Page 9 of Married to the Devil

The chillof the night does little to calm my blood no matter how much time I take to get to my destination. My wings are numb save for some painful throbbing. My mixed heritage makes me more susceptible to the cold than other gargoyles.

I land silently and open the balcony doors of the Firefly. We’d purchased this skyscraper in the Leonid territory last year. I’ve had my eyes on this territory for years. Lorenzo’s time was running out. That he’d made an enemy of Kalos had worked well in my favor and sped up our timeline.

The penthouse had been empty last week, but my closest people are moved in now and ready to work. Our original territory is stable, and the Leonid holdings are well placed for us to merge it seamlessly.

Everything had been planned for and considered. Even mymate.

She’s mine now. From every fiery strand of hair to her soft-parted lips.

I thought I’d accounted for everything.

But my reaction to her was more distracting than I’d expected.

The sensation brewing in my chest isn’t foreign, but I don’t want to dwell on it enough to name it.

Stacks of paper disrupt the clean lines of the dining table. Not that Silas would care. We have a place to do work like this, but he’d rather sprawl out in areas of his choosing. His attention is devoted to his laptop until he notices my presence.

My second-in-command raises a scaly brow. “And just what are you doing here?”

“Give me the progress report of what we found with Lorenzo’s holdings,” I order, ignoring the lizardman’s disbelief. I sit in a lounge chair facing the open area of the dining room and built large to accommodate my wings.

“You’re supposed to be consummating your marriage,” he says.

“She’s bitten. That will do for now.” Eventually we will need to consummate the mating…perhaps once I get my reactions under control it will be easier to convince her of that. Though the last sight of her cheeks reddening with rage attests that may be more difficult than I counted on.

He sighs and leans back in his chair. “What did you do?”

I scowl slightly, not liking his tone. “Exactly what needed to be done. The Council found someone to interrupt us. Just as we assumed they would.”

The mating is as good as consummated if the Council believes it is.

Silas’s lips thin. “And you left her there?”

I couldn’t stay. The wounded look on her face stabbed at me in an unexpected way. The discomfort is an unwelcome discovery. “We have guards posted, and I was done with her.”

Softening for Stella Elderflower would be a miscalculation.

He makes a gruff sound to vocalize his disbelief. “Your lust is choking the air, old friend. You’re lying out of your ass.”

“That doesn’t matter.” I tap my talons on the furniture, waiting for the report I requested.

Silas’s gaze narrows. “Years, Remy. You’ve kept track of her for years, and now that you have an opportunity for something real, you’ve left her alone after an intimate act that will undoubtedly make her feel vulnerable.”

Somethingrealwas never on the table. Especially not now.

“We kept track of her because it suited our needs for this strategy,” I say, gesturing to the penthouse our operation is set up in.

He rolls his eyes. “We could have figured something else out. You wantedher.”

I bare my fangs, but don’t deny it. Silas knows me better than anyone else. He’s been with me since I usurped my first territory. He’d been managing the district while the actual leader had been living without a care in the world, cashing in favors he could never have paid back.

Silas had been the one who had kept the place as secure as it was but doing that without support was impossible. The territory was ripe for the picking and practically fell into my hands.

At my silence, Silas removes his reading glasses and starts cleaning them. The tension in his shoulders gives away that he isn’t going to drop the subject. “Mates are to be cherished.”

“And now I have her. We needed the mating. I don’tneedher.” I only needed to possess the firefly that had caught my interest. That’s it.

He puts his glasses aside to glare at me. “Actually, you do.”

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