Page 43 of Grabbed By the Guard

Great. As if I needed that pressure on my shoulders.

See? This is why I need to keep out of Glaine’s head and his emotions. What do I care that he thought Lilith was his mate before me? He stole me… it shouldn’t bother me at all that he manipulated me into giving him my essence, then taking his. If he never has a mate again, that’s not my problem.

But I do care. More than I should—but not enough to make me forget the reason why I came to Nuit with Glaine.

“That’s enough about my chat with Lilith?—”

“Billie. If there’s something?—”

Nope. “I said that’s enough. Moving on. You talked to Apollyon, right? Is everything okay?”

The big demon winces.

Shit.

So… not okay, then.

Moving on.

“Loki,” I said, grasping at straws.

Glaine’s expression closes off. “Yes? What about him?”

“Loki is a mage. He got rid of the chains.”

“Yes.”

“Did you ask him? Or Apollyon, I guess. Can he do it? Can he use magic to send me home?”

Glaine tightens his jaw, his oversized fangs digging into the skin beneath his bottom lip as he clenches his teeth.

I get my answer in his reaction—and I don’t accept it.

“There’s got to be a way.”

“Loki serves Duke Haures,” Glaine says after a moment. “Apollyon is a fair clan leader, but he also is loyal to the throne.”

How much do you want to bet that’s a roundabout way of saying that they’re too afraid of repercussions from the demon duke to help me?

“This is the clan I was born into,” Glaine adds. “I have a home in Nuit because of it, but also centuries of service to Duke Haures in Mavro. Before we arrived, he sent a messenger on the assumption I would take you here with me. His grace, in his mercy, has decided not to punish us for escaping the dungeon and the chains?—”

“What? That’s great?—”

Glaine’s expression gentles. “—but he has decreed that no one is to cast a travel spell from Sombra to the human realm for me again. I’ve lost his trust, and my position as his top soldier. I am exiled to Nuit. Just Nuit. My privilege to go off-plane has been revoked.” His nostrils flare. “As has yours unless my clever female finds a way around his command.”

No doubt Glaine has been looking at my memories and seeing all of the contracts that I negotiated on Sierra’s behalf—and how often I kept from either one of us being trapped in a shitty situation even worse than this.

Sierra… Whether my best friend really is in this mess up to her eyeballs like I am, I don’t know, and without finding a way back to New York to see her again, I’m not sure I ever will. One thing for sure, though? The chains are gone, but I’m still not free.

And, because of me, neither is Glaine.

Worse, I got him fired.

That’s the modern way of thinking of it. It’s probably ten times worse for Glaine. Hundreds if I think about how many years he served as a member of Duke Haures’s guard. He worked his way to the top, taking the position as lead soldier all so he would be poised to go after the one thing he wanted most: a mate. That’s what led him to Lilith, and when that wasn’t the happy ending he was after, he stumbled on me.

What was it he told me that first night in the dungeon? It was a promise. No. A vow?—

I will do whatever I must to show you that I will be a good and honorable and devoted mate to you. Ask for anything in my power, female, and it is yours.

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