Page 2 of Grabbed By the Guard

“The travel spell is primed,” he announces, and I glance down at myself, already noticing the golden runes beginning to hover over my deep red forearm. “Shall I come with you?”

If it was Sammael asking, yes. For centuries, Sammael served as Duke Haures’s head mage while I led the guard. We often went to the human world together whenever the duke had cause to send us. Sammael would open the portal, and if I needed him to conjure the enchanted chains that marked a demon as the duke’s prisoner, he was there to do so. If not, he waited back in Sombra to trigger the transport spell that would return me home.

But though I leave this eve on the pretense of checking on Dagon and his human mate, Duke Haures did not order me to go. If he did, it would be Loki—Sammael’s student, and the former rogue who joined me when I had to take Sammael himself into custody—that was responsible for the chains.

Loki is in Nuit. His human mate is carrying his spawn, and he only leaves her side when the duke commands him to.

The duke didn’t command him. In fact, the duke has no idea that I’m taking this trip—though the moment that I do, he will sense it.

In Sombra, Duke Haures can sense everything.

I only hope that I can explain myself. That I go in search of my mate, and if I happen to retrieve the grimoire for his grace in the meantime…

It is a flimsy excuse. Duke Haures made an example of Sammael, putting him in chains after he stole the Grimoire du Sombra for himself. Demons aren’t supposed to meddle in human magic, but all I see is a male who took the chance and who, after his mate went to great lengths to convince Duke Haures to release him from the dungeons, is now happily bonded to her.

There is nothing I won’t do to finally have a mate of my own. For all the centuries of service I’ve offered the duke, he must understand that.

But that doesn’t mean that I will drag Morgath into my desperate madness.

“No. Once the portal is open, leave a path for me to return. That’s all I need of you.”

“Of course, sir.”

I clap him on the shoulder. “Thank you.”

Morgath looks startled. “Um, well. Yes. You’re welcome, sir.”

I decide to not comment on his discomfort. Instead, I nod and back away, waiting for the shadows to gather and create the portal for me to jump through.

I know my reputation. I’ve earned it. I’ve been loyal to Duke Haures since I came to serve under him, and that loyalty has a price. He took the throne and the crown from our previous ruler two millennia ago, back in the time before I existed, but there have been more than a couple of uprisings in the centuries since I trained as a soldier.

I’ve squashed them. I’ve devoted my entire existence to serving the duke, but it’s time that I once again look toward the endless centuries in front of me.

I am alone. I am lonely. Though many other demons wait just as long as I have to find their one true mate—or even give up the hunt, settling on any demoness who will have his essence—I’ve only grown more and more determined of late to have mine.

With every human-demon mating that the duke has sent me to warn, I’ve begun to suspect that, when Lucian said my mate would be found off-plane, he didn’t mean in another demon world. He meant Earth, and that’s where I am going now.

Heading through the shadows, letting the travel spell guide me toward the essence of Dagon—the last Sombra demon who would know where to find the Grimoire du Sombra—until I’m standing on the odd slick flooring that tells me I’m inside one of those oversized human dwellings.

Two things happen at once: I immediately shift from my solid demon form to my shadows, and I gasp when a sudden realization hits me at the same time as my heart thuds and my cock… for the first time in a long time… my cock starts to harden beneath my shadows.

I came to the human realm in search of Dagon and information on the spellbook.

I came for the book itself—and, instead, my body comes alive as I recognize that the one I’ve hoped for… the one I’ve longed for… she is here.

As my cock continues to stir, my claws curling so that the points disappear past the edge of my shadows, finding meat there to pierce beneath it… as my breath catches and the shadows in front of me are aglow with green as my eyes blaze… as I feel drawn out of my hiding place, an invisible tether tugging me forward even as I dig in my heels… I am stunned that I could ever mistake my attraction to another female as the beginning of a mate bond.

All I have is the echo of my mate’s essence and her scent on the still air, and that’s enough. I would kill for this mortal. Immortal as I am, I would die if she asked it of me.

I would do anything… anything but release her from this fated tie that I never expected to be as powerful… as all consuming… as it suddenly is.

I’ve wondered what it was about these human females that made decent and honorable demons seem to lose their minds. Why Malphas was willing to take chains to protect his odd creature, or why Nox did take them for many, many cycles. How a colorless, fangless, fragile female was strong enough to turn a rogue demon into a mage again, restoring the purple to his gaze and the sanity to his essence.

And Sammael… educated, learned, powerful Sammael… who spent cycles as a phantom rather than release the sliver of a bond that kept him tethered to a human female he could see but not touch until he found a way around the human’s magic…

In a flash, I understand it all. I understand the lengths they have all gone to to claim their mates, and why Duke Haures would go to war with any plane that might even hint at taking offense to a former mortal being Sombra’s duchess.

I would do all that and more for a female I have not yet set eyes on.

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