Page 49 of Grabbed By the Guard

Glaine is a quick study. Noticing what I’m doing, he lets go of my ankle. Then, turning both his claws and most of his fingers to shadow, he replaces mine on my clit.

Holy shit. Holyshit. Holyshit.

It’s like double the pleasure. His finger does the work while the edge of his shadows amplifies every sensation in my body. He’s barely started before I’m keening, squirming closer so that I don’t miss a single touch even after I’m spasming around his dick.

That’s all it takes for Glaine. Roaring as he comes, he drops his head down to mine.

Well. What’s that saying. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I clutch Glaine’s jaw and I do something I’ve never done with a guy during sex unless it’s when I’m in a relationship: I kiss him.

It doesn’t matter that I surprise him. I figured he had no idea what I was doing, but since it was pleasurable, he went along with it. Until he checks my essence, he won’t have any idea just what a big deal that was for me.

But I do. And with my fingers now tangled in Glaine’s long, damp hair, our bodies so intertwined that I can’t tell what part is mine and what part is his, I kiss him the same time as I admit that Fate’s more than got her hooks in me.

It’s got a pair of claws and a demon dick in me, too.

CHAPTER 18

REMORSE

GLAINE

ONE CYCLE LATER

We are on the cusp of the next gold moon, and I have yet to fulfill my mate bond with Billie.

In every other way, we are mates. We share the same bed. She welcomes me into her body. We eat together, laugh together, and exist as every other mated pair in Nuit. The only difference is that she is yet to give me her mate’s promise, and until she does, I can’t help but dread the moment she decides that she no longer wants to be mine.

She has all of Sombra to find a new male. Worse, she can find a mage that does not respect Duke Haures enough to obey his laws. A rogue demon could bring Billie to the human world only to have Candor or Loki dragging her back in chains again.

I’ve kept her from the duke’s dungeon. I’ve done the same for myself. She treats me like her mate. I should be content with all that, especially since this is my own doing. I thought of nothing but myself when I carried Billie through the portal and to my realm. I wanted her and I took her, and now she must stay here.

Unless I release her. Unless I stand by as Candor uses magic to erase the memory of me and her time in Sombra from Billie, allowing her to return to Earth with no knowledge of Sombra. She wouldn’t be breaking the first law if she did, and the only one who would pay the price for my selfishness. It would only be fair, and the longer she refuses to give me the mate’s promise, the more I feel… I am remorseful. I am full of guilt.

I harmed the one soul that I should put above mine, and as the eves pass and, at the very least, Billie seems content with me, I regret that I was too impulsive. Too reckless. The grimoire was in Billie’s quarters. The magic could have already been at work, pulling her toward me. Dagon was summoned by his mate. What could it have been? One moon? Two, perhaps, until Billie’s kin left the book where Billie could find it and stumble upon the Verus Amor spell?

But I didn’t wait—and now it seems as if that is all I’ve been doing.

She laughs when I mention that, in her world, we would’ve had to fulfill our bond by the first full moon. That when I went to warn Malphas of its approach, his human mate had one choice: be released or accept him as her male. They only had a few moons to decide, and Billie laughs, telling me that instalove doesn’t exist, and you can’t expect to know that you’ll spend the rest of your immortal life with someone after a week.

I don’t tell her that I knew she was the one for me in seconds. My essence does it for me, and if Billie clings to her odd belief that we should get to know one another without relying on mystical demon magic, I allow it.

I will do anything for my mortal.

Well, almost anything…

There is time. Even if she is not immortal herself yet, there is time, and forcing me to be patient is my penalty for what I did. So many of the lower ranks of demons—craftsmen and hunters instead of soldiers and mages—believe that there is a firm deadline when it comes to claiming a mate. That if you find your fated mate but don’t bond to them by the next gold moon, then Fate got it wrong and you’re both released from the bond, never to find another forever mate.

It doesn’t work quite like that. Oh, there is some truth to their superstitions, and most of it stems from whispers of the human world of legend. Due to the first law that Duke Haures established two thousand years ago, if a mortal is destined to be a demon’s mate, there must be an unbreakable tie between the pair before the duke interferes and severs it himself. That’s where the urgency comes from; the threat of a life without their mate and a stay in his dungeons makes it so that a demon won’t hesitate to prove themselves to their female.

In Sombra, demons still do so and, usually, the demonesses either accept their males long before the first cycle has passed—or they come to an agreement to release each other on their own without sacrificing the chance to bond to another. That’s why the essence exchange usually occurs at the same time as the initial mating and mate’s promise. Once a male gives all he has to his female—and accepts her gift to him in return—there is no other chance. Even if they chose to petition the bondmaster to sever their bond, not even Duke Haures can give them a new one.

I want Billie. I will wait for her, and I will love her, and I will do everything I can to convince her that she should choose me to be her one true mate.

There is time—until, suddenly there is not.

When the knock sounds at my door and I see Apollyon wearing a solemn face, my heart lurches in my chest.

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