18. Remorse
CHAPTER 18
REMORSE
GLAINE
ONE CYCLE LATER
W e are on the cusp of the next gold moon, and I have yet to fulfill my mate bond with Billie.
In every other way, we are mates. We share the same bed. She welcomes me into her body. We eat together, laugh together, and exist as every other mated pair in Nuit. The only difference is that she is yet to give me her mate’s promise, and until she does, I can’t help but dread the moment she decides that she no longer wants to be mine.
She has all of Sombra to find a new male. Worse, she can find a mage that does not respect Duke Haures enough to obey his laws. A rogue demon could bring Billie to the human world only to have Candor or Loki dragging her back in chains again.
I’ve kept her from the duke’s dungeon. I’ve done the same for myself. She treats me like her mate. I should be content with all that, especially since this is my own doing. I thought of nothing but myself when I carried Billie through the portal and to my realm. I wanted her and I took her, and now she must stay here.
Unless I release her. Unless I stand by as Candor uses magic to erase the memory of me and her time in Sombra from Billie, allowing her to return to Earth with no knowledge of Sombra. She wouldn’t be breaking the first law if she did, and the only one who would pay the price for my selfishness. It would only be fair, and the longer she refuses to give me the mate’s promise, the more I feel… I am remorseful. I am full of guilt.
I harmed the one soul that I should put above mine, and as the eves pass and, at the very least, Billie seems content with me, I regret that I was too impulsive. Too reckless. The grimoire was in Billie’s quarters. The magic could have already been at work, pulling her toward me. Dagon was summoned by his mate. What could it have been? One moon? Two, perhaps, until Billie’s kin left the book where Billie could find it and stumble upon the Verus Amor spell?
But I didn’t wait—and now it seems as if that is all I’ve been doing.
She laughs when I mention that, in her world, we would’ve had to fulfill our bond by the first full moon. That when I went to warn Malphas of its approach, his human mate had one choice: be released or accept him as her male. They only had a few moons to decide, and Billie laughs, telling me that instalove doesn’t exist, and you can’t expect to know that you’ll spend the rest of your immortal life with someone after a week.
I don’t tell her that I knew she was the one for me in seconds. My essence does it for me, and if Billie clings to her odd belief that we should get to know one another without relying on mystical demon magic, I allow it.
I will do anything for my mortal.
Well, almost anything…
There is time. Even if she is not immortal herself yet, there is time, and forcing me to be patient is my penalty for what I did. So many of the lower ranks of demons—craftsmen and hunters instead of soldiers and mages—believe that there is a firm deadline when it comes to claiming a mate. That if you find your fated mate but don’t bond to them by the next gold moon, then Fate got it wrong and you’re both released from the bond, never to find another forever mate.
It doesn’t work quite like that. Oh, there is some truth to their superstitions, and most of it stems from whispers of the human world of legend. Due to the first law that Duke Haures established two thousand years ago, if a mortal is destined to be a demon’s mate, there must be an unbreakable tie between the pair before the duke interferes and severs it himself. That’s where the urgency comes from; the threat of a life without their mate and a stay in his dungeons makes it so that a demon won’t hesitate to prove themselves to their female.
In Sombra, demons still do so and, usually, the demonesses either accept their males long before the first cycle has passed—or they come to an agreement to release each other on their own without sacrificing the chance to bond to another. That’s why the essence exchange usually occurs at the same time as the initial mating and mate’s promise. Once a male gives all he has to his female—and accepts her gift to him in return—there is no other chance. Even if they chose to petition the bondmaster to sever their bond, not even Duke Haures can give them a new one.
I want Billie. I will wait for her, and I will love her, and I will do everything I can to convince her that she should choose me to be her one true mate.
There is time—until, suddenly there is not.
When the knock sounds at my door and I see Apollyon wearing a solemn face, my heart lurches in my chest.
