Page 16 of Grabbed By the Guard

And then Glaine goes on to say, “There is a reason I was in your apartment when I found you, Billie.”

Oh, really? I’ve got to hear this.

“There’s a book. The Grimoire du Sombra. It’s a spell book full of magic. Human magic. If a human reads the Verus Amor… the ‘true love’ spell… and they’re fated to be the mate to one of my kind, we are summoned. Manifested. I didn’t go to your world tonight because you summoned me, though if I had been more patient I’m sure you would have. I went to your world in search of the book.”

“Cool story, but we don’t have that book. Trust me. I live in our study when I’m home, and know all the books we have on the shelves. There’s no spell book.”

“There was,” insists Glaine. “And I know that because a Sombra demon was summoned to your quarters by that spell recently. It wasn’t the book that called me to your home. It was his essence. His, and that of the female who is his mate.”

Okay. This isn’t funny anymore. “Forget it.”

He doesn’t.

“I believe the demon who was summoned to your quarters is the mate to your kin.” He scrunches his face. “Sierra.”

He’s gone too far, now.

“How do you know about Sierra?” I demand.

Any hint of arrogance that was in his stance before as he told me I was supposed to be his mate disappears, swallowed up by his obvious confusion. “I have your essence. I know that she is your kin, and that you are very fond of her. But I also know that, before I met you, she met Dagon and she is his mate.”

Forget that second part for a second. “You have my what?”

“Your essence,” he says again. He uses his claws to gesture at his bare chest. “That what makes Billie Billie. Your emotions. Your memories. Your hopes. You.”

“You mean like my soul?” Are you serious? “You took my soul, too?”

“When you touched my hand?—”

That didn’t answer my question. “You stole my soul?”

“I accepted your essence so that I would know you. So I could speak in your human language with you. So that I could help you understand your fate.”

My fate? My fate is to watch Sierra become the next Madonna.

But, wait?—

“You took mine. If I take your soul?—”

“My essence.”

Sure. “Whatever. If you pass it to me… I’ll know everything about your world?”

“You have to accept it.”

He said something like that before. “‘Accept it’ implies that it’s a gift being given, right? But I didn’t give you mine.”

Glaine smirks. I have half a mind to take off my shoe and whip it at him to get that smirk off his face, but I don’t have a shoe. And I probably would miss, considering he’s so much taller than me. Still. I’m even more annoyed.

“You didn’t know how to guard it. I’ll take anything you have to offer me, female?—”

I meet his smirk with a scowl of my own. “You have my essence. You know my name. Use it, okay?”

His smirk wavers, and I see a hopeful light in his eyes before he purposely extinguishes it. “And I have your permission to address you so familiarly?”

“You have my permission to pull that stick out of your ass,” I say sweetly.

Glaine frowns. “There is no wood in my behind, mortal. That is not something we do in Sombra.”

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