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I need it. I need it more than anything else I’ve ever needed before, and while I try to keep my features schooled so that none can tell how much I long to snatch the book right from his grip, I understand that Duke Haures plans on having Nox and his female return the book to the human realm.
Not if I offer first.
Moving out from behind Duke Haures’s throne, I turn to Loki. Holding out my hand, I tell him, “I shall take the book.”
Everyone in the throne room looks at me.
I straighten my back. “I can travel to the human realm and leave the book behind without being seen. And if I am? I can use magic to make the mortals forget.”
Nox rumbles deep in his chest.
His reaction is no surprise. Though we act cordial these days, the hunter has never forgiven the duke for ordering him to spend fourteen human years in the dungeons, Glaine for dragging him beneath the elaborate castle, or me for being the one to clasp him in the enchanted golden chains—or for how I was tasked with taking his human mate’s memories of him.
I had to. She was still a human spawn when Nox first found her, and while Duke Haures’s first law allows for mates to learn the truth of Sombra, Nox could not bond his Amelia to him until she was a mature female. He had to take the chains just like I needed to remove any trace of Sombra from the child.
But the book worked the way it is charmed to, keeping the bond open between them so that Nox could return to her side when she needed him the most. Fully grown and prepared to bond with the hunter, Nox claimed his human—but not without complications.
The way he no longer has control over his dual forms being the most noticeable.
I’m responsible for that, too. Or, rather, the chains I conjured are. Still wearing them when Nox ripped open a hole between realms, he fed nearly all of his essence into the chains to break free of their bonds. Now, instead of choosing whether he’s red-skinned and solid or transparent as his shadows, Nox flips between the two. He’s allowed to stay in the human world so long as no one sees him, and I’m not wrong when I say that it would be less risky for me to go with the book even without my mage abilities.
Duke Haures leans back in his throne, pale hands laid casually on the arms of his crystalline chair. The blue tint from Mavro’s oasis matches his glowing gaze, coloring his white skin, his long white hair, and his tusks.
I’m a mage. Not a two-horn, like Loki, but born with the gift of magic, made obvious by my purple eyes. Duke Haures? He’s… he’s something else, and not only because he is the only pale-skinned demon in Sombra. He exhales magic with every breath, barely contained violence in each inch of his huge body.
As my gaze slides over to the duke, I know instantly that he suspects that my motives aren’t pure at all.
I nod at him anyway. “It was once the property of the School of Mages,” I remind him. “I understand that this is human magic now, but I should still be the one to handle it.”
Duke Haures steeples his claws. “I trust you, Sammael,” is all he says before he nods regally toward Loki. “Give the book to my mage.”
Loki only hesitates long enough to trail one of his shadowy hands down his mate’s arm before he stalks toward me, thrusting the book out.
I take it, but Loki doesn’t let go straight away.
“Be careful,” he murmurs under his breath instead. “We both know better than to play with old magic.”
He is not wrong. An entire century in the shadows, existing as a full demon because he casted a spell he wasn’t ready for… my former student learned more with one failed spell than all of his lessons.
So did I. Because I?
I will not fail.
CHAPTER1
PHANTOM
SAMMAEL
Nodding at Loki, I tug on the book. He releases it, then returns to stand at his mate’s side.
Perhaps I am too eager. With the tips of my claws digging into the edge of the binding, the book in my possession at last, I gesture with my left hand. The moment the portal to the human realm appears in front of me, I walk right into it.
I trust you…
Duke Haures’s words are echoing through my head as I touch down among the shadows of a dingy corner of the human realm. The scents—more earthy and oily and bitter than the waters of Mavro or the fiery ash of the rest of Sombra—make it clear to me that I’ve crossed planes.
I’m sure the duke expects me to set the book down, relying on the magic inside of it to find the next human it’s destined for, then return to Sombra.
