“You’ll take me to my daughter. Then you’ll see we get home. You promised, and I’m holding you to it. That’s all I want from you, demon.”
Demon hands went around her so quickly Kindara didn’t see him move. She was yanked off her feet and against his chest so fast her breath whooshed out and she grabbed his shoulders. She gasped.
He laughed. “I promise you, pet, I am not done with you. Not by a long shot. You and I have some unfinished business. And I am not ready to let you go. Remember that.”
The demon kissed her, and once again, Kindara kissed him right back.
She’d lost count of how many times that had happened in that damned cave of his.
He was no doubt pleased with himself now.
14
Despite the vow he’d made, he’d have to find a way to keep her with him. It was his own fault, though he had difficulty finding remorse for what he had done.
For the first time in eleven thousand plus years, Rathan had made a rather careless mistake.
With the Dardaptoan female.
It was careless and a bit stupid and extremely reckless. One only demonic youth would have done.
The only excuse he had was that she made him forget himself in so many ways.
He’d forgotten to utter the simple protection spell every Incubi and Succubae were taught from the moment they entered puberty and began needing to feed sexually.
Never had he forgotten that spell. Except with her.
It was vital that his Kind know how to prevent spawning—otherwise, every world would have long been overrun with Incubi and Succubae, and all the other magical demonic Kinds that existed.
Not every Demon Kind was magical, thankfully. But those that were—were extremely powerful. It would have shifted the balances that existed if demons spawned without care. Even demon kings.
There were rules against that.
And laws for what were to happen after. Laws that changed things for him, as king, especially.
Unlike many of his brethren, he’d never spawned before. His first child would be the king or queen of his people. And not just his Kind, but of all the demon Kinds. He was the high demon king of the entire realm; he’d never taken that knowledge lightly.
The spawn would have to be born of a female worthy of being the queen, for one thing. Heir to the king.
That was a role of immense responsibility.
If female, the spawn would be Dardaptoan like her. But a Relaklonosian princess. That carried responsibilities.
What he did know was that the moment he had forgotten to utter the protection spell the fourth—or possibly fifth—time he had taken her, he had assumed a responsibility to this female far greater than he had planned. At least until their spawn was of age. In about twenty-three years or so.
Maybe that was but a moment of time for them, but it mattered.
That was a responsibility he did not take lightly at all.
Rathan pulled her closer, keeping a guiding hand on her back as they hiked.
He’d already wrapped her in his own tunic. He would easily handle the cold—Relaklonos was on average fifteen degrees colder than Gaia—but she needed the warmth.
He could not have her falling. Not while carrying the spawn.
He worried for her.
Rathan hadn’t worried for many females before.
Demon spawn were strong and hardy—mothers as delicate as she could have difficulties carrying the spawn to term.
He had heard of no Dardaptoan female carrying a demon spawn to birth. Rathan half feared it might kill her. She was so frail compared to a demon female. He had heard of no Demon-Dardaptoan pairings in all of his years.
That worried him more than he wanted to admit. First chance he got, he would be contacting his cousin Phelius, High Healer of the Demon Kind, for answers. He would have Phelius search, see if any Dardaptoan females had carried demon spawn before.
He lifted her over a fallen log, his hands lingering on her waist. It would swell with his spawn soon. They had to resolve this between them well before that happened. “Are you tired, pet?”
“No. I’m good. And I’m not your pet, demon. I’ve told you that before.”
He ignored her snipping and the hot look she sent at him.
He suspected she liked fighting him over the little things. Snipping and snapping, full of fire and life. Passion.
He considered that as they hiked the now snow-covered Colorado countryside.
It reminded him of Dragolus, the region of Relaklonos that lay to the west of his own castle. There were eighty-three kingdoms in his Relaklonos. He ruled them all, from his home nation of the same name.
His realm was as varied as this much younger one.
He wondered what she would think of it, the home destined for her now.
It would not be a peaceful existence they shared as consorts, but he was looking forward to the adventure that would be. Life for the past thousand or so years had been a bit tepid for him. A few hundred years with this female would change all that.
Unless she grew tired of him and left him, like his mother had his father all those millennia ago.
That had destroyed his father in more ways than Rathan had realized at first. After that, Rathan’s father had declared that no female would ever be good enough to be the High King’s consort ever again. His father had spawned several hundred offshoots since that day—but never had he loved the females involved.
Not that Rathan had ever learned.
The spawn had stopped showing up at the castle around then, too.
Rathan was almost convinced his father was dead.
He had several of his most trusted brothers and cousins out searching the worlds for his father now.
Rathan had been ruling in his father’s stead for ten thousand years now. While his father wandered…aimlessly. Heartbroken.
His father’s pain had run exceptionally deep—until Laklahm had just disappeared around one hundred years ago.
Perhaps a consort bond would not be strong enough for him and this hissing little ashae cat next to him. “Let me know if you need to rest. We will stop as long as you need.”
