Do. Not. Fuck. The. Godling.
Once Upon a Demon's Heart
K.M. Moronova
Cruel Fates, book one
Audiobook, ~8 hours
ebook, 251 pages
Published July 31, 2025
ASIN B0FB9QBY7K
This is no fairytale—It’s yearning and guilt of two burdened hearts that will leave readers breathless.
Alira, a devoted demigod knight, has found herself trapped in the throes of a brutal curse. A time loop in which the demon kingdom’s Blood Knight kills her every time. She is haunted by the attack she led on the innocent village of Thornhall, and her guilt consumes her from the inside out. After the twentieth time loop, she has finally had enough. Something has to change, lest she die at the Blood Knight’s hand for the rest of time. A choice she hopes she won’t regret—one to end the war between demigods and demons. Alira is shocked when she realizes that she’s marrying the very knight who has slain her so many times.
A daughter of Venus and a duke of demons. Their love is both cursed and destined—a marriage to save the fragility of their kingdoms.
Kalel is as cruel as they come. A devourer who survives on the gilded blood of demigods. He wants to hate her as much as he did when Thornhall fell, but he finds himself warring with his heart over his emotions for her. Together, they unravel the truths of Faultore, that perhaps not everything is as it seems. The gods may be pulling more strings than they should.
It’s not a question of what love can conquer; it is a matter of what they are prepared to demolish in the path of it.
I began the audiobook of this tale while out suffering manual labor in the garden, quite unfamiliar with the work of Theodore Zephyr.
Unfamiliar, yes, and also ill prepared for that perfectly pitched demon growl of a voice.
Breathless. Speechless. Both narrators were excellent.
Alira is a demigod knight that is caught in a time loop where she is fated to die at the sword of the demon Blood Knight. Eventually, she makes the decision to abandon her people. There's no future for her anyway.
And so, she returns to a grove where, years ago, she met a demon child. She did not know him long. He seemed to die that very day.
There she again meets a demon. Kalel. An apothecary.
And she comes away with a new plan. To assauge her guilt. To end the unceasing wars. To hopefully break the loop. She offers herself as a sacrifice in a treaty that would see her wed to a demon. As a daughter of Venus, she would be coveted by her enemy. To kill her. To torture her. To breed her.
The offer is accepted and her would-be husband comes to collect.
And what he finds is a knight in ebony armor. The same knight responsible for his mother's death, and the deaths of so many more of his kind.
He hates her.
But what they come to discover is that he was the boy. And she was that half-god girl.
The only one he would spare in his quest for vengeance.
The same one he would see cursed to repetitiously kill.
4.5 out of 5 stars. I need another hundred pages!
Available in ebook | hardcover | paperback | audiobook
Next in the series:
2026/19