Page 26 of The Demon’s Delight (The Demon Princes #3)

Chapter 25

Hailon

I stalked angrily up the stairs to our room at the Rooster.

“Unbelievable. I’ve had these clothes all of a day, and they’re ruined.” Over the last couple of hours, I’d gone from genuinely carefree and happy to afraid. Then I’d embraced my darker side and hurt one of the men who had hurt me.

But blood on my new clothes? That was the thing that pushed my fragile mental state a step too far. I worried about myself sometimes.

Seir shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. If I can’t get them clean, I’ll buy you more. Just leave them by the sink.”

I grumbled to myself as I gathered up another tunic to change. Seir lingered by the bathroom door, stance wide and arms crossed.

“Everything alright?”

“No, it’s not.”

“What—” He caged me between his body and the wall, face impossibly close to mine as his fingers traced down my cheek. I shivered, every nerve alight.

“There is no part of you I don’t appreciate. Do you understand?” His voice was low and husky. “You smell like blood and wine and chocolate, and I have… untoward intentions, Moonflower. A great many of them in fact. And there’s no forest here for me to hide in so I can… relieve myself… of them.” His jaw flexed and his eyes slid closed, his head tipping back as he took several slow breaths.

I inhaled sharply, understanding exactly what he meant. I stood straighter, which caused my leg to brush against him. He grunted, and I clenched my thighs together. “That’s okay. I’ve had thoughts like that too.”

Shock painted his face, and his eyes snapped open. “Hailon. We have to?—”

I cut him off, dragging his mouth to mine with the same intensity I’d felt punishing the Lang brother. Want and need were usually very separate feelings when I took a romantic interest in someone, but there was no clear line here. It was both. My chest ached as he devoured me right back, one hand staying on the wall, our position a mimic of how we’d kissed in town against the bricks. The other hand splayed across my mid back, drawing me up against him. We rocked together, the adrenaline of the evening like kerosene on a pyre.

Time ceased to exist as I devolved into nothing more than sensation. My magic reached for every nick and cut it could find on him, repairing, soothing, as his teeth nipped at my lips, then my throat, his heavy breath against my skin driving me closer and closer to madness.

“Stop. Stop, stop. We have to—” He kissed lightly all over my face, then took a step back, panting. He groaned, regret all over his flushed face. “We have to stop, Moonflower. I’m sorry. I want nothing more—sweet saints, I could punch myself right in the face for stopping right now—I promise. But there’s something we must discuss first, it’s important.” Then he kissed me again, and I could feel the way he grinned against my mouth as he whined, “I need you so badly.” He kissed me again, gently consuming me. “But we can’t. Not until we talk. Go in the bathroom and shut the door. I can’t have you yet.”

“Promise it’ll never happen again and I won’t have to kill you over leaving me so needy.”

He groaned, low and long. “I swear. And should it come to that, you know I’d happily go to my knees and bow before you, Moonflower. I’d willingly take your blade at my throat. The very thought turns me on, in fact. Can’t you tell?”

I could. And he wasn’t alone there.

I leaned in and kissed his smile one more time, unafraid of the taste of blood on my mouth, unsure if it was his or mine. Then I shut myself inside the bathroom before I could change my mind.

“Thank you.” He barely breathed the words from the other side of the door. I heard him slide down the wall and land on the floor with a thump.

I felt dizzy from the combination of lust and exhaustion flowing through me as I started to undress. I was wound tighter than I could ever remember being and needed some outlet for the desire crashing through my veins. I climbed into the filling tub and reached for myself to soothe the ache.

A light moan escaped my mouth as I rubbed at my aching sex.

“Hailon? Are you…?” Seir asked.

“I’m fine,” I responded, already breathless again. I got to my knees in the tub, realizing I had a better way. The tap for the tub was on the side instead of the end, and if I positioned myself just right…

“Hailon?” Seir sounded frantic as another, louder noise escaped me, my body flushed hot as the combination of rushing water and my own hand pushed me closer and closer to the edge. I gripped the porcelain with my free hand, knuckles going white. “Should I—” He paused, and I could hear him press his body against the door. I pictured him listening to the sounds I was making, and it only drove me higher. “Oh, fuck.” He sounded absolutely bereft on the other side of the door, and between the persistent throb in my core and the idea that he knew what I was doing, that I was thinking of him while stroking myself, I couldn’t hold it back in any longer. I shuddered my release, unable to stop the loud moan that left me. I nearly doubled over as my muscles seized and water splashed as I sank down, the heat of it like a warm embrace as I came down from the rush.

