HORDE: Annunciation [Slowburn Gothic Romance]

In an act of desperation, the historian Aurora Payne sold her soul. Now, the Devil has collected his due. But Aurora soon finds that the real Hell is hardly anything like its theological descriptions. Hell is not just a jail for sinners, it’s a prison for the most destructive entity in the universe: the Horde. An ancient deity akin to a black hole, the Horde is the mother of all demons and nightmares. The Celestials constructed Hell over 8,000 years ago to be Its jail and have sent the humans there to be Its food. Forced into this cosmic order that treats humans as livestock, Aurora must compromise her morals in order to survive. But the deeper she ventures within Hell's system, the more she realizes that nothing truly is quite what it seems. Not the demons. Not the Devil. Not her even own memories, nor the choices she once believed were hers to make. For in Hell, one owns nothing, and one is also, perpetually, owned. Annunciation, Book 1 of the HORDE series, follows Aurora's descent into this infernal court of monstrous demons who all want a piece of her, and a Devil who's just realized he wants her most of all. Will Aurora be able to keep her soul intact? NOTE: The original script had sex scenes. These have been taken out for RR posting. This is a censored/faded version, with links to find explicit content elsewhere. That being said, what remains on RR is still quite steamy. You're forewarned. New episodes uploaded Tuesdays and Thursdays  HORDE was written in advance to serializing here and is registered with the US Copyright Office ; Book 1 is ~200K words and will be uploaded in its entirety by March 2027 ; Book 2 will soon follow. I only post on RR and Wattpad (and now NovelDay) under TheHordeWorks, and on Patreon as "Horde by A.E. Payne". If you find my work anywhere else, it was not posted by me. Please do let me know.  Read 15-30 episodes ahead on Patreon (with extra scenes, lore documents, and historical blog posts) & to help an eldritch horror eat. Link in bio.