I could’ve released her. Grounding my teeth together, dipping my horns in regret, I admit if
only to myself that this wouldn’t be happening if I’d accepted she didn’t want me and I had
released her from her mate’s promise.
An honorable male would have.
I thought I was one. For my mate, I’ll do anything.
Anything except give her up.
So maybe I’m not so honorable, after all.
Her pointy little pale nose is scrunched up as she tilts her head back. She gapes at the
shadows, stunned speechless, before she whirls on me.
“Duke?” she sputters. “Soldiers?”
If I wasn’t so worried for her, I would think her even more adorable for her reaction.
I can’t lie to her. It’s not how a Sombra demon treats his mate. She deserves honesty,
especially now that my selfishness has caught up to me. 

“Yes. They’ve found me.”
“Found you,” squeals Shannon. “What do you mean found you? Who found you? What’s
going on?”
“There are rules,” I admit with a heavy heart. Rules I knew well last night, and that I
brushed past when my suspicious mate asked me about them. “The portal only opens between
worlds to bring me to my mate if she’s off-plane, and then when we’re bonded and I want to
bring her home with me. If this was Soleil... if this was Rouge Brille... it wouldn’t matter. I
could wait for you. But this is a mortal world. I wasn’t supposed to stay.”
She narrows her pretty blue eyes on me. “But you told me you couldn’t go back unless I
sent you back! Were you lying?”
Never.