Page 19 of Drawn to the Demon Duke (Sombra Demons)

VOW

HAURES

I have lived for more than two thousand years. Nearly twenty-four centuries, and I mean it when I say that the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was pull myself away from Susanna’s welcoming cunt after she allowed me to kiss it.

As a young spawn, moving from village to village, hoping there would be one that accepted me after my own mother left me to the shadows, I had witnessed a demon male taking his demoness many times.

From my youthful spying, I understood that a cock’s purpose is to lodge inside my mate’s cunt, for pleasure and to eventually create a spawn.

But there was more to mating than just such a union. Though demons don’t usually mate with their mouths, I have seen a male do such a thing while his demoness pulled up her skirts. I’ve always wondered what my mate’s cunt would taste like, and now I know.

It is sweeter than demon wine, and even more addicting.

Hearing my beloved Su keen my name, crying out in pleasure and I brought her to completion on my face…

I only drew away when she begged me to because her wee body was too sensitive for more of my hunger.

But though I have never claimed a female before, all males have instincts.

My cock was so hard, it could’ve bored holes through the cobblestones of her oasis garden.

I even thrust, trying to tame my own need because I knew…

I knew as though Damien came to me with a riddle of my future…

that, should she spread her thighs and tell me to feed her my cock, I would have without a moment’s hesitation.

But I could not. To do so during the night of the gold moon…

the gods of Sombra can be very wicked. They give us an immortal life, but for many demons, it can take centuries or even millennia to find our one true mate—and that’s assuming we ever do before an endless life becomes too weary and we, like Yelios did, disappear to the shadows.

And they promise us spawn to continue our lines, but should we mate during that eve, our females will be with child every time, whether we want to grow a family or not.

And then, to make it so that a demon does take his female on the night of the gold moon, the desire to do so damn near irresistible…

In all my years, I never contemplated giving myself over to the shadows. I survived them as a spawn before Yelios had ever slunk into them, and after I took his throne and he vanished, I never set foot in them again.

I should have. Maybe then I would’ve known that he lurked there still before he could trick my sweet human mate into offering up our firstborn child.

I don’t blame Susanna. She didn’t know, and if I hadn’t hid so much from her after I stole her to Sombra, she might have been better prepared not to barter with a demon such as Yelios.

The gods will hold her to her vow, but I’ve learned my mate, both through our bond and because she is most pleased to talk with her male when my duties are done and I can spend time with her.

For nearly a cycle, she has tried to find the words to confess to me what happened in the shadows.

She doesn’t know that Dagon already confessed what Susanna sacrificed for his sake, just like she doesn’t understand the lengths in which our bond connects us.

There isn’t anything I don’t know about this female which was why I had to put the distance between us.

Because she would’ve welcomed me, inviting me to mate her and claim her, not knowing that the gold moon would fill her with the child destined for Yelios.

A child born of two worlds,

belonging in both, belonging to none,

will bring with them rain,

and the fires of Sombra will be forever done.

Even if she hadn’t made her impulsive vow, I could not risk bringing a child into this world, knowing that it could bring about the end of it. I only just found my Su. I want eons with her before the doppelseers’s prophecy might possibly steal her away from me.

So, for that night, I had to pull away, lifting up my sated, trembling mate, carrying her through the throne room where Tropp tried to keep Dagon from returning to his mistress.

I could’ve passed her off to Dagon to return to her quarters before I relocate Susanna’s into mine.

But then I see the red marks on her throat, a reminder that Bandu—a seer from Caim’s village in Dinkel—had been throttling her when I received her call.

Fury rages anew, and before the flames that I’ve long kept hidden burst free of me, I call for Glaine.

“Seize Tropp,” I tell him, my voice as icy as Susanna’s cunt was when I took my first lap before my tongue warmed her up.

Only once we’re bonded will she be more suited to Sombra’s clime, and as I clutch her to me, I know that that will be mere days away.

“Keep him here until I return. Dagon? Follow. You will guard my mate after I lay her down to rest so that I can attend to matters here.”

Dagon nods, moving a few faces behind us, ready to follow. Glaine grips Tropp’s arm, the other guard baring his fangs, though he doesn’t fight.

Why would he when he knows that his duplicitous nature has been revealed?

To let a seer into Susanna’s garden… that would take a member of my palace guard. And who brought Dagon to me, claiming I requested his presence.

Tropp did.

And, soon, he will join Bandu as ash?—

“Haures?” Her voice is dozy, with a hint of concern. She’s coming down from her heights of pleasure, something I do not want. Let my demons scent her need and their lord’s musk all over hers. Let them know she is mine … “Is everything okay?”

I squeeze her to me gently. “Everything will be just fine, my mate.”

I am Duke Haures. Lord of the Shadows. Ruler of the Flames.

