Page 30 of Drawn to the Demon Duke
He vowed it. There is no breaking a vow in Sombra, and every demon in our realm knows it.
I smile around my tusks. “Very well.” Another gesture toward Sammael who, by now, has finished conjuring another length of charmed chain. “Then off to the dungeons with you, Dagon of Caol.”
CHAPTER 10
IN THE GARDEN
SUSANNA
So, as it turns out, the chains were for me.
Are you kidding?
I guess I should just be grateful that Haures didn’t go ahead and execute Dagon in front of me. I tell you, I would’ve been way off when it comes to judging someone’s character if he got that pissy green-eyed soldier guy to swing the sword. Haures is intimidating, a powerful rule, but if he’s my true love, he can’t be a bloodthirsty monster, right?
No. He’s supposed to be my goblin king. Or, rather, my demon duke. He can be cocky. So damn sure of himself. Tempting, too, in a way that I never would’ve expected before I manifested him. Enigmatic, too, and definitely manipulative.
But a monster? Haures mightlooklike one, and I can’t forget that he’s tossed me to the dungeonstwicenow, but he… he can’t be a monster. He’s supposed to be my mate.
I mean, hey. He actually called me that before he… oh, yeah,tossed me to the dungeon.
I was really beginning to second-guess throwing the ashbalm flower at that bear thing. That arkoda. Whatever it was. All I can say for sure is that it would’ve gobbled Dagon up and I… I couldn’t let that happen. Just like I couldn’t let Haures pull a Queen of Hearts on the guy just because he had the bad luck to be in that dark forest the same time I was.
Then again, if I hadn’t been there, he would’ve been lunch so maybe I kind of get why he’s so insistent on this whole ‘life debt thing’ after all.
When Haures announced that Dagon was being sent to the dungeon, I felt bad, but at least he got to keep his head. And then Haures gestured for Sammael to put the chains onme. Because I was being returned to the dungeon, and that was that.
There was no need to put Dagon in chains, too. He’s already taking his vow—to me, and to Haures—super seriously. Wherever I go, he’ll be right there if the demon duke couldn’t, and since Haures only came down to retrieve me from the dungeons earlier today to feed me dinner, then send me out to get that flower, it’s not like he’s hanging with us.
To be fair, I should’ve expected this. A pity dinner and the offer to find the flower that would break our bond didn’t change anything; not even him referring to me as his mate did, either, I guess. I’m still destined for the dungeon until he can figure out what to do with me.
Unless it’s an oubliette, like inLabyrinth.
An oubliette… how did Hoggle describe it? A place to put people to forget about them? That sounds about right.
Sammael removed the chains once I was back in my cell again. Not so surprisingly, Dagon wasn’t allowed to join me, though Glaine did say that Haures gave the demon permission to watch over me for now.
I didn’t argue. Honestly? I didn’t have it in me to. I went from thinking ‘what-if’... what if Haures really is my true love… whatif I get to stay in a world of demons, living in a palace instead of the dungeon… what if he’s my Dan, and I get a family of my own like Mindy… but that all got dashed to pieces when I came back without the flower.
In a way, I thought that, without it, he’d have to finally admit that he’s as drawn to me as I am him. And maybe I’m unlike any of the demons in this world, and that probably means I’m not like their demon women, either, but if I could look past his strange appearance, maybe he could look past mine.
Or maybe I have to realize that this isn’t a fantasy movie where an immortal fae king falls for a silly human girl, willing to give up everything for her love. Maybe happy-ever-afters aren’t real, and I’m stuck in Sombra, trapped in a jail cell, and I’ll never hear Mindy’s ‘I told you so’ when she finds out just how much trouble that damn book got me into.
And that’s not even touching on how I had to promise that bodiless demon king my firstbornandsomething meaningful to me. At the time, I figured he couldn’t take anything other than my scrunchie or my legwarmers since everything else was back on Earth—and with Haures acting like he was too good to want to bang it out with a human woman—I didn’t have a firstborn in the cards.
But who said something meaningful meant an actualthing? What if it was the mate bond that Yelios decided to take captive until he got what he wanted?
Haures told me he was a bondmaster. What if all rulers of Sombra are? Could that creepy voice be powerful enough to take it from me? He nearly suffocated Dagon… I bet he could. It would be a calculated error, of course. Putting up a wall between me and the guy who is supposed to be my true love… not so sure how I’m supposed to get that firstborn he seems to want so badly if that’s the case, but I have no idea how to make sense of any of this.
In the beginning, I decided to go along with this because, well, it’s not like I had any other choice. Being chained up and dragged into another realm through a mystical portal after I read a true love spell… yup. For my own sanity, I decided to treat this like I was a heroine in one of my favorite portal fantasy films. That way, I was all but guaranteed my happy ending.
Only this isn’t a movie. It’s real life. I have a family who has no idea what happened to me on the other side of that portal, and a true love whose first act was to use his power as ruler of this demon world to friggin’ arrest me.
Some true love, huh?
Curling up on the bed, giving my back to the bars, I rub the heel of my hand against my chest. Is the bond there? It was. I know it was. True, Haures is so locked-down, I’ve only felt slivers of it here and there, but it was enough for me to know that he was right. That spell brought us together, and I only wish I wasn’t the only one to see that.
Dagon had a muttered argument with Glaine before the guard left us together down here. I tried to drown it out, but voices carry down here in the dungeon. Unless I clapped my hands over my ears, it would be impossible for me to miss the grumpy guard telling Dagon that the duke insists on the bars to keep his mate protected.
