Page 30 of The Demon’s Delight (The Demon Princes #3)

Chapter 29

Hailon

N othing at all had made sense after I realized Seir vanished. My whole body ached, my chest most of all. Every emotion was exposed and raw, my reactions exaggerated and completely out of my normal range.

After regaining control of my ragged breathing, I cycled through everything he’d said and done that day. If he’d decided to up and leave, surely there would have been signs. If I’d missed them, I wanted to know how.

I thought back to the declaration he’d given me, the sweet fingers to mouth and heart gesture. With the stain of his abrupt absence, both struck me as him possibly saying goodbye. The notion brought a fresh wave of pain, my body stuck in a terrible feedback loop thanks to the irritated mate bond. But when sense returned, I discarded such an idea. That kind of behavior didn’t align with the Seir I knew. Besides that, I hadn’t banished him. He himself had made a big deal out of the fact that he was supposed to stay with me until that happened.

I stared into the fire, sorting through more and more outlandish scenarios. Perhaps he’d sifted elsewhere? But that wasn’t possible, not unless he’d suddenly figured out how to make all his powers work again, and at full strength. Flying? Still very unlikely, unless he’d figured out how to vastly improve his ability without telling me. None of that seemed plausible.

“Get it together,” I told myself when I could finally function, swiping away some stray tears with the back of my hand. “You’ve been through far worse than this.”

I fed the fire. I assembled our belongings so that if daylight came and he wasn’t back, I could continue on my own. I ate more than my share of the dried strips of root vegetables that we’d purchased from a vendor in the last town in the Valley, stretching out the time it took me to consume each one, mentally chanting that by the end of every next piece, Seir would pop back into existence next to me. My manifesting was unfortunately unsuccessful.

If nothing else, the time alone gave me a chance to explore every possible feeling I had for the demon while I tried to decide what my next move would be. It was not a surprise when my heart told me with quite a lot of certainty that Seir had burrowed deep, and I simply could not picture my life without him in it. Besides, before he’d left, we’d been on a sure track to completing the bond.

Or at least I thought we had.

Frustrated with myself, I turned my attention to planning. Should I continue on my own toward home? Wait a day? I could always try summoning him.

“That has to be what happened,” I mumbled to myself. Nothing else made much sense.

I worried myself in circles. Was he in trouble for being gone? Would he be punished if I tried to summon him back again? Could I even do that? I swallowed some dried beet, discarding any notion of taking that step unless I had no other choice. Ravenglen was only two more days or so, I could surely manage that myself.

Eventually, the adrenaline was completely gone, and I found myself blinking heavily against gritty eyes as I stared into the sky, right at the constellation of The Stallion. My hand strayed to my pocket, where the little carving stayed most of the time. I pulled it out and stroked along the smooth golden parts, the action soothing.

I managed a few fitful hours of sleep before waking up fully alert, heart pounding behind my ribs. The bond was burning, and nothing I did soothed the pain, though moving around did seem to help. Deciding I was not now—and had never been—a damsel waiting to be rescued, despite what had happened at Ignus’s house and craving any kind of relief I could get, I packed up our bedding. Then I set about making breakfast. Seir’s favorite hot grain cereal and tea seemed reasonable and was the little bit of familiarity I needed to truly re-center.

“It’ll be okay,” I reassured myself as I wandered near the trees, hoping to find some berries.

The small insects were extra loud and troublesome, flying too close to my face and ears as I scavenged a mere handful of what were probably tart blackberries.

Daylight was still a ways off, but when I emerged from the shadows, a faint orange glow lit the horizon.

My heart sank. He’d been gone all night.

I went through the motions of cooking, eating, cleaning. Mentally, I tried to do some calculations as to how much time had actually elapsed since he disappeared. Seir had been very clear that time moved differently in other realms, but I didn’t know what exactly that meant. Did time in Hell move slower? Faster? It could be days or weeks there, but only minutes here and vice versa.

My heart thumped painfully as I finished packing up, stealing my breath and sending me to my knees. Something was very wrong, and I had no idea how to manage it. There was nobody here to help me if I was sick or dying. My own power wouldn’t even do me any good.

I managed only a little squeak as the pain intensified, forcing my eyes closed as I focused all my energy on continuing to breathe. Then the everything went black.

The world swam into focus, far brighter than when I’d lost consciousness. My body was quiet, which was an incredible relief. I dawdled a bit longer, hoping that the lack of discomfort meant Seir was close by, but he didn’t appear.

Deciding it did no good to stay and wait, I shouldered one pack on my front and one on my back and forced myself to start walking. Before long, the little stand of trees where we’d camped was no longer visible behind me.

The road was empty still—which most days was frustrating, but today was a relief. I continually willed a demon to drop from the sky, and that would have been incredibly awkward for anyone else to witness.

The hours passed in a blur, my mind simultaneously preoccupied with making sure I kept putting one foot in front of the other and being sure I was distracted by my increasingly stressed thoughts.

If Seir was in Hell, was he being tortured for his absence? If so, it would be my fault. Would it be possible to offer myself up in trade to take his punishment? I wouldn’t hesitate to accept if so, but it could be anything . I felt tightness across my ribs as I went down that terrifying mental path and forced my thoughts elsewhere. Getting back to Ravenglen. Checking on Aunt Sal. Anything to keep me from envisioning the painful possibilities he might be suffering.

I walked until the sun had started to slip down the horizon again, and I was feeling weak and shaky before finally stopping to eat. There was a lovely little meadow with tall trees and a sprinkling of wildflowers where I stopped to camp.

Autumn had a firm grip on the weather now, the leaves on the trees turning orange and yellow, painting the forests in vibrant color before they gave up and fell off the trees completely. The late afternoon breeze ruffled the tall grasses and my hair, and for the first time all day, I wasn’t upset I had so much of my body covered by the insulating packs.

I frowned. It was my favorite time of year, and yet I couldn’t find it in me to enjoy it.

The container of water slipped from my fingers before I could take a drink as my hand spasmed. “Shit,” I swore as the sudden pain caused the precious contents to spill all over the dirt.

Something ticked over in my brain as emotion swamped me again. I kicked and swore, tears tracking down my face again which only made me angrier.

Once the pain resolved, I had a startling sense of clarity. He was my mate. I needed him. I wanted him.

I wanted the bond satisfied so I never had to feel like I had while he was gone ever again. But it wasn’t just about the bond or the painful side effects. We belonged together. I wanted him to be mine. I wanted people like those men in the tavern or that cosmetics vendor to get put in their place when they disregarded me standing at his side. Seir was kind, generous, attentive. He never asked me to diminish myself—the opposite in fact. He always honored my wishes. He’d done more for me and treated me with more kindness than anyone else in my life.

As my thoughts spiraled out, creating a list far longer than I could have hoped arguing for the logic of our pairing, I heard it. A heavy sound beyond what a bird could hope to achieve.

Hope flared and I looked up. In the distance was a man-sized creature with wings, coming from the direction of the camp where I’d begun the day. I stood, gasping as the torrent of feelings washed over me again. Then, they turned sour, sending a shock of cold through my body, nausea rolling through my gut.

It was like he’d hit an invisible wall in the sky. His body was limp as he plummeted, wings uselessly tucked to his sides.