Seir called my name again from the other side of the door, but it was not a query. It was a benediction. My body throbbed again in response. We were even, then.

Once I was submerged in the steamy water, my body finally relaxed.

I wanted to go back to the moments when I was hazy from the mead and everything felt floaty. To the days where I’d forgotten that there were men who might be looking for me at all. I wanted to go back to dancing. To the way Seir’s mouth had felt on mine.

In the wake of what was one of the most intense orgasms I’d ever had, my chest ached something fierce. The pain was getting more worrisome as the days went on. I wondered if I should find a healer before we left town. I also felt the ugliness of the evening creeping back up, replacing the joy.

“Hailon?” Seir’s cautious voice came from the other side of the door.

“I’m fine.”

I washed and rinsed and washed again, trying to scrub away the stain of those men and the memories attached to them from my body.

When the water was completely cooled, I pulled myself out and dressed. I teetered on my feet as I combed out my tangled hair with my fingers, exhaustion finally catching up to me.

When I opened the door, Seir was still seated on the other side, leaned up against the wall.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t mean to take so long.”

“That’s alright. I didn’t want to leave you in there alone. I was considering coming in to check on you if you were in there much longer. The thought of you falling asleep in the water…” He shook his head. Clearly, he’d cycled through several worst-case scenarios that had bothered him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry.” My heart thudded, heavy and hot behind my ribs. It hurt. I rubbed with my palm and Seir’s eyes tracked the movement.

“It’s alright. We need to talk about that ,” he said quietly, pointing at me.

“About what?”

“The pain in your chest.”

A flash of cold went through me. “You know what it is?”

He looked away, and the fact that he wouldn’t meet my eye sent my pulse spiking, anxiety and exhaustion mixing in a toxic way inside my body.

He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “It’s complicated.” Of course it was. I huffed a heavy breath. “It’s not bad, Hailon,” he reached out, the pad of his thumb running across my cheekbone. His eyes betrayed him though, the gold dimmed. He seemed sad. “Promise. But it is important. You can come in while I bathe, if you want. We can talk.”

I declined, but stood outside the cracked door longer than I cared to admit, listening to the splash of the water as he washed, the soft noise as he hummed a tune while scrubbing out our clothes. I’d barely moved the handful of steps to sit on the end of the bed when he emerged, hair damp and his clean tunic over his arm.

“I really do need you to teach me your alphabet.”

He followed my eyes to where they were fixed to the strange greenish letters tattooed across his chest.

He grinned, tongue teasing along the points of his teeth. “As I told you, I’m more than happy to teach you whatever you like. These just tell my rank as a soldier and Prince of Hell. Nothing mysterious.” After pulling his shirt on, he fussed with the fire in the hearth.

“You’re stalling.”

He nodded and fidgeted, visibly struggling with where to begin. “What do you know about fated mates?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Fated mates,” he repeated.

“I’ve heard the term but have never known anyone it applied to. I thought it was another one of those things that ends up in storybooks but doesn’t really exist, not for normal people.”

“You’re not exactly ‘normal people,’ Hailon. And I’m… well, I’m not even people , really.” He smirked, the gesture somehow humble.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.” He nodded, then laid down on his back, his feet still on the floor. “Fated mates are a rare and treasured thing,” he started. “Two of my brothers have been so blessed. The two that are in Revalia now, interestingly enough.”

I stiffened. The chances of that happening… I was awed. “How does one know they’ve met their mate?”

“My brothers both said they felt a burning in their chest. That’s how it’s recorded in several books, as well.”

My ribs suddenly felt too tight, the muscles and skin there rigid. His fingers reached out for mine, squeezing. I returned the gesture, which made him sigh.

“Has your chest been burning, Seir?” I wanted to look at him, but I also didn’t dare.

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Since I first arrived in that house.” He was uncharacteristically quiet, his voice barely above a whisper.

I spun to look at him, and he gazed back at me with such softness, such vulnerability I could hardly stand it. He was a tall, strong man, an enthusiastic force of nature. Yet that look on his face was more powerful than any sword he could wield.

Words failed me as I watched him study the nuances of my expression. He seemed braced for a negative response. I stuffed my initial reaction of disbelief down and instead focused on smoothing the wrinkles in the blanket as I lay down next to him.

“I thought it was the food, too, at first,” he said, our faces nearly so close our noses touched. “But now I think it’s more than that. Much more.”

“What does that all mean? What happens if that’s true?”

Seir shrugged. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.” He pulled one of my hands to his mouth, kissed the palm and set it over the strong, steady beat of his heart. “I believe we all have a choice, even when the fates try to get involved in the details.”

