my eyes, he’s all I can smell, all I can feel.
His hands on my body, his breath in my face.
My stomach rolls at the thought, at the memory trying to break free from the vault where it’s locked away.
Where it needs to stay.
They said I might never get those memories back, that I might never remember that night clearly. Not the show, not my… I probably won’t remember anything after what happened, but they were wrong.
I remember enough.
I remember too much.
And no matter what I do, I can’t make those glimpses of my hell go away.
It follows me everywhere, just like the ghosts.
They won’t leave me alone.
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter as the storm rages outside my window, desperately trying to make me see.
“See me, Leonor! See me!”
With a wretch, I roll to my hands and knees, heaving as I crawl away from his words. Words that live inside my head, words that live on every inch of my body.
“You will see me, Leonor!”
The room tilts as I drag myself along the floor, grasping and clawing at the wood so I don’t fall off the edge. The edge I’ve been teetering on for months. The edge I can’t jump off of fast enough.
Tears stream down my face as bile rises in my throat, his voice so clear as it echoes in my head.
See me.
See me.
See me.
“Please stop,” I whisper while I fumble through my living room. “Please…”
You will see me.
You will see me.
A scream tears from my throat as I bump into something, the sound of cymbals and metal resounding throughout the entire space. And that one action, that one misstep is enough to set a chain of horrible events in motion.
I flip onto my back then go upright, scooting on my ass as I watch the high-hat crash into the snare, the drum banging into the guitar stand before it bounces off the floor. It rolls toward me then, slowly taunting as it comes for me, the vintage electric wobbling back and forth before it becomes a casualty too. The neck breaks as it hits the piano bench, splitting into two pieces held together by its strings and when the lid slams on the baby grand, the keys cry out in pain.
See me.
I cover my ears at the sound, the bellowing instruments, the booming thunder. His voice that’s still screaming in my head.
“Stop,” I say to no one as I scramble backward, covering my ears, my eyes shut tight as the tears keep coming. “Stop, please.”
But it doesn’t.
Nothing stops except the destruction of their tools, the tools I once used and loved, the tools that will forever haunt me.
They belong to the devil now, and if I ever want to find peace, I have to join them.
I force my hands away from my head, force my eyes open as I plant them firmly on the floor. Pushing myself to my feet, I blink away the tears, but with every flash of lightning, I falter. In every flash of lightning, I see his eyes.
See me, Leonor.
Staggering toward the island in my kitchen, my stomach pitches and bottoms out, twisting in pain and fear as those eyes get closer.
You will see me!
“Stop!” I cry out as I fall back onto the counter, my head hitting the marble hard enough for spots to dance across my vision.
And that’s when I feel it, feel them.
His hands on my body.
Sliding down my neck and across my chest.
His palm on my breast then my stomach.
His fingers trail over my sides and my hips before I feel them along the top of my jeans, and no matter how hard I cry, no matter how loud I scream… I feel him inside me.
“No!” I pull myself over the edge of the island, knocking my backpack on the floor as I land next to it on my back with a thud.
Everything is spinning now, spiraling out of control.
The ghosts are so much louder, and my head lolls toward them as I silently beg them to take me away.
But instead of the dimming light or the cold, black void, I see him. I see his eyes staring back at me, shining in malice, glimmering in rage-filled glee.
You will see me.
See me.
I reach out to touch his face, to find it in the cloaked darkness I can never escape. I’m ready to accept my fate and allow him and the demons to take me away, but my hand goes through his eyes and land on something small and round.
A pill.
Tearing my gaze from his, I look to my right and see that there are pills everywhere, my prescriptions we just picked up spread all over the kitchen floor, and I know this is what the ghosts were saying.
The spirits want me to join them, and this is how.
Rolling to my side, I begin scooping up the dozens of pills off the wooden planks. Mood stabilizers and antidepressants, opiates and benzodiazepines. All life changing, life saving, but not tonight. There are at least ten prescriptions dumped out and within my reach, and I know exactly what I need to do.
Handful after handful, I eat my way to freedom, swallowing the circles and ovals dry, forcing them down my throat even when I gag.
My muscles work hard against the coating, but they do what they’re supposed to and within seconds, I’ve taken everything that was within my reach.
I start to go numb as I flop to my back, my breaths quick and shallow as I stare up at the ceiling while my pulse slows like a broken metronome. My vision blurs around the edges, growing dimmer by the second as I realize…
His voice, his touch, his eyes, they’re all gone.
A faint smile pulls at my lips as my lids grow heavy, as my body grows cold and I think, I won't be seeing him ever again.
I will see him, nevermore.
1
LEONOR
PRESENT DAY
My brows furrow and my eyes pinch tight at the low buzzing of the phone on the table next to me. It’s a rhythmic reminder, a constant humming in my head that despite my many attempts, I am in fact, still here. Alive and breathing. Existing. I have failed to disappear, and no one is going to let me be forgotten, not completely. And that is fucking annoying.
So is the fact that my phone has been ringing nonstop for almost two hours now. Two hours and eleven seconds based on my count, with no end in sight.
I know this because I don’t sleep anymore, not in the traditional sense, and the slightest noise will have me jolting upright faster than the speed of light.
On a good night, I may drift into a sleep-like state for an hour or two before my fear rips me from a faux slumber and the weight of my reality returns, taking its rightful place sitting heavily on my chest. A fucking elephant that won’t leave me alone.
And today, like most days, that reality comes crashing down on me in the form of repeated phone calls from the only person left to make the effort to contact me.
Without even looking I know who’s been calling, and I know exactly why they’ve been blowing my ass up, too.
“Justine, do you have any idea what time it is?” The questions spill from my lips in the low, gruff growl that has become my normal speaking voice because I use it so little. At least I’m not grunting one-word responses anymore.
“Yes. Which is why I’ve been calling you over and over all morning. You were supposed to be at work almost forty-five minutes ago.” Her melodic voice rises at the end of her sentence before it drops a few octaves down into stern. “You have one shot at this. One. I know it’s scary, I know it’s hard but if you don’t start taking control of your life and taking things seriously, you are going to stay stagnant in your misery and grief. Both of which are completely self-imposed and could be quickly remedied. You have to start taking care of yourself. You have to start doing everyday things like normal people, you can’t…”
I set the phone back down on the nightstand and scrub my hands over my face.
It is way too early for this shit.
With a sigh, I attempt to pull myself from my coffin-like bed, the mildly comforting warmth and peaceful reprieve created by the cocoon of my pillows and blankets begging me to sink back in, to crawl inside and hide, to never come out again.
Unfortunately, fate—and Justine—have other plans. Ones that start early as hell.
It’s almost eight o’clock.
I know the sun is shining, birds are most likely singing, there may even be a slight summer breeze carrying the smell of fresh baked goods and cut grass right outside my window. The only reason I know this is because my iPhone reads Thursday August 9th, 7:56 a.m. and nothing more.
