Page 18 of Grabbed By the Guard

The clinking of the chain whenever each of us moves is about as much noise as I pick up. My professional side can’t help but be impressed by the dungeon’s excellent soundproofing. I guess the duke doesn’t want to be bothered by his prisoners’ misery—and, for the moment at least, only Glaine and I are locked up down here—which means that there is nothing to distract me from my cellmate.

So I find a way to distract myself. After complaining about the way the ash turned my legs grey, I start to explore the sink-thing. Turns out, it is a sink. He shows me how to use it, and since it’s similar to motion-sensor sinks back home, it’s easy.

Using the toilet… not so much.

There’s a hole in one corner, so dark I didn’t notice it at first. About the size of a dinner plate, it seems bottomless. Two smaller holes are positioned next to it. When I finally can’t hold it any longer—those damn espressos doing a number on my bladder—I ask Glaine what I’m supposed to do.

That’s how I discover that, in Sombra, you squat over the hole to go to the bathroom, then shift over to the other two. One is air. One is water. A mystical bidet that gets the job done if you’re not shy.

Luckily, I’m not.

As if eager to prove that he’s also a gentlemanly demon, Glaine gives me his back while I do my business. I clean up as best I can, using the sink to rinse off my hands, then clink my way back to the cot.

He says nothing at all as I curl up on top of it, facing away from him. Smart demon. One wrong word and I’m primed to explode. I need sleep. Now that I’ve accepted there is no getting rid of him—and after a questionable meal of hot meat and something that could pass for human potatoes brought down to us by a guard—I’m not fighting my growing unconsciousness any longer.

It’s only as I start to drift off that I hear his deep voice from somewhere from behind me.

“I will sit at your feet, my mate. I will watch over you. Have no fear while your male is near.”

I’m too tired to tell him I’m not afraid, I’m pissed. Or to remind him that he’s not my male. Instead, I made a non-committal sound that suggests I couldn’t care less what he does before I fall asleep, hoping like hell that, back in the human world, Sierra and Three still haven’t figured out I’m missing yet…

CHAPTER 6

HARTH

GLAINE

My mate is asleep, and as I vowed to her, I am watching over her as she slumbers.

She makes a soft humming sort of noise as she curls up on her side, giving her back to me. The golden ringlets—curls, I amend as a sense of pride… Billie’s pride… filters into my consciousness—are pillowed beneath her cheek. So is the hand not attached to a manacle. Duke Haures is merciful enough to have a small cot in his dungeon cells, but humans are a lot less sturdy than we demons. She needs comfort, but she doesn't trust me enough to provide it.

The most she allows is for me to gather up the length of chain, sitting on the floor beside the cot. The chain is long enough that, if she ordered me to the other side of the cell, it would stretch, but she didn’t. Instead, murmuring something about a creature she calls ‘Three’, she shrugged when I suggested boldly that I watch over her from a closer distance.

Delving into her essence, I see that this ‘Three’ is not unlike one of the ungez, the prey beasts that live in the shadows. Though it is an Earth beast, it appears to be made up of shadows like so many Sombran creatures, with eyes that shine the same color as mine even if they don’t glow. She tends to it like it is her spawn, feeding and brushing and protecting the not-ungez, and I find myself jealous of a creature that has both my mate’s affection and attention while I have none.

As she snuffles, I wonder if, perhaps, this creature is a guide to earning both for myself. She thinks that I am like her ‘void’ when I drop my big body into a crouch beside her, watching her studiously. Using her memories, I see if there are other ways I can mimic the wee beast. It does not speak in anything other than soft yowls, and it seems as though its hours are spent sleeping and licking its genitals.

Sombra demons rarely require much sleep; a testament to how I can guard for cycles at a time without tiring, and will do so gladly now that I have a mate to watch over. As for feeling a tongue on my cock… Billie’s essence says that is also done to males in her world, but usually by their female mates.

Even in my shadows, I am not flexible enough to taste my own cock. I never would’ve thought such a thing possible, but the idea of my mortal mate opening her pretty mouth and feeling her cold breath on my hard flesh… it’s all I can do not to spill seed on the floor of our shared cell.

Until Billie has accepted me as her mate—until she has accepted my essence—I cannot hope for her to pleasure me in such a way. And though I can sense that she’s done it to other males, I firmly stop those memories of hers from surfacing in my mind. I already despise this Trevor, both for causing Billie pain and for not recognizing that she was the best female he could ever have. His loss, and I would’ve claimed Billie as my one true mate even if she still felt fondness for that male.

But she does not. That means her heart is free to be earned, and now that I understand that humans don’t feel the mate bond instinctively… that they only do once they’ve developed fondness for their fated demon… I must change the way I approach wooing her.

First? I can’t do so in the dungeons.

Second? My Billie is a proud, fierce female. She will only dislike me further if she continues to feel like she has no say in things. I thought that, by bringing her to Sombra, I could show her that she was meant to be with her male in his realm. That was a mistake. She needed to choose to follow me here, but in my own stubborn need, I took that choice from her.

Just like Duke Haures took her freedom to completely deny me again…

I won’t say that I regret what I’ve done. I only rue the fact that I’ve hurt her, and make the same vow to myself that I did to Billie before: that I will do anything to prove to her that I am worthy to be her male.

And that begins with breaking her out of the dungeon.

The one plus to having served Duke Haures for centuries? I know how the male thinks. I can gauge his moods, and tell when he will show mercy to a prisoner. He would’ve kept me out of the dungeon if I hadn’t requested to be placed with Billie; of course, separating me from my mate would’ve been a harsher punishment, a fact he knows very well. That he allowed me to join her, even going so far as to command that we wear the chains together… Duke Haures is doing what is expected of him as ruler, while also giving me the chance to woo my mate.

Will he be furious that I plan to leave the dungeon with Billie? I think he will, but I also doubt that he’d consider it a shadow offense. He won’t end my existence, not when I only did what I did because I was shocked to find my fated mate.

---