Page 138 of Demon's Bane

I cup a hand around her cheek. “Let’s go home.”

45

Rhett - Two months later

“Are you ready for this, my mate?”

Joan and I stand before the glow of the Veil. Its shifting, opalescent mist is deceptively peaceful, almost inviting as we step up to the soaring archway of stone.

Behind us, the rugged terrain of the demon realm spreads out in a dramatic panorama. I’ve been able to show her little bits and pieces of it these last few months, share some of the places I’ve known and loved. And Joan has returned the favor in the human realm as we savor all the possibility of this new path forward we’re creating for ourselves.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Joan says with a wide, breathless smile as she takes my hand in hers and raises it to kiss the backs of my knuckles. “You?”

“Ready,” I assure her. “Always.”

With a shared deep breath, we each lay a hand on opposite sides of the archway. The mist swirling in the Veil ripples, shifts, deepens from a pale pearl sheen to deep red and then to green, the color which signifies the human realm.

“Together,” I murmur. “We do this together.”

She nods, and we step into the ether.

The immediate sensation of falling into deep, churning nothingness steals my breath and my sense of equilibrium. There’s no up or down, no firm ground to place my feet. Nothing but a rush of chaos and the flickering of millions of tendrils of magick wending their way over and under, around and through, the unnerving sensation of being tossed about in the heart of the Goddess herself.

But I’m not alone to face it.

There, in that infinite swirl, I find my mate. Hands still bound, we pull each other close and let the magick wash over us.

In the months since our conversation in Esme’s office, there have been more bonds sealed, plenty of witches and demons to offer advice and reassurance about what we might face here, but the reality of it is nothing we could have ever truly prepared for.

Magick—pure and boundless—washes over us. Strands to see us and judge us, to decide if we’re worthy, and then to settle down upon us in a gentle embrace as it seems our petition has been accepted.

“I’d make a bargain with you, witch,” I tell Joan, finally able to breathe once more in the strange calm that surrounds us.

“I’d hear your bargain, demon,” she says, laughter and love and magick lighting her eyes.

“I would claim you, my mate. I would keep you. Now, always, for the rest of our lives. I would have you belong to me and me alone.”

“And in exchange?”

“And in exchange, I will love you, Joan.” My lips find her forehead, her cheek. “There will never be a day when I do not do everything I can to care for you, to protect you, never a day when I do not give thanks to the Goddess for bringing us together. I will make a home with you, and no matter where that home is, it will be ours as long as we are together.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Joan says, hoarser now, voice thick with emotion. “But I have a few conditions.”

“Name them,” I say with just the slightest edge of a growl, reveling in the tremble of pleasure that runs through her beloved frame.

“I would claim you. Now, always, for the rest of our lives. I promise to care for you, to build a home and a family with you. I promise to fight for this, for us, every single day. I promise to love you, Rhett. With my whole heart. For as long as I live.”

My soul is full to bursting, every inch of me glowing with joy as I lower my lips to hers.

“You have a bargain, my mate.”

A rush of magick between us, power that runs over us, through us, filling all the realms and all the spaces in between. Nothing, nothing left at all but Joan and I, the vast, unknowable approval of the Goddess, the threads of our bond weaving tighter and tighter with each passing moment.

It lights a hunger low in my belly, a need that won’t be denied as I pull my mate closer still, deepen the kiss, and fumble with the clothes she’s wearing. She tears at mine in turn, kissing and grasping and stripping me bare.

Lifting her against me, I slide deep, filling her in one sure stroke. Joan tips her head back and arches into the thrust, giving me the perfect opportunity to lower my fangs to her neck—re-piercing the mark she wears so proudly—as I move in her.

It’s a few minutes later when we’re both flushed and panting, both right on our own precipice, ready to fall off it together, that I make her meet my eyes once more.