Page 23 of Drawn to the Demon Duke
I should just cut my losses and go. I saved him, so I did my good deed for the day and can move on with a clear conscience. There’s no reason to entertain this… but that doesn’t stop me.
Now, do I expect him to know that I’m a human? Not really. Haures said I was the only one in his lifetime, and the way this red-eyed demon seems appalled by my appearance, we can’t have been common even before Haures was in charge.
Still.
Tilting my head back so that I can meet his confused stare, I start by saying, “I’m not a demoness?—”
“She is human.” The male voice explodes around us like thunder, crackling like lightning. “At long last.”
I spin around. Crouching into a defensive stance as though he didn’t just get his butt kicked by that arkoda, the demon backs up against me as though he’s determined to protect me.
That might’ve been his next mistake. It made him a target when, if he’d just taken off into the shadows like that beast did, I would’ve been the only one left to face…
No one.
“Who are you?” I pause, then swivel, searching for who could’ve said that. I’ve gotten so much better, seeing in the shadows, and there’s the demon I saved from that bear thing—thatarkoda—and too many tiny white pinpricks belonging to other teeny tiny shadow creatures that remind me of goblins… no,gremlins… but a man with a voice that sounds like Darth Vader should be easy to find.
He’s not.
“Where are you?” I demand instead.
“I am Yelios. King of Sombra. And I am everywhere, dear mortal.”
Ignoring how impossible it is for him to beeverywhere—or how slimy it feels to have him call me a ‘dear mortal’—I focus on something else that stands out to me.
King? But I thought… “
His laugh develops a cruel, sardonic edge. “A shadowless spawn has stolen my crystal crown. I do not care about that. All I want is my mate.”
A shiver runs down my spine.
No. I… I read about him. King Yelios, and his mate. Queen Alana. A bonded pair from ages ago who ruled Sombra together during the time of the wars between this realm and one of the neighboring demon worlds.
But she did. Like, forever ago, she died in one of the campaigns. And because not even death can sever a bond—even if the ashbalm flower is supposed to—Yelios followed her into…
Crud.
The shadows.
He followed her into the shadows, hoping to be with his queen together in the Sombran version of an afterlife.
Well, if I can believe that this disembodied voice is who he says he is, then it looks like he hid out in the woods after his queen perished. Fine. Good. He can stay here because, like he pointed out, I’m just a human. I can’t help him with his mate, right?
I don’t know where he is so, with as subtle a gesture to the demon to follow me as I can make, I start to edge away from the clearing we’re in.
I made it about five steps before I slam up against an invisible wall that reminds me of the one that kept Sammael trapped inside of the protective circle in my living room.
My nose smarts. So do my knees. It was the same as walking face-first into a solid glass door with no give to it at all.
I stumble back.
“There,” he purrs, “now you understand that we will have this conversation, human, whether you want to make a deal with a demon or not.”
Most decidedly, the answer isnot. “Why me?” I ask.
“Because you belong to the usurper. I can sense the bond tying you together. He was a fool to let you wander in my realm, little mortal.”
Usurper… Haures?