Susanna of Earth’s claimed mate.

Everything will be fine because I will make sure of it.

Later that night, after I sent for Caim to return to Mavro so that he could clean up the ashen remains of his seers and a soldier from his clan, I returned to Susanna’s current quarters, eager to at least see that my mate is doing well after her scare.

I want to apologize. I am her male. Her mate.

I will always go to her when she calls, but no matter how I try to protect her, there’s a possibility that danger can find her.

In a way, I am almost grateful that the gold moon is this eve.

Before I bond Susanna to me forever, I need her to understand just what it would mean to be tied to Haures for the rest of her existence.

I have conquered many enemies. For Su, I will conquer them all.

But I never want to feel that horror that I was too late to save her.

Making her immortal would alleviate some of that fear for me, but to claim her without giving her another chance to change her mind after Bandu attacked her…

it would be as selfish as not giving her the opportunity to search for the ashbalm flower.

And while I can admit that that was also a rare mistake from the ruler of Sombra, she chose me then.

Hopefully, she’ll still choose me now.

When I enter the room, she’s wearing a night dress, showing off her enticing human body.

I know that she does not do so to tempt her male.

It wouldn’t even be necessary; I always hunger for my mate.

But that she’s wearing a night dress and not tucked under the blanket that she requested despite how warm Sombra must seem to her… she was waiting for me.

I check the bond, inwardly winces when it’s clear that she did not do so because she wanted to resume our mating.

No. Susanna wants to talk, and while I do, too, she wants to confess something that she shouldn’t be so nervous to admit.And because she is nervous, I don’t stop her before she can begin like I have ever since she returned from the shadows.

I thought I was being an honorable male.

I don’t blame her for the way she promised Yelios her firstborn, though I can sense that Susanna blames herself and is fearful of how I will react to learn the truth.

But I already know the truth. I know because I know her, just like I have to begrudgingly respect that she made her vow to save one of my subjects.

Dagon cannot help that he is male anymore than Susanna can help her kind and brave heart.

She saved him at her own loss, and that makes her as honorable in my eyes as I yearn to be.

So when nervous hands fiddle with the hem of her skirt, I stride across the room, joining her on the edge of the bed, and listen as she tells me everything that happened during her trip to the shadows.

I stay quiet, letting my presence and my echo down our bond assure her that she did nothing wrong.

Still, she must think that she did because, once she finished her confession, she hurriedly says, “I don’t have to. I mean, if we ever… if I have a kid… there’s gotta be a way to keep him from taking him or her from us. Right?”

There is nothing more that I want in that moment than to scoop Susanna up in my embrace and tell her that is true. That our spawn will be ours, and that I would end Sombra myself before I let the deranged demon king claim them.

But I am Duke Haures.

As powerful as I am, I am no match for the gods.

How can I be when they blessed me with my mortal? To question their judge might mean that they take her away from me as easily as they granted me her glory. So while I would fight Yelios, I cannot fight the gods.

So, with a voice solemn with regret, I tell her the truth: “In Sombra, the gods will always make it so that you stand by your vow. Any vow, my mate. Once given, they are unbreakable.”

“Oh.” The saddest sound in all my existence will forever be the soft sob she lets out after I crush her hopes…

until she follows it with a mumbled, “I’d understand if you decide you don’t want to be my mate anymore.

I mean… we haven’t really done the deed yet or anything, and if you want to have kids with someone who didn’t stupidly promise theirs away, I don’t blame you. ”

My heart stops. For a moment, I’m sure she’s rejecting me—but she isn’t.

She’s preparing herself for me to reject her .

No. I can’t do that.

I won’t do that.

Reaching into her lap, I take her trembling, tiny, icy hands in mind. And then, with as much emotion as I can, I promise, “My soul will be yours. My heart is in your hands. Our lives will be forever intertwined?—”

Susanna tilts her head back, looking up at me as I peer lovingly down on her. “Haures? What… what are you doing?”

“Me? I am making my vow to you, my duchess. The gods will hold me to it, but the don’t need to. When I give you my mating promise, it’s because I mean it with every inch of my battered, scarred, beastly body. Understand me, mortal?”

She makes a strange human noise, different from the sob. It is… I reach into our bond, searching for the human word. Ah. She hiccups , and I smile around my tusks.

Susanna returns it, her dim eyes growing shiny with wet. Lifting my hand, leaving her two nestled in my other, I swipe the wet away gently with the edge of my claw.

She leans into my caress.

My heart swelling inside of my chest, I continue the mate’s vow that will make it so that I never can promise myself to another. What other? I will only ever want this female… “I give myself to you, Su. I give you everything .”

“Ditto.”

In human, that means she accepts my mate’s promise—and she reciprocates it.

Susannah is mine … and I will prove it to the both of us once the gold moon is over.