Billie is very popular among the other mated females in the village. When I’m patrolling the borders of Nuit with the clan leader, making sure our hunters return safely with their prey, and that none of the mindless prey beasts—such as the arkoda—attack from the edge of the shadows, she spends her time with Kennedy, Lilith, or Simra, one of the hunter’s mates. All are currently without spawn, though Loki’s mate is carrying his, and they drink javitz spiked with elderflower and chat when Lilith finishes lessons with the children for the day.
Apollyon did not need my company today. I was looking forward to seeing my mate, and telling her more stories of my time as a guard. Though she can simply look into my essence and see, my mortal loves to be entertained. We don’t have a rectangle with moving pictures—a ‘television’, as she calls it—in Sombra, and while she borrows books from Kennedy and Lilith to keep from getting bored, her favorite entertainment is leaning back and listening to me rumble about my realm.
For a female who is so certain she cannot stay, she loves to hear about it. More than that, she admits she’s enjoying herself. If only she didn’t have responsibilities of her own in her world that she is determined to return to, our mating might be a smoother one… but she is happy for now, and that is all that matters to me.
I had prepared a story about a campaign in Brille Rouge, but before we could settle down with the lunch I made—since, for all Billie’s blessings, cooking is not one of them—Apollyon knocked, and I knew from his face that he did not bring good news.
At least, not for me.
“Glaine. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
He is, but I’m careful not to tell Apollyon that. Not after all he’s done for my mate and me. “Is there something you need?”
He clears his throat. “One of Duke Haures’s mages is here.”
I’d known this day would come. The doppelseers’ magic concealed Billie and me while we traveled to Nuit, but it was Apollyon who—at Lilith’s urging—offered us his protection. The duke accepted it, but the longer I lived with Billie without fulfilling our mate… I’m not patient. Duke Haures? He’s even less so.
I straighten my back. I’m also trying to block the door as Billie tiptoes behind me, obviously curious to the identity of our visitor. “For me?”
“No.”
My heart skips a beat. “For Billie?”
He can try to take my mate, but I fear it won’t be easy?—
“Not quite.”
I blink. “I do not understand.”
Apollyon exhales roughly. “It is her kin.”
Her… kin.
Sierra. The one soul I know that has my mate’s affection and love. Her family.
And she’s in Sombra.
For a split second, I have the urge to slam the door in Apollyon’s face. Maybe Billie didn’t hear him. Maybe she doesn’t know that her kin is her. Maybe I could hide her and keep her and?—
No.
I am a better male, and I am for her. So, hiding any trace of panic rushing through me, throwing up a shield in case Billie tries to read my racing emotions, I glance over my shoulder to find her staring at me. Her lips are slightly parted, a very fetching shade of red coloring her pale cheeks. Her dim eyes seem glassy. Watery.
Are they leaking?
“Billie?” My voice is raw, and I gentle is as best I can. “Your kin is here.”
That’s all I need to say. As though a spell has been broken, her grin widens and, as though I am not there at all, she pushes past me and runs out through the open door.
I try not to let it hurt as much as it does that she runs and never looks back at me.
But I am a Sombra demon. I am pure shadow. Of course I shall follow her.
There are three figures standing beyond Apollyon: a human female with hair twisted the same way Lilith wears hers, and two demons. I recognize them both. The red-eyed hunter is Dagon, while the purple-eyed male with chin-length hair and stunted horns is another of Duke Haures’s mages, Erebus.
I see three figures. My mate has eyes for only one.
“Sierra!”
“Billie!”
Just like I’ve suspected all along, Billie’s kin must be Dagon’s mate. The big hunter’s eyes glow a fiery red as he hunches his shoulders. His possessive instincts are on display as he bares his fangs, but he stays where he is while the two human females collide while laughing, then embrace. He controls himself before his mate releases mine, but I know what I saw and am even more on edge than before.
At first, I think it’s because he recognizes that Billie is a female like his mate and, therefore, no threat to his mating.
Then I see that he has something he’s holding carefully with his claws. Is that… an ungez in a glass case? No… no. That is a ‘cat’.
Ah. That must be Three.
