Page 16 of Drawn to the Demon Duke (Sombra Demons)

Even so, I say, “I appreciate it, but please don’t. Not when I went to so much trouble to save his skin in the first place.”

He grunts, and I assume that’s Haures’s way of agreeing that he won’t threaten Dagon again when he brushes his thumb against his lip again.

“Have you kiss ed many males?” he rumbles, and it hits me that his mind is still stuck on our kiss.

Swallowing my smile, I pat his chest. His jealousy shouldn’t be such a turn-on, but it is. It totally is. “None that matter,” I tell him. And it’s true. I’ll treasure each of those pecks, those sloppy, wet kisses, but they weren’t with my true love. They weren’t with my demon duke.

Haures takes my hand, swallowing it in his. Proving that he was paying attention, he lifts it up, pressing his lips—and, okay, his tusks, too—against my wrist. With his other hand, he strokes his chest.

“You are my mate,” he rumbles, “and once you’ve accepted me as yours, I will have my finest artist carve your name in my chest so that all of Sombra knows that you’re mine.”

“So… if you’re getting a me tattoo, does that mean I won’t have to spend all of my free time in the dungeon now?”

I meant it as a tease. Something changed in this garden, and if Haures decided to take this moment and poop on it by crushing my hopes, breaking my trust, and treating me as a prisoner again…

I don’t think I could get over that. He has to know that; from my reactions, and whatever he can sense coming from me through our bond the same way that I can pick up on flickers of his emotions.

“I will protect you,” he vows. “If I must keep you hidden from my people, I will. But, I promise you, Su, that I will never deny that you are my mate. But the dungeon… you will never set foot in there again. As you are my mate, the first law hasn’t been broken. You will join me in the palace.”

I hear the promise ringing true in his solemn words. I guess that’s as good as I can hope for, and the idea of joining Haures in the beautiful palace is definitely better than the gloomy jail cell.

I look forward to getting to know Haures. Not just the demon duke, but the guy he really is when he doesn’t have to be the hardass, ruling over his realm.

Moving into Haures, enjoying the way he looms over me, I ghost my fingers over the scars on his side.

It took me until just now to notice them.

In the throne room, the blue light hides a lot.

It’s probably on purpose; I can’t imagine a powerful demon duke being proud to show off any hint that they weren’t infallible.

He’s immortal. I don’t think I saw any scars on any of the other demons…

until I looked over at him in this garden, the two moons of Sombra overhead illuminating his striking image.

Though I bet he’d deny it, Haures is obviously insecure about how different he looks from the other demons. The way he called himself a beast just now… it bothers him that he rules a land of shadows, calling himself the lord of them, but he is the opposite of them.

His scars seem to be as unique as the rest of him.

They’re four slash marks that start on his left side before wrapping partway around his bulk to his back.

His skin is so white—and I mean white , not peachy or pinky like white humans—that it’s almost impossible to notice the slight variation in the empty color.

Unless you’re right there. Unless Haures lets you close.

“You’ve already been marked,” I point out. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

“You may ask me anything, Susanna.” He glances down, looking at the scars as if seeing them for the first time—or remembering the circumstances of how he received them. Then he says a word that I’ve only learned today: “It was an arkoda.”

“That thing that was trying to gobble up Dagon.”

He nods. “You see, I, too, was left to the shadows.” Again, his eyes dim over. “It’s where demons go to die. Or, when you’re a young spawn that is different from the others, it’s where your kin abandon you to hide their shame.”

I don’t have to ask if that’s what happened to him. The bitterness in his voice is echoed by the emotions coming down our bond now.

It doesn’t last, though. Showing the same grit and determination that saved him from the arkoda and led him to be the demon duke of Sombra, Haures shuts down that bitterness, a fierce promise reaching me instead.

He tucks the tip of his claw under my chin. “This world is full of dangers, duchess. But know this: nothing is as dangerous as your male.”

Your male.

My mate.

Haures… he’s claiming me.

You know what? This is going to be me claiming him right back the only way I know how.

This… what we have won’t be easy. I mean, we definitely didn’t get off on the right foot.

He’s a demon, I’m a human, and that’s the least of our worries…

but you know what’s good about having an immortal demon for your true love?

Depending on how long I get to stick around—and something tells me that, so long as I say with Haures here like he wants, it might just be forever—then we have a long, long time to make up for a crummy first impression.

Why not start now?

“Call me Su,” I tell him, for the first time giving him permission to use my nickname. “Not duchess, okay? Just Su.”

Haures stands up, his full height making him seem even more imposing than before. I’m not afraid of him, though. If anything, it’s cute that he thinks that he can attempt to intimidate me after admitting that he everything he’s done so far was to treat me like his mate.

And Haures will never, ever hurt his mate.

“Are you refusing to be my duchess?” he booms.

Cute. I’m sure that would scare his subjects, but I’m not his subject.

I’m his true love.

“I’m not saying that. Not at all. It’s just…

hey. You and me, let’s start over. Okay?

” Stepping away from him so that there’s just enough space between us, I shove out my hand toward him.

“My name is Susanna Benoit. I like Bon Jovi, David Bowie, and Labyrinth is an awesome movie that never leaves my VCR. Books are my best friends, and I spent almost half my life translating one. I read a spell, hoping it would work, and it did.” When Haures’s sudden fury transforms to adorable confusion, I slip my hand into his huge mitt, pumping my arm so that he has to shake it.

Then, with a small smile, I peer up at him and ask, “You?”

For a moment, I think he’s going to give me one of those haughty shakes of his head. Maybe think his new pet human is being silly, and change the subject to something involving more dead demons that pissed him off.

But then, whether it’s because he’s actually trying, or he’s using the bond to learn me the same way as I’m researching him… and I am an excellent researcher… Haures changes his grips on my hand, cupping my fingers gingerly.

He shakes my hand again, gently, all while being careful not to jab me with his pointy claws.

“I am Duke Haures, Lord of the Shadows, Sombra’s ruler.

My people address me as ‘your grace’. You should call me yours .

I like your”—His forehead furrows, obviously searching for an unfamiliar word—“ horsetail .”

With his free hand, he uses his claws to fiddle with the end of my pony, then solemnly says, “And even if your eyes are dark and don’t shine like mine, they are beautiful. You are beautiful.”

I gulp, another lump lodged in my throat. “Haures…”

He shushes me softly. “I waited nearly my entire existence… more than twenty centuries… for you to find me. And now that you have, I will never let you go. You made your choice today when you returned without the ashbalm flower. I make mine now. I call you mine, my mate. My duchess. My Su.”

Know what? It’s not the exact ‘promise’ that I translated in the Grimoire du Sombra , but right now, it doesn’t matter.

Haures has claimed me, well and truly claimed me as his with his words and the heated look on his face, and for the first time since I summoned him to Connecticut, the bond in my chest isn’t tugging me toward him, trying to make us both understand that we are true loves.

Here, in this blue garden, standing beside Haures, I am at peace, and that’s because I’m with him.

I will miss Mindy. Amy, too. Dan… eh, whatever, but my friends… my family… my book that’s probably still abandoned in my empty house… I’ll miss them. They’ll forever have a piece of my heart.

But the rest of it?

I plan on giving to my one true love, so long as he’ll have it.