“Why are you hovering? You’re the most solicitous abductor I’ve ever heard of. Ever had, for that matter. You might want to work on that before you take another unsuspecting female for your stupid purposes.”
Rathan stopped. “I prefer to think I am not just your abductor.”
“What would you call it, then?”
She stumbled on some loose leaves and gravel. He grabbed her, pulling her hard against his suddenly rapid heartbeat. He covered the back of her head with one hand, wanting to just hold her. To protect.
To hover, like he was a damned Dardaptoan male.
He was being ridiculous, and he knew it.
But damn it—this was his first spawn.
He had the right to be overprotective of that spawn’s mother.
Dardaptoan males were notorious for coddling their females and being obsessive over their safety and comfort. Maybe now he was starting to understand it—and he wasn’t her fated mate. Just her lover.
“I prefer to call it...lover. I am your lover, not your abductor.” Rathan put her back on her feet, as carefully as he could. Gold eyes watched his every move—her gaze filled with mistrust. She was certainly going to prove a challenge. “And a lover is supposed to care for his female.”
“I’m not your female. And we aren’t really lovers. This isn’t a real affair. We fed each other. That was it. And no one—especially my daughter—is to know of this. What happened in the cave stays in the cave. Period.”
He winced.
It would become quite obvious to everyone what had happened in that cave. Within a matter of weeks at the most.
He’d better come up with a plan, and fast.
He wasn’t about to lose his spawn—or the mother who carried him, now.
15
He had nothing to feed her. Rand cursed himself for
how ill prepared he’d actually been in his anger at the Dardaptoans. Had he truly thought that making one innocent woman suffer would be revenge against an entire Kind? Stupid. Callous and cruel.
He usually wasn’t that impulsive. He was more of a planner, like his sister Mallory. Grief for his twin stabbed him, made him more impatient with his mate than he truly needed to be.
But she didn’t complain. She just sat eyeing him warily, with cheeks that were permanently red now. Her embarrassment was clear for him to see. She couldn’t even meet his eyes. Was she that ashamed of what they had done, of the pups they had made? She had not mentioned them even once. “Come on. We need to get going.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, so quietly he had to strain to hear. It was the first question she’d asked him in hours. He wanted to ask her a thousand. About her. Everything about her. When he should be focused on the plan; his sisters deserved more than to be forgotten. Even if Rand had found his mate. He owed it to Mickey and Mallory. “I need to find my mother. She’s going to be terrified.”
“Rathan will not have hurt her.” Of that, he was certain. Rathan was extremely protective of any woman he got involved with. No doubt, the demon had packed a bag of food just for the one he had taken. And blankets. Even warm damned socks and mittens.
“Then tell me: Why did he take her away?” She shot a longing expression toward the den’s entrance.
It irked him. The knowledge that his own mate wanted to run from him. “Can’t you be without your mother?”
“Not when she has been abducted. She’ll be terrified—and worried sick about me. She doesn’t deserve this again. I don’t even know why you targeted us. Except that you are Tanisses. But I didn’t know Tanisses were Lupoiux. That’s what I can’t figure out.”
She shivered in revulsion as she said it. She hated his Kind, then. Well, he didn’t exactly think all that fondly of hers.
He sank his fingers into the hair that had fallen out of the braid she’d had it in. Silk. She was soft as silk beneath his hand. He’d give anything to get her back in his bedroll, naked, where he could explore all that softness.
The Lupoiux fever was upon him again. The urge to ensure survival of his species.
She obviously wasn’t feeling the same.
Figured.
“Simple. You were the most valued bait to lure the damned king of your people out.” He leaned forward, just wanting to needle her.
“That’s all it was? Nothing else?” There was a hope in her eyes. He knew what his mate wanted to hear. She wanted to know that he had been searching for her. He was just obstinate enough that he would let her think differently.
And it was truth. He didn’t want a Dardaptoan for a mate. Far, far from it. But he wanted her. He would always want her.
He wasn’t about to let her know that, though.
“That was it.” He crowded close to her. “What else could there be?”
She bit her lip and just looked at him. “Nothing.”
“Were you hoping I came for you?” Rand thought about it for a moment. He would have. If he had known his mate was the heir to the vampires of Dardanos, he would have stalked and trapped her years ago. Brought her to his home.
Made their children years ago. Three or four, at least. Depending on how old she actually was. That had him pausing. Dardaptoan females were ageless.
She could be anywhere from twenty-two to somewhere in the hundreds. Of course, his research had put her in her early twenties—but research had been wrong before.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
Relief filled him. She wasn’t quite as young as he’d first thought, at least.
She looked away. He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. Amber eyes so perfect, a pink mouth that trembled, that made him hungry for her.
He could look at her forever, in spite of her being a damned bloodsucker.
Rand couldn’t help himself; he pressed his lips against his mate’s.
He kept kissing her until she pushed him away.
“I don’t think you should touch me again. You’ve…got what you wanted from me. You said it yourself—you’re not my Rajni. That means I am not your mate. Now…or ever.”
Like hell she wasn’t.
