Demon's Bride (Crescent Coven, #1)

by Leigh Miller

I scent her before I see her. Her essence is singular and unmistakable. A promise and a temptation and the deepest dark desires of my soul all rolled up into one. She’s mouthwatering, irresistible, and I haven’t even seen her yet. Even so, I know she’s here. How could I not?

“Rose petals.” The words are a whisper against my skin. “And parchment. The sweet smell of summer rain. And something else, too.” “Something else?” The tip of one sharp fang grazes lightly along my earlobe. “Yes, Allie, something else. I smell your desire.” Oh, fuck. So I’m apparently as transparent as an open book to my new husband. “I can’t help it.” “I don’t want you to help it,” he growls. “I want you to revel in it.”

“Allison Ashblood,” he says, equal parts graveled reverence and sin. “You’ll kill me yet.” With that, he strikes.

“I would choose you in this realm or the human realm or any of the rest. I would choose you always, you beautiful, sweet, unearthly creature. Mates or not, Goddess-blessed or not, there could never be a life in which I did not know you as my own.”

“It means,” I tell her, brushing my lips along the back of her knuckles, “that you’re mine. And I’m yours. We’ve belonged to one another for our entire lives, even if we only found out yesterday.”

“Don’t start doubting me. I chose you today, Eren, and I meant it.”

“Wife,” he rasps as we reach the door, “I can smell exactly what you’re thinking.” “I can’t help it,” I whisper.

“I’ll be right here,” Eren says quietly. “Find your way back to me.”

He lets out a tense breath. “It’s because of the mate bond. When you experience powerful emotions, I can feel an echo of them through the bond.” “Even if you’re not in the same room?” “I think I’d be able to feel it even if we weren’t in the same realm.”

“Feeling you this way, having this bond between us, it’s the greatest blessing I could ever ask for. Not a burden.” Something warm and comforting coils itself around my heart. Still, I can’t let it go. “But if all it’s bringing you is more pain and misery on top of everything else, what good is that?” Eren reaches