I don’t know what they are doing here. That Erebus is standing beside them as a portal winks out, it’s clear that the mage brought them to Nuit. Brought them to my mate.
When a Sombra demon is summoned by the Verus Amor spell, a pathway exists between our realm and the human world for that demon. It’s why I still cannot create a portal myself, despite knowing that Billie is my mate. But Dagon… he should’ve been able to bring
I get my answer in the next moment when Dagon’s mate pulls back from Billie and says in a raspy voice full of emotion, “We’ve been looking for you everywhere! I went to the duke, he couldn’t help at first, but then he said you might be here and he gave us a mage to zip us over and… holy fucking shit, B, you’re here! I can’t wait to talk to you. To tell you everything that happened! And, oh, you better spill the beans about what you’ve been up to, I swear to God.”
“Sierra, Sierra, I can’t believe it’s you.” Billie’s head shoots over to Dagon. “And, damn it, he was right. Do you know how much I hate it when he’s right. He gets so damn cocky… but you have your own demon mate, don’t you?”
“Dagon,” beams Sierra. “What about you?”
I think that, at last, my mate cannot deny me. I know that I am the ‘he’ she mentioned, but instead of introducing me to her kin, she shakes her head. “We’ve got to talk.”
“Okay. Where?”
Billie looks back at me at last. No. Not at me. She glances at the house, nibbles on her bottom lip with her blunt teeth, then shakes her head.
I don’t know how to feel that she’s rejected our home. That she’s rejected me.
So I say nothing as Billie tells her Sierra, “Come with me. I know a spot by the fire pit that’s gorgeous and we can talk.”
I know of it. There are some nights when Billie makes a nest in the ash, watching the flames in the fire pit as if entranced by them. I go with her to make sure my mortal doesn’t actually get burned, and she laughs as she tells me that watching the flames is the closest thing to that ‘television’ she misses.
I go with her because she is Billie, and I will follow her anywhere. But my mate also knows that—like most Sombra demons—don’t share her fascination with the fire. I tell myself not to be hurt that she does not invite me, and that there is no reason to worry since Dagon is joining the two females.
I tell myself that—and now that I am a liar.
I take a step.
Erebus lays his palm on my shoulder, a silent warning to stay behind while another demon and his mate leave with my Billie, and though she is still in my sight for the moment, I know then that I have truly lost my mate… again.
But, unlike what happened with Lilith all those years ago, I’m not sure I have the strength left in me to release Billie from our growing bond.
I love her. From the moment I caught her scent in her quarters, I knew she was born to be mine. The centuries I waited… every second brought me closer to the moment when the gods would reward me with my forever mate, and though I did not deserve one such as my wee mortal, I was prepared to do whatever it took to prove myself to her.
I tried. I attempted to be an honorable male, even when a Sombra demon’s idea of what made him honorable differed from that of a human’s. But while I made missteps along the way, everything I did, I did because I loved her.
I love her smile because, when she favors me with it, I know that I’ve done something to earn it—even if it’s in jest. I love how fierce she is despite being so tiny, and how I vowed to protect her only to watch in amazement as she protected me . I love how soft her cunt is, how easily she opens up to me as though part of her recognizes me as her mate while that most stubborn heart of hers holds out on me.
I love the way she curls up next to me while she slumbers, showing her trust in her actions though she won’t say it with words. The same with how she cares for me. I don’t need Billie to say it. I have her essence, and if I did not, I know my mortal.
She cares for me… just not enough to stay.
I wish I had more time. Because while the gold moon might not have marked the end of my wooing Billie, now that her kin has arrived with her mate to whisk my Billie away, I admit that I love her enough to let her go.
And as soon as she is gone and I no longer see her, I turn to Erebus.
“I assume the duke is expecting me?” I ask, holding out my hands as I do.
Erebus gives me a single jerking nod, visibly relieved that I will not fight my newest fate. He is a mage, a fact I know all too well when he begins weaving the enchanted chain at the same time as he builds a shadow portal behind him, and I am a guard.
I was a guard.
And now? I will be Duke Haures’s prisoner once more.