Page 42 of Grabbed By the Guard

“It’s not,” I assure her. “Mates… we’re meant to know everything about each other. That way there’s no doubt that we’ve chosen the right partner. You are my mate, Billie, and you deserve my essence. That, like everything I have, belongs to you.”

My heart is in your hands…

“I get that,” she says, and while her essence tells me that she does, there is still much I don’t know about my mate. She seems… upset that I left her with Lilith. Not because I left her, but because the other female was there.

Maybe it was not as easy a question as I thought.

“I hope you didn’t mind that I had to leave to speak with Apollyon,” I begin. I wave toward the door. “I didn’t go far.” I cannot unless I want to burn. “I was right there. I hope… I hope Lilith was kind to you.”

Billie snorts. “You know her better than me. Why wouldn’t she be kind?”

“Was she?”

“Yeah. She was nice. Offered to get me a couple of dresses if I’ll be staying with your for a while?—”

I shouldn’t be jealous of Lilith. She has a mate, and I know that she is only acting as the clanmother, welcoming Billie to Nuit. But I am Billie’s male. If she needs new coverings, I will provide them. Now that I can access my shadows, I can clothe her in them if need be; soldiers often weave entire uniforms out of their shadows when they won’t be in their solid form for long so I have the skill. If not, I can get them for my mortal.

“Whatever you need, ask me. I will make sure you have it.”

I mean it earnestly. I’ve made my mistakes. Our mating… I started it wrong. I accept that. Apollyon’s message from Duke Haures doesn’t change anything. I brought Billie to Nuit so that we could find a mage I trusted to remove the chains. I had every intention of asking Loki for a travel spell. If the doppelseers concealed us on our journey, they could do the same if I followed Billie to the human realm to woo her there.

I can’t do that now. Duke Haures will be watching the pathways, and if I leave, I will be dragged back in chains. And because of his first law and the fact that Billie has my essence but we are not bonded, he won’t stand to let her go, either.

I’ve gotten exactly what I wanted, and I feel terrible for it.

The sensation only grows when Billie says, “Ask you? Okay. Flat out, then. Are you in love with Lilith?”

I lift my hands, laying my claws over my chest. “I love you, my mortal.”

She makes that scoffing sound again. “My fault for giving you the opportunity… let me try again. Were you in love with Lilith?”

I love my mate. That is what Sombra demon males are born to do. Did I believe myself to love Lilith?

My mate will appreciate my honesty. As though I have any other choice. I will never lie to Billie, even if she doesn’t like what my answers are, and I sense that—no matter how she acts as though we are not mates, even after she let me taste her cunt and touch her to ward off the mate sickness—she will not like it when I say, “When I believed Lilith was meant to be my mate, yes. I loved her. But she is not, and while I am still fond of her, I do not love her now.”

CHAPTER 16

TRAPPED AGAIN

BILLIE

Well, I asked, didn’t I?

Worse, when I don’t respond to his confession, Glaine launches into an explanation revolving his history with Lilith. How, on a campaign to a neighboring demon plan called Soleil, he met Lilith. He was drawn to her, and she was tired of living in the female-heavy demoness realm, so when he offered to bring her to Sombra and allow him to prove he could be a worthy mate, she agreed.

Offered, I notice. Not stole. Offered.

He offered her the chance to choose him, too. But Lilith, shortly after settling into Nuit with him, met Apollyon and the rest is history. Like me, she was careful to keep Glaine at arms-length. In her case, she knew she wasn’t his mate. In mine, I’m worried that I am, and that no matter what, his Fate will trump my human free will.

And I’m terrified that I’ll let it.

The jealousy doesn’t help. The earnestness in his tone makes any doubt he might be making this all up disappear, and I have to admit that I think I suspected as much. From the jolt that hit him when he first realized Lilith was on the porch all the way back to comments he made, plus the way the doppelseers told him his prophecy still stands as though he’d had reason to doubt it…

Lucian had a vision that boils down to Glaine finding his mate off-plane and her denying him. I just thought he was referring to me because, well, obviously. But the way he is so determined to make me his mate and for me to accept him instead of refusing him… I should’ve guessed he had trauma.

Moving a demoness from another world to his home, so certain that she must be his one true mate only for her to basically give him the ‘I just see you as a friend’ speech before marrying his friend? Yup. Trauma.

Now, does that mean it was fair of him to take it out on me? At least, with Lilith, he asked her to move to Sombra with him and, for whatever reason she had at the time, she agreed. She clearly knew he wasn’t her fated mate. She didn’t give her essence to him or take his in return; I know that instinctively as the belief pops in my head, just like Glaine’s essence informs me that demons only have one chance to create a bond. So even if he wasn’t absolutely sure I’m his, now that I have his essence, if I tell him to kick rocks, I’m basically resigning him to a lonely existence.

---