Tell Them That I’m Coming (Sombra Demons #9)

Chapter 1

BUTTERFLIES

Whenever anyone in Nuit is looking for me, they just have to follow the butterflies.

They glow softly as they drift through the air, white wings catching the light of the dark moon, settling on the log or stone or whatever I’m resting on or perching atop my knee like they belong there.

Like they belong wherever I am. Others might circle lazily near my head, unbothered by the way some of the villagers pause in awe when they see them—when they see me.

No wonder I tend to spend most of my time in Nuit on the edge of it. After twenty-five years, you’d think I’d get used to the stares, to the murmurs, to my clansmen nodding in gratitude for something that I’ll never be able to remember…

Sitting on his haunches, Binx flicks his tail once at my ankle before curling it around his forelegs.

“I know,” I murmur, without looking down. “It’s annoying.”

The butterflies don’t listen. They never do. They just keep gathering, soft and persistent, until anyone with half a brain in Nuit knows exactly where I am.

Of course my soul-pet is with me. The butterflies always seem to appear, especially when I’m in one of my moods, but Binx…

my childhood as Nuit’s savior isn’t the only thing I don’t remember.

I couldn’t tell you how Binx chose me to bond with.

Ever since I was a wee spawn, the ungez has been there, my guardian and my friend.

We have a bond that will only rival the one I eventually share with my mate, but while ungez can’t speak—not Sombran, not Human—I usually understand him anyway.

It’s an ungez thing. Just like his triangle-shaped ears, glowing white eyes, sharp claws, shadow fur, and fluffy tail, Binx—named by Mom who said he reminded her of a cross between an Earth creature called a cat and one called a squirrel, and picked a name that had meaning from her childhood—as an ungez, could choose one soul to belong to.

He picked Alana. No one else knows what the flick of his ear, the swish of his tail, or the chittering sound coming from behind his sharp teeth means except for me.

Right now, he’s wondering why I’ve slunk out into the ash fields, watching the ash glowing with red heat, the fires burning in the distance before being swallowed up by Sombra’s shadows.

To the right, there’s the path that leads to the lava pools, but I have my back to it so that none of the other villagers will notice me.

I’m not supposed to be here. I told Mom that I was visiting Brille Rouge with Rafe earlier this morning.

She doesn’t like it, but at twenty-five-years-old, she admits that I am mature enough to use my powers if I choose to.

Of the four halflings—half human, half demon—who live in our village, I’m the only one who has the gift of walking through shadows and traveling to neighboring realms. I’ve traveled to countless ones, even those that no one in Sombra have heard of before I stepped foot on their land, but after I recently discovered I was blocked from one world in particular, I’ve found I’ve lost a taste for it.

That was two gold moons ago. Since then, I’ve used my shadows to bring Rafe to Brille Rouge whenever Mom doesn’t need me at the EL or Rafe has an afternoon off from lessons with his mage father, Loki. Like this morning.

I don’t mind working with Mom at the Earth Library.

Amy usually brings new books written in Human—Mom’s language—whenever she visits Nuit with her mate, Nox, so there’s always something new to read and to offer to the demons and demonesses that have learned Human.

I’m lucky. Part human myself, I was taught it from the cradle; same as Sombran.

Mom and Loki’s mother, Kennedy, have spent my whole life teaching it to anyone in the clan who was interested, and now more of Nuit knows Human than doesn’t.

Of course, that’s because most of the villagers have a fondness for the human women who came to Sombra with their mates before I was born… and because it was a half human spawn that saved their realm a few gold moons after that.

I sigh.

I could be in Brille Rouge. I brought Rafe there hours ago so that he can continue wooing the pretty seamstress he aims to make his mate, but there’s a Human saying Mom’s fond of: two’s company, three’s a crowd.

I left Rafe with Katrin before promising I’d return with a portal to bring him home, then hightailed it back to Sombra myself.

Now I’m sitting on the low stone wall at the edge of the village, boots dangling over the ash, a hint of my shadows curled around the toes. Nuit is quiet this time of day; safe, as it always is. Protected. That word follows me nearly as faithfully as the butterflies do.

I saved Sombra, and in return, it seems as if the whole realm wants to make sure that I’m just as protected.

