Page 28 of Drawn to the Demon Duke
“No,” calls out Susanna. She jolts forward, dropping down next to Dagon. “You can’t hurt him, Haures. Please.”
Glaine’s green eyes find mine.
I gesture for him to hold.
“My mate wants me to show mercy,” I tell Dagon. “I want to know what happened in the shadows first. You say she saved you. Be honest, and she might save you again. What happened while she was in the shadows.”
“Your human… your mate,” grunts out Dagon, keeping his head against the floor, “saved me when an arkoda got the better of me. I would’ve been his prey if she hadn’t used fire and her shrill human noises to send him off?—”
Susanna frowns at Dagon. “I wouldn’t say I’mshrill…”
I’m not happy that the hunter is making my mate frown. At the same time, I think about that flash of danger coming through from her side of the bond. Was that when she was near anarkoda?
The arkoda doesn’t come that close to the edge of the shadows. The large shadow beast usually leaves farther into the darkness… unless it was hunting a hunter.
A hunter that nearly lost me my one true mate.
“You risked my female,” I growl. “Why should I spare your life? Susanna might have saved it, but I am your ruler. Tell me why I should allow you to return to Caol.”
Susanna’s frown develops a sharp edge as she glares up at me. “Because I didn’t go through the trouble of saving his behind only for you to chop off his head now, Haures. I had to use that damn flower to do it. Don’t make my trip into that scary forest worthless.”
My mate could ask me for anything and I would endeavor to give it to her if I can. She wants the hunter’s life—saving himagain—but it hits me at that moment what exactly she means.
She returned without the flower. She sacrificed it to save Dagon, as though his life was worth tethering hers to mine for all of eternity.
Does Susanna know that that’s what her gesture means? I don’t think so, and that adds another layer to my emotions.
“You could have been free of me.” I point at my human, swallowing my uncertain growl. “And still you returned without the flower?”
Does it matter that she used it to save Dagon from the arkoda? Or that, once the ashbalm flower’s flame flickers out, she wouldn’t be able to find another?
No.
Not to me.
And not to her, either.
Susanna’s dark eyes meet mine as she slowly pulls herself back to her feet. In their depths, I see calm. I see bravery.
I seedefiance.
Suddenly, my cock stirs beneath my linens. I want nothing more than to take it in hand, curving my fingers, myclawsaround it, drawing blood if only for a little release before I come in my hands.
No.
No.
I want nothing more than to see my mate without her human coverings, laying her out on the crystalline floor, using my body to replace the tight fabrics as I nuzzle her with my tusks, spread open her cunt, and feed my aching length into her chilly body.
Once we finalize our bond by mating, Susanna will become immortal and grow warmer, more used to the Sombran fire. Fornow, it’s a shock to my senses every time I dare brush against my mate, stealing her ice, and warming her with my heat.
But my Susanna is not my bonded mate. Not yet. And though I had to give her the choice to sever our tie, I know that I was right in understanding that I will never let her go when she tilts her pale face up at me and announces with a dare, “Who says I wanted to be free?”
In an instant, the rest of the throne room falls away. It’s just Susanna. Only Haures. Our bond singing between us, growing thicker, stronger, unbreakable… at last, I open up myself to my mortal. My human. If I had any essence to give, it would be hers. Instead, I allow her in, knowing that it was her fearlessness in the face of my fury that sealed it for me.
She. Is. Mine.
Just then, the world narrows, surrounding only us two. The prophecies, the centuries of loneliness, the endless waiting… all of it twists into something that I’ve longed for, but never believed I could attain.
