Page 15 of Drawn to the Demon Duke (Sombra Demons)

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SUSANNA

“ M e?” I whirl around, looking at Haures in surprise. His expression is flat, hands folded behind him as he watches me with intensity in his blazing blue eyes, though his lips are thinned, tusks rising up from the seam where they meet. “What do you mean, me?”

“Until you summoned me,” he says, his voice unusually soft, “I knew one thing about my mate. A pair of seers told me twenty centuries ago that my mate, when she summoned me, would be human.” A pause, and then a silent confession: “She would be born as a mortal.”

I don’t know what stuns me more: that he’s known for—I quickly do the mat— two thousand years that, one day, he would have a human for mate, or that he doesn’t seem as disgusted by the thought.

“You knew?” I ask. “And you waited for me?”

He jerks his head. A nod. “That is what we Sombrans do. I would accept no less than my one true mate, and I waited. More than that, I built Mavro to protect her. I built this garden to give her an oasis to enjoy… a place of beauty in a world of shadow. I built it with the promise of you in mind. And then?—”

I gulp, sudden nerves lodging in my throat. “Yes?”

Haures takes a few slow, steady steps toward me.

At least, I thought it was me. He takes a slight detour when he reaches me, ducking around my body so that he can bend slightly, plucking a feather from those growing near the fountain.

It’s blue. I get a fleeting glimpse of it as he lifts it up, and I swear the long, slender petals are the same shade of blue as Haures’s eyes.

He tucks it behind my ear, nestling it in my hair.

“You are mortal, Susanna. I thought I understood what that would mean, and then you summoned me, calling me to your world. And I saw you. You are…” Haures takes a deep breath, shuddering it out. “Delicate. Breakable. Unique?—”

My stomach tightens. “Weird,” I say flatly. “To you demons, I mean.”

“ Weird ,” he echoes, as though the word didn’t quite translate into Sombran right.

“Unusual,” I offer. “Different?”

“Perhaps. Different, yes, but also beautiful.”

This time, my stomach lurches. Not out of a sense of rejection, though, but because Haures… did he just call me beautiful?

“And that’s why this garden is yours. Because, like you, it’s the only thing beautiful in my long, long life.”

Darn. I want so badly to believe that he means what he says. Through the bond—our bond—it seems as if he’s telling the truth, but how can he expect me to reconcile this demon to the frosty duke who sent me off into the forest barely a couple of hours ago?

“I thought you wanted to use the flower to break our bond. That you din’t want to have one with me.”

Haures’s eyes dim just enough to be noticeable. “Then that was my mistake. I wasn’t being cruel. I was trying to save you.”

I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”

“Then understand this: I rule my people. I rule Sombra. So worried that you might be in danger because of who I am, I tried to rule you … and Duke Haures I might be, but I never should’ve gone that far.”

Nope. I still don’t understand. “Haures?”

This time, when he lifts his hand, he strokes the edge of my jaw with his claw. Gentle… he’s so friggin’ gentle. I lean into his caress as he murmurs softy, “Until our bond is finalized, until you’ve promised yourself to me, until I’ve claimed you, you are mortal. You could be hurt.”

“So could you,” I retort. Just because he’s immortal, that doesn’t mean he can’t die, and the idea that I could lose Haures so soon after finding out he’s waited two millennia for me? I get a little loud. “Look at Dagon! He almost died twice today!”

“Demons can die,” agrees Haures. “And locking you in the dungeon until you accept me won’t keep you any safer, my mortal. And that’s why Dagon didn’t die. I grant him to you as your guard, watching you when I can’t.”

Okay. That calms me a little. “And when you can ?” I ask.

His cheeks hollow as he sucks in a breath. “I won’t let anyone harm you. Ever.”

Later, I’ll wonder what happened inside my brain.

If I lost all common sense or something because making a move on a demon twice my size…

probably not my best moment. What if he was just saying things he thought a girl wanted to hear, that my read on him was all wrong, that he didn’t want me…

I shove all of my second thoughts out of my head, hop up on the edge of the fountain—thank you aerobics class!

—before grabbing Haures’s face in both hands.

Then, looking straight into his glowing eyes, I pucker my lips and kiss him.

Kissing around his tusks is easier than I thought, which is a good thing since I kind of didn’t remember them at all until our mouths were smashed together.

It becomes obvious almost immediately that Haures doesn’t have any idea what I’m doing, but he’ll let his mortal mate rub her lips all over his if it makes her happy.