“Will it hurt like this forever?”

“No. I don’t think so. The bond is making itself known right now, trying to be sure it’s… completed.”

“Completed?”

“It’s a simple magic. Old as time itself.” He looked at me meaningfully, one eyebrow raised. “It’s also why we had to stop, before.”

A flush washed over me. “Oh.”

“Oh, indeed.” He smirked, the innuendo unavoidably humorous.

“To be clear, if we were intimate, would that automatically mean we chose to accept the bond?”

“I believe the bond would interpret that as enthusiastic acceptance, yes.” He smirked again. “Does that mean you still have untoward intentions with me, Moonflower? That I could have been having the same, all this time?”

I sighed, less put out about his question than I made out to be.

He chuckled, seeing through me. “Just making sure I understand you, is all. Because all you have to do is ask, Hailon. I meant it when I said I’m yours. But I also don’t want you to have any regrets. You had to know this part of it to be fully consenting. Though I desperately wish I could have seen your face when you came?—”

“Ridiculous demon.” My whole body burned at the reminder of what I’d done with him listening and doing the same, the pair of us separated from one another by only a door.

We lay there in silence for several minutes, nothing but the sound of our heartbeats and the crackling of the fire between us.

“What do you want it to mean?” I asked finally. “What would you choose?”

Seir’s eyes closed, and he exhaled slowly through his nose. “I’d be honored to have you as my mate, Hailon. I am. I will always be.”

“But?”

He shook his head, redoubling his efforts to press my palm to his chest. “There’s no but. Not like you’re thinking. I understand that the timing isn’t optimal. I wasn’t looking for a partner before you summoned me. Your circumstances are certainly not of someone seeking out their mate. But the fates laugh at such things regularly. They don’t care what else you have going on when it’s your turn on their wheel.” He exhaled slowly. “ But … choosing not to satisfy the bond can lead to madness, Moonflower. It would probably take a long time, but there’s a risk. There are pairs that avoid it, even still. And if you’re not all in, then we’re not taking a chance. I’d rather not risk you resenting me and regretting the bond for all eternity.”

“My eternity will be much shorter than yours, will it not?” I asked, stomach woozy.

“Perhaps, yes.”

“Just ‘perhaps’?”

“Well, to be fair, we’ve got some investigation to do on you, do we not? With the null thing Coltor mentioned? It’s possible your life expectancy isn’t all that different from mine.”

There was no arguing with that, I supposed. And there he went again with we . Like it was his responsibility to help me figure myself out. How could I not appreciate such a thing?

“I know my brothers are looking into that with their mates as well. I’ve full confidence they’ll find a way to keep my sisters-in-law around for a very, very long time. One of them is part fae. Surely there’s a way to extend a human lifespan within our grasp.”

“I… We don’t know one another all that well,” I added, though that felt like a flimsy excuse. In many ways, I felt like I knew him better than anyone aside from my Aunt Sal.

“No, we don’t. But I’ve seen enough to know I’d be beyond fortunate to end up with a woman such as you.”

“Now who has the pretty words?” I reveled in the soft smile that earned me. “I don’t think I can make a decision about that kind of thing right now.”

He looked away, a flash of sadness crossing his face. “I understand. I would not ask you to respond to such a thing in haste.”

It felt like he’d moved miles away, despite him being right there next to me. I hated it.

“For the record, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather the fates paired me up with,” I said, placing my hand on his arm in a way I hoped communicated sincerity and comfort.

He turned back, the relief in his face palpable. He patted my hand, then lifted it, pressing another kiss into my palm.

“We should get some rest,” he said, fingertips tracing down my cheek, eyes staring into mine in a way that made me feel truly seen. He leaned in, pressing his lips to my forehead in a sweet gesture that had me melting. Then he abruptly sat up.

“Where are you going?” I asked, heart pounding as he picked up a pillow and one of the small blankets spread across the foot of the bed.

“I’m going to sleep,” he said, gesturing toward the floor in front of the fire.

“Absolutely not.” I shook my head. “There’s no need for that, it’s a big bed, and we’re both adults.” His mouth twitched as he watched me burrow between the sheets. “Besides, my chest feels better when you’re close. I wouldn’t get any sleep at all if you were clear over there.” I punched the pillow and fussed until I was comfortable on my side. The bed dipped as he slid in behind me, leaving space between us. After he was settled, his tail curled around my ankle.

His breath was warm as it ghosted along the back of my neck, his fingers gently combing through my hair.

“As you wish, Moonflower.”