Page 89 of Demon's Bane

Finally touching down on the ledge, Joan slides herself out of my arms. I want to keep her there, but settle for leaving an arm around her waist as I guide her safely away from the edge and down a long, torch-lined corridor leading to our rooms.

Two rooms. The king and queen gave us two rooms to stay in tonight, and I don’t know whether to be grateful for their generosity and tactfulness, or irritated enough to roar my frustration to the ceiling as we approach Joan’s door.

“This is me,” she murmurs, lingering in the hallway.

She makes no move to reach for the handle.

We have no excuses tonight. No danger here and no single bed to argue over.

Nothing but the heat we shared last night, still burning just below the surface, threatening to engulf us completely.

The reasons are still there, hovering somewhere in the ether—all the reasons caution might be the wiser course—but I’ll be damned if I can remember them right now.

“This is you,” I rasp in reply.

She nods silently, but still does not move.

I step closer.

Magick crackles and heat simmers between us. Another edge, and a dangerous one. One we walk together as Joan sways slightly toward me before seeming to remember herself.

“You’re… down the hall?”

“Just next door.”

Joan hums, and I don’t know what to make of the sound. Nor do I know what to make of the fact that her eyes rake over me again before she meets my gaze with a half-smile.

“I suppose I should head to bed, then.”

“I suppose you should.”

Another pause, another shift of breath and bodies.

“Should I?”

There’s no mistaking it this time. A pulse of mischief in her eyes, her voice. A thread of invitation that feels more like a warning.

“You will go inside your room and go to sleep, little mate. Because if you don’t, if you invite me in with you, we both know where this night will end.”

It will end with me sunk into her—cock and fangs at once—claiming her like I’ve wanted to from the first time I saw her.

It will end with me ruined for anyone but her.

Now, always, for the rest of our lives.

Joan reaches out and takes my hand in hers. She tugs me forward and I move toward her in a trance, watching the play of firelight from the torches flicker across her face, casting the small, inviting smile there in an orange glow.

“Well,” she murmurs, dropping my hand to reach for the fast-growing erection straining the front of my pants. “When you put it like that…”

She strokes and squeezes, teasing me to the very limits of my control.

I grasp her wrist. “Joan.”

If I had any pride left in me, the way her name comes out—choked and hoarse, desperate—might shame me.

But this is my mate, the witch who owns my body and soul, and there is nothing in any of the thirteen realms to stop me from being humbled by her, obliterated by her.

“Rhett,” she whispers, then leans up to press her lips to mine.