Rand was just going to have to prove it.
He growled. She flinched. He turned and walked away.
16
Kindara wished he’d keep his hands to himself. Every brush against her, every helping hand he gave her made her burn with the memory of his hands on her right before they’d left the little cave they’d shared through the night. It had been fast, and hot, and she’d screamed twice before it was over.
She’d drank from him again before they’d left. He’d insisted—she hadn’t resisted.
He grabbed her hand when she stumbled again. “Careful, pet. You mustn’t fall.”
“I’m fine.” The thin boots on her feet were extremely inadequate for a mountain hike in the early hours of the morning—through the snow. He stayed close, not giving her breathing room. “Where are we going?”
“The family has a cabin thirty-two miles east of here.”
Thirty-two miles? Damn it. Her shoes would not hold up for a thirty-two-mile hike. “And once we’re there?”
“I will fill you a hot bath, and you will rest while we wait for your daughter and the wolf.”
“What’s your obsession with me resting?” He’d practically patted her on the head like a child. Something had changed in how he looked at her, too. In spite of the darkness. They weren’t human; neither of them had trouble seeing in the dark. There was a sly expression in his demon black eyes. Something that said he was plotting something. She didn’t trust him at all. And never would.
He was a demon, after all.
“You are a delicate Dardaptoan female.” He seemed surprised at her question.
Idiot.
Males of every species were known to underestimate the females. Demon, Lupoiux, Dardaptoan, they all were that way. Underestimate the females while they were off playing warmongers.
Assholes.
Every single one of them.
“You aren’t as able as I to withstand hard physical demands.”
“A thirty-two-mile hike is nothing new to me, though it has been three decades or more since the last one. And I had better shoes then.” Kindara remembered it well—Iavius, Nalik, Cravic, and Cormac on the trail of a young band of warrior demons.
She’d not wanted to be separated from Iavius, so she and her friend Aureliana had followed the males. It had proven a good thing, as there were more demons than they’d expected. Her family had had a wonderful time battling them, but Kindara’s healing skills had definitely been needed by the time they were done. On the males, and on Aureliana, who’d had a bit too much of a role in the fight.
“Who let you?” Anger coated his words, and Kindara bristled.
“What do you mean who let me? I am over four hundred years old, demon. I can—and always could—do what I wanted. I answer to no one but my dhar and my brother, head of my House. And even when he’s being an ass, I choose whether to follow his orders or not. Dardaptoans aren’t nearly as sexist as Incubi demons apparently. We have just as many females in leadership roles as we do males.”
“To take a Dardaptoan female on such a journey was highly unwise!” He swore in a language she didn’t understand, but she figured out what he meant. It wasn’t hard to do.
He was an anachronism under that hot demon exterior apparently.
“Yet you’re doing just that, with me and my daughter.”
“Out of necessity!”
“Out of a need for revenge. Like little boys on the school grounds. Yet none of you—demon, human, Dardaptoan, or Lupoiux—have stopped to think of the females involved in your stupid, senseless war.” Kindara realized she was shouting when birds took off from their perches overhead. She stopped walking and took several deep breaths. Yelling at the demon would n
ot get her to Jierra any faster. “Yet it is the females who suffer the most. Look at my daughter. My Goddess, she teaches at an elementary school! Yet now she’s hostage in some sort of revenge plot. And Joselyn... poor Joselyn and what she has endured because of males and their rash, arrogant actions. Their stupidity.”
“It’s not my revenge. It’s Rand’s.”
“And that makes it better?” Kindara struggled not to shout again. “At least if it were your own, you could justify the cause. So do you serve him like a master? Does Taniss keep you on a string? Are you walked by the puppy?”
“I serve no one!” He growled and stepped toward her.
Kindara fought the urge to retreat. He was a highly dangerous creature she truly knew very little about.
She had to stop being so stupid. Rash decisions had gotten her into this predicament, anyway. Her. And Jierra. She had to remember what was important. Getting to her daughter, then getting the both of them back to where they belonged and would be safe. Jierra’s safety was all that mattered now. “Not even your demon king or demon queen?”
She knew from her brother that there were dozens of demon queens and kings in this creature’s home realm. But that was about all she knew about his realm’s political structure.
“I am the king of my people. Of all Demon Kind. The Relaklonosian High King. None in my world is of higher rank—or power. I rule it all, ashae cat.” He started walking, tugging on her hand until she followed. “But I am bound to Rand as well. Through unbreakable blood oaths.”
“How?” She hated speaking to his back, yet he gave her little choice. His hand was tight around hers, though. Warm and strong as he led her over rocks and downed trees. And rapidly piling snow that was moving from flurries to more.
“He and some of his pack saved my life and that of my young sister after a particularly nasty ambush ten years ago. I swore an oath to protect him and aid him for the next ten years, as he was not of age at the time. I have protected his sisters since at his request. That is all he asked of me. To protect them. I’ve failed. Twice. I will fix that.”
Bound To The Demon Page 6
