Page 33 of His Human to Adore

She looks up at me, sadness in her eyes, but just gives me a single nod before turning and looking at a bare wall like I’m being dismissed. Whatever is going on in her mind and her heart, she can tell me about when she’s ready. Until then, I have a mate that’s calling to me through our tether, who apparently wants to make good on his promises from earlier when he talked about fucking me until I can’t take anymore. I let the tether guide me back to the workshop, ignoring the questions about another female and telling them my mate needs me.

When I enter the workshop, Dath is already stripped of his clothing and pounces on me as soon as the door closes. “You made me wait, little human.”

“I needed to make sure my sister was safe,” I sigh as he carries me over to the bed and lies me on my back. I throw my arms back and arch my back so my chest is pressed against his. “I’m here now, though, and I don’t plan on leaving this bed until I can’t walk anymore.”

Dath smiles down at me. “Good, I don’t plan on letting you leave until I’ve planted my young in you.”

“So many promises you keep making,” I tease him as he pushes inside of me.

“I plan on keeping every single one.”

Deja

Eight Months Later

Dathsqueezesmeoncemore before finally getting out of bed. It’s his turn to hunt, which means he’s super pissed off because he has to be away from me and my ever-growing belly until he kills an olack. The last time he went off to hunt, he killed one before I woke and decided he would be the one to wake me with a nice orgasm. I moan softly, hoping that’s how I get woken up when he comes home today. If I can finish my plans and get back into bed before he returns.

“I’ll be back soon,” He whispers in my ear before placing his hand flat against my belly. “You both sleep soundly until I return, yes?”

“Mhm,” I mumble and hold his hand against me. “I love you.”

“I love you too, little mate.” He brushes my face gently with his fingertips, and then the bed dips as he rolls around to the edge. He dresses quickly, places one last touch on my abdomen, and then he’s leaving me alone in bed until he returns.

I wait a few more minutes after I hear the door close before I’m fumbling out of bed and making my way through the dark tribe to Dath’s workshop. Everyone is still asleep except for the three or four brothers out hunting. I don’t know who’s gone out, but I know Toron and Yril are still here somewhere because only one chosen is allowed to leave at once. The sun, or whatever lights up their clouded sky, is just lighting everything up when I creep into the dark workshop and find the hidden paintings I’ve been working on.

Okay, they’re not paintings so much as signs that we’ve been working on. And by we, I mean Kendra, Skylar, and I have been working on it. Kendra convinced her mates to give her some large pieces of flat wood we could paint on, and I’ve been stashing away some of Dath’s paints so I could add the words. Skylar is the one who gave us the wonderful idea, but as soon as she did, we knew we had to see it through.

“You in here?” Kendra’s whisper catches me by surprise, and I let out a soft shriek. She laughs softly and then opens the workshop door, followed by Skylar and Yril. We wanted to keep it a surprise for all the others, but we needed someone who could write in the language that the demons read since our translators automatically translate everything for us. We could have written it in English, but then the others wouldn’t understand what it says.

“I have the spikes and the tar,” Yril says as he takes the planks from me. “I will allow you three to watch me hang them, but you will not assist.”

“Boo!” Kendra heckles him, but she knows none of us want to help with the manual labor part of our plan. We’re doing this for our own amusement. “Whatever, I just want it done before Xoth and Erkoz realize they’re spooning each other, not me.”

Yril huffs a laugh as he walks ahead of us, the three of us following him like small children, afraid that their parents are about to walk in on them, causing mischief. Which we are, but it really shouldn’t matter that much. We took a vote on what to call the tribe since we’re trying to revitalize relationships with the other tribes that may or may not have completely and totally disregarded our males for the last twenty-five years.

Now? Now, all the tribes are willing to talk to us because of how the goddess has blessed us. The only problem is we don’t have a name for the tribe, and the old name just doesn’t have the same pizzazz that we’re looking for. Not to mention, much like the correct term for the demons, the tribe’s name is too difficult for humans to pronounce. It’s a mixture of a hiss with some vowels that, no matter how hard we try, we just can’t do it.

“Hold these,” Yril says, handing a plank to each of us as he grabs a ladder out of Erkoz and Xoth’s workshop. “You want it above the gates, yes?” We all nod at him with giant smiles stretched across our faces. Yril shakes his head, probably knowing that he’ll be in just as much trouble as us when the others find out, but we’re all in this now, and there’s no way we’re not finishing this.

Yril works on nailing and tarring the signs to the stone above the gate after asking us about five times if we like the positioning. He’s just about finished with the first sign when his head whips to the trees, and his eyes narrow. After a moment, he looks down at us and shakes his head. “Hand me the next one. Dath is on his way back, so you better hope he won’t ruin your fun before we are finished.”

I close my eyes and feel the tether that binds Dath and me together. Yep, he’s definitely moving closer. I know, without a doubt, that Dath won’t care about this at all, but he is going to care that I’m outside the walls of the tribe. He likes me in bed, where I’m safe and comfortable. If he had his way, I’d never leave bed. He’d feed me, bathe me, and do everything for me, so I never needed to leave. Unfortunately for him, I can’t think of anything worse.

“Who went hunting with him?” I turn to the two other women.

“Not mine or Diane’s,” Kendra says. Erkoz, Xoth, and Almaac always go hunting together, so they won’t be the ones with Dath, which is unfortunate since Erkoz and Xoth are very much okay with changing the tribe’s name to what we want.

In fact, almost everyone either doesn’t care or loves our idea, but the vote hasn’t been taken yet, and for some reason, Ralleth wants the name to be something that we have all agreed on. Yes, the vote is happening today, but why worry about a vote when we can use our mate’s professions to take matters into our own hands? Plus, the name is pretty hysterical, and the word means nothing here in the demon’s world.

“Does Ralleth know my mate is causing problems?” Dath asks when he clears the line of the trees closest to the gate. His red eyes gaze up at the signs before landing back on my face. His lips twitch upward, revealing his black teeth just as he wraps an arm around my waist and picks me up off the ground. “Is this what you’ve been hiding in the workshop?”

“Yes, it is, brother,” Yril calls down from the ladder as he hangs the last sign up. “They are cunning females. Using their males so they do not have to do the dirty work.”

“Oh, shush,” I frown at Yril, who only smiles at me. I turn back to Dath, hoping that he doesn’t hate it because I really want him to be proud of me for helping to get it all worked out. “Do you like it?”

“Welcome to Hell,” He reads the signs with a shake of his head. “Your human Hell was a terrible place, yes?”

“Some people thought so,” I shrug.

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