Page 42 of Drawn to the Demon Duke
Susanna tilts her head back, looking up at me as I peer lovingly down on her. “Haures? What… what are you doing?”
“Me? I am making my vow to you, my duchess. The gods will hold me to it, but the don’t need to. When I give you my mating promise, it’s because I mean it with every inch of my battered, scarred, beastly body. Understand me, mortal?”
She makes a strange human noise, different from the sob. It is… I reach into our bond, searching for the human word. Ah. Shehiccups, and I smile around my tusks.
Susanna returns it, her dim eyes growing shiny with wet. Lifting my hand, leaving her two nestled in my other, I swipe the wet away gently with the edge of my claw.
She leans into my caress.
My heart swelling inside of my chest, I continue the mate’s vow that will make it so that I never can promise myself to another. What other? I will only ever want this female… “I give myself to you, Su. I give youeverything.”
“Ditto.”
In human, that means she accepts my mate’s promise—and she reciprocates it.
Susannah ismine… and I will prove it to the both of us once the gold moon is over.
CHAPTER 14
MINE
HAURES
Three days later, I have cleared the castle of all soldiers. Dagon is traveling to Caol to report to the clan that he will no longer hunt for their village now that he is Susann’s personal guard. Castle staff have been warned to return to their quarters so that, tonight, is for their lord and his mate alone.
As I lead Susanna out to the scene I’ve prepared in the garden while she was curled up in the royal library earlier, I nod to see that it is also as empty as the rest of the palace had appeared.
“If anyone interrupts us this eve,” I vow even so, “they will suffer the same fate as Bandu.”
And Tropp, I think, though I don’t add it. I never want Susanna to see my vengeance and mistake it for cruelty. I am ruthless, yes, and when it comes to my mate, anyone who even thinks to harm her will always perish.
Still unfamiliar with how she can access my every want, my every thought, my every memory by using our bond, she has no idea what’s passed through my mind. Perfectly aware of what Ihave planned now that the gold moon has finally waned, my Su is in a cheerful mood.
Though, of course, that could’ve been because I propped her up on the library seat,kissing her cunt repeatedly after I found her in the library. I have been doing so for days. I could not claim her with my cock, but my tongue and my fingers… she has denied me no intimate touch. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if her ‘ditto’ did not fulfill her mating vow, and if the gods were punishing us with the mating sickness until she did so, but that wasn’t so. My Susanna is eager for her male’s touch. She even searches it out, no fever necessary.
I have an ulterior motive, of course. Unlike other demons in Sombra, I do not have shadows. Therefore, I cannot change my shape. The cock that I have is what I must use on my wee mortal mate, and I haven’t forgotten the look of surprise that crossed her beautiful face when she implored me to undress in front of her and share a steaming tub with her the first night I had her moved into my—our—quarters.
She tried wrapping her hands around it, making another strange human sound when it was a struggle for her to do so. And while Su has tiny hands, I am concerned that that means she also has a shallow cunt.
I will give her what I can. Anything to finalize our bond and claim my mate. Still, I want to make it pleasurable for her like any demon male would. So, learning how her body responds to her male, I’vekissed her cunt, I’ve bitten of my claws and dipped my fingers inside her much cooler body, nearly spilling seed in my trousers when I imagined how it would feel when her slick, tight little body took as much of me as she can manage.
Which, should she welcome me tonight, will happen beneath the pale blue moon overhead...
So while I’m already imagining laying her out in the pile of bedding that they use out in the smaller villages, Susanna laughsas she thinks of me eliminating my demons all because they might interrupt our mating night.
She bumps her shoulder against my side, brushing up against the scars that I no longer see as a sign of weakness. Not when Susanna strokes them absently after we pleasure each other, telling me that she thinks it’s ‘hot’ that I survived an arkoda without any help.
Of course it is ‘hot’. The challenge between the arkoda and I happened near the firepits of Sombra, after all.
Ah, Su… my mate thinks me romantic.
Tugging her close, pressing my mouth against hers, I rumble softly and admit, “For you, I try.”
Her gaze lands on the nest. “I see. I… I guess that’s where we’re going to do this?”
I reach out, settling my palm on her shoulder. Her skin is so soft and warm and utterlyhuman. It’s nothing like mine. I’m made of calloused palms, corded strength, a brutal body, all horns and claw. I’ve killed for this female. If I had to end my existence for her, I would.
Without Susanna, there wouldbeno existence left for Haures.