Mom, especially, and Dad, too, but when even the most ancient of my clansmen goes out of their way to thank me for something I did when I was an infant, it’s no surprise that I find excuses to hide away from the rest of the village.

But the butterflies follow me, and that’s all you have to know if you want to track me down—

A soft, lyrical voice interrupts my thoughts.

“Brooding again, are we, Alana?”

I glance sideways as Stevie tucks the skirts of her dress beneath her, then drops down beside me, close enough that her delicate shoulder bumps mine. She doesn’t look at the butterflies. She never does once she’s near, and I love her for it.

“I’m not brooding,” I say. “I’m thinking.”

Stevie hums, careful not to use her brand of magic in the sound. Ever since we were spawn, she promised not to enchant Rafe and me with her voice, and now that she’s mature, she rarely uses her gift.

Unlike me.

“You look like you’re plotting your escape,” she points out.

If only I could. Despite having the ability to visit nearly every other realm, I feel trapped in Sombra. I don’t tell her that, though. I don’t have to. A halfling like me, forever struggling to fit in, she knows exactly how I feel.

So, instead, I give her a crooked grin. “That’s just my face.”

She snorts and leans back on her hands, gaze sweeping the empty ash fields. “You could move, you know. Make them work a little harder to follow you.”

I glance at the butterflies swarming nearby, then shrug. “Why? They’d just find me again.”

Stevie makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, an almost agreement that also tells me that she wasn’t specifically talking about the butterflies. Up until three gold moons ago, she was as determined to see beyond Nuit as I was.

And then, when one of Duke Haures’s soldiers came to Nuit to speak to Glaine—the head of the duke’s guard who, along with his human mate, Billie, spends half their time in Nuit and the other in the duke’s capital of Mavro—and saw Stevie walking through the village square.

All of the halflings I’ve met have different features from our parents.

Take me for example. I have Mom’s colorless skin, Dad’s golden eyes, Mom’s pale yellow hair that’s closer to white, and Dad’s black horns even if mine are barely an inch long.

Stevie favors her Dad more. Dagon is a fierce hunter with the standard deep red Sombran skin and vivid red eyes.

Stevie’s flesh is more of a rosy pink with his black hair and red eyes; as a nod to her human mother, she plaits her thick black hair and lets it settle over her shoulders.

Her horns are delicate and sharp, her body curvy, and her voice magical…

but she didn’t even need to utter a single note before Corbin was kneeling before her, telling her that she was his one true mate.

Most Sombra demons have to wait centuries before they chance upon their one true mate.

No one knew what to expect for us halflings.

After all, I’m the first one that’s part human, part demon that’s ever been born.

I almost understood Rafe’s desire to choose his own mate to soothe his loneliness, but I’ve always known I’d hold out for my fated mate.

And then Stevie found hers. Mom thinks it’s because humans usually find their mates early.

She was only a few years older than me when she bonded with Dad, so though our parents all think of us as spawn still, it wasn’t such a shock that Corbin recognized Stevie as his—or that she agreed that she felt the same.

They haven’t bonded yet. Three gold moons have passed, with Corbin doing his best to woo Stevie in between his duty to Duke Haures, and I know exactly why Stevie is holding off on agreeing to be his for eternity.

It’s that word right there. Eternity. She’s not even twenty-five yet, while Corbin is two hundred and twelve, and she wants to get to know him before she promises him forever.

And, sure, all she has to do is give him her essence—the part of a demon that’s everything they are, including thoughts, memories, hopes, and dreams—and take his for a mated pair to know everything about one another.

She could do that, but while Stevie favors her father’s looks, her personality is much closer to Sierra, her human mother.

She wants Corbin to prove himself to her, and I don’t blame her. If I ever found my fated mate, I hoped I’d be able to ignore my libido long enough to make sure he’s the male for me rather than just foolishly trust that the gods got it right.

Even so, both Rafe and I have spent the last few months asking Stevie what it was like to look in Corbin’s green eyes and know that he was the male meant for her. She’s explained it the best she can, calling it a gut punch, and telling us when it happens to us, we’ll know.

Rafe doesn’t want to wait. He wants it to happen now, and if it doesn’t? He’ll be happy if the demoness he has his eye on will accept him as his mate before Stevie finally bonds with Corbin.