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In fact, she’s the reason I discover why Apollyon scrutinized Loki’s chest when he told the clan leader we were mated when she asks innocently when Loki will be visited Trost, the clan tattooist.
In Sombra, it’s a tradition for bonded males to carve their mate’s name into their chest, setting the brand with a shiny silver ink. Beneath his shadow coverings, Apollyon has Lilith’s name etched into his chest.
After our first gold moon spent together in our new home, Loki has mine.
Sombra has two moons. The darker, constant one is like the sun, only with less illumination and it never sets. The other is the gold moon, similar to the one in the human world in that it’s not always there.
The gold moon is an event in Sombra. That’s something else I learn. Matings are celebrated in the days leading up to it, any new spawn are introduced to the clan, and any demon who is ready to move on to another village says their goodbyes during the gold moon.
Plus, it makes bonded mates really, really horny.
As returning villagers, there’s a feast in our honor the night of our first gold moon together. I made it halfway through the second course before I found myself squirming in my seat, desperate for my mate. Next to me, Loki was gripping the long table where we were sitting in the village square. His red knuckles were white from the pressure, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in the scent of my arousal.
We left before the third course of meat was served, and though the feast was Nuit’s way to welcome us, not a single demon stopped us as we went.
Of course not. If they were bonded, they knew exactly what we were heading home to do.
CHAPTER15
SPAWN
LOKI
Isee a new side to my Kennedy in Nuit. Already the light to my shadows, she flourishes in the village.
The clansmen adore her. Not as much as I do, but though many treated her as other when I first brought her here, they quickly fell under her charms. There’s some about her sweet smile and her blunt human teeth that makes her seem so unthreatening. A demon’s instincts would be to shield her as we would spawn.
My instincts are to do so much more than that which is why my Kennedy is finally expecting our spawn.
It’s still early. Only a few cycles have passed since I first sensed the new life growing inside of her. Her scent has only slightly changed. Recently, though, when I leave our home to barter for everything she would need, I get used to the knowing looks from my clansman.
They do not mention it. Until the spawn is here and part of the village, it is our way to continue on as if our mate’s are not preparing for offspring. It will be a great celebration when my Kennedy gives birth. For now, it is all about pampering my mate and doing whatever I can to worship her as her amazing human body works hard to create our offspring.
She wants fabric-woven dresses? I trade Raiga a spell to keep her needles sharp for three new ones. A pair of boots made from the skin of a nadu, one of the leathery beasts who scamper through the ash fields in a brown-skinned solid form came from Del; all the elder demon required was to sit with Kennedy, learning secrets of her human world.
Lilith, Apollyon’s mate, brings her books to read when she discovers that is my clever mate’s specialty. Before she met me, my mate was a respected bookseller; it is how she found the spellbook that called me to her. In Nuit, Lilith acts as clanmother and teacher, so it is no wonder to me that the Soleil demoness takes my Kennedy under her horns.
I am glad that she is so welcomed by the villagers. From her essence, I know that my mate was lonely before she found me. I don’t travel through her memories often. I learned my lesson when I learned of the male Tyler.
Humans do not mate for life like Sombra demons do. They can, and Kennedy assures me that some do, but it isn’t expected. They trade mates frequently instead of waiting for their one true love. Of course. Demons have forever to find their mate, claim them, and keep them. Before my essence made Kennedy as immortal as any demoness, she only had a hundred years at most. With so little time, their people cannot risk waiting too long in the hopes they find their mate.
That’s why she couldn’t understand why I was so sure that she was mine. She felt the bond snap into place when I first walked into her human quarters, she just didn’t know that’s what it was. That she was meant to be mine until I finally could give her my essence.
She was meant to be mine, but she had other males before me.
Sombra demons are as possessive as we are protective. It wasn’t rage I experienced because there was another. It was pain for how the worthless human male treated my precious Kennedy before I could save her from him.
She is my treasured mate. That she loved then was betrayed by another only hurts because it left a scar on her. Her ex-male was not worthy of her, but without him choosing another female over her—her kin, no less—would she ever have manifested me with magic of her own?
In a way, I thank the feckless human male. His loss is my gain, and I thank the gods every day for giving me another chance—and Kennedy.
She is my heart. My love. Everything I wanted, and nothing I deserved. When she curls up next to me on the ‘couch’ I conjured for her to her exact expectations, Freya sitting on her shoulder, another book from Lilith in her lap, I often marvel at my good fortune.
She saved me. I once thought of it as her healing me, but it’s more than that.
I found my magic inside of my mate. I still struggle with my shadows—I probably always will, the aftereffects of the matefinder spell I cast so long ago—but where my well of magic ran dry the entire time I hid on the edge of Sombra, with my Kennedy at my side, it overflows.
And if anyone ever tries to take her from me, I will use my claws, my fangs, my two-horns, and my magic to stop them.