And since I do, urging him to respond a little, he eventually catches on to what I’m doing, moving his mouth a little beneath mine.

It’s not a kiss with tongues or anything like that, but it’s still a kiss, and I’m feeling a little dizzy when I’m finally releasing my hold on his jaw.

Haures blinks, too stunned to react while I brace myself against his shoulder, holding onto him before I jump down from the fountain.

My sneakers hit the cobblestones making a winding path through the garden with a slight slap. I tighten my pony, letting my hair settle over my shoulder as I look up at Haures, waiting for his reaction.

He just stares at me, tracing his claw over his bottom lip as though he can’t believe that I did that to him.

A laugh bubbles up inside of me.

Holy moley, I think I stunned an ancient, immortal demon!

“What’s the matter, Haures? Don’t demons kiss?”

“Is that what that is called? A kiss ?”

Again, he says that with an unfamiliar intonation, as though it’s a word he’s never used before.

I nod.

“But… why?”

Good question.

Um…

How do you explain a kiss?

I tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I don’t know. It’s something you do to show a guy you like him. That you care about him.”

Suddenly, he’s right there. Taking up every ounce of my personal space, he rests his big hand on my shoulder now.

I have to tilt my head up to see the confused expression on his face as he asks, “You care about me?”

Madonna help me, but I do. I shouldn’t. A stalwart romantic at heart, I was ready to go all-in as soon as he came back. He was my true love, right? I wanted so desperately to believe that my beloved spellbook wouldn’t have led me wrong.

Of course, then my hopes were shattered when, instead of Haures being my very own Jareth, come to whisk me away to the Underground, he ordered me to an oubliette instead, keeping me in the dungeons for days before I had to go into the dark forest earlier—and, now, the garden…

I could say it was showing me the garden oasis that changed my mind.

In a way, that has a lot to do with it. But what really tipped me over, urging me to give Haures a second chance was his moment of vulnerability just now.

When he admitted that he’s waited two friggin’ thousand years for me…

I’d be a heartless human not to give him a second chance.

“Yes,” I tell him, and the surprise that wells up in my chest… it’s not mine. That’s coming from the duke. Despite being open and honest with me, it’s like he doesn’t know how to act when the same sentiment is returned.

I’m Susanna Benoit. I was always the quiet girl with her nose in the book, but when I spent the last two years of high school carrying a spellbook around the school—because the cruel kids taunted me that it was one even before I ever realized that’s what the pentacle meant—I became the weird girl.

So maybe that’s why I had a bit of an off reaction when I thought Haures was calling me weird. I mean, I’m used to it. Nerd. Geek. Dork. I’ve heard it all, and I stopped letting it bother me—for the most part—more than a decade ago.

It doesn’t bother me. Haures, though?

The big, powerful demon edges away from me.

“But I am… also different.”

I raise my eyebrows. “And?”

“I am a beast, Susanna. To my people, I became the duke to hide the fact that I was an abomination.”

Oh, Haures…

My heart breaks for him. It really does.

If you asked me, his uniqueness makes him more attractive to me.

I like his differences, from the way his large bottom teeth rise up instead of the other demon’s fangs biting down past their lips to his long white hair and massive size.

When he says he won’t let anyone hurt me, I believe him.

I think back to what Dagon said to me earlier. About how taken aback he was by my overall humanness. Maybe that’s why Haures and I are meant to be together. Neither one of us technically fit in in Sombra, but if he can call me beautiful, I can appreciate his uniqueness, too.

With a teasing grin, I say, “So you have white skin and white hair and tusks. Look at me. Dagon seemed disgusted by my…” What did he say? Oh, right. “...rounded ears, flat teeth, and dead eyes. If you don’t mind me being a human, I don’t care that you’re different.” I shrug. “In fact, I dig it.”

I always thought that his glowing blue eyes were the only spots of color on Haures’s face. Beneath the dual moons, I notice that his sharp cheeks are turning just pink enough to be noticeable.

For a hot second there, I think it’s because he’s slightly embarrassed—or maybe please—with the way that I hit on him. But then he blows air through his nose, and snaps out, “I’ll end him,” and I know I got that way wrong.

“Because he pointed out I was human when he’s never seen one before?”

“Because he insulted my mate. He deserves to be returned to the shadows.”

My cheeks are probably just as pink now as I start to flush. Now this? This is the side of Haures that just might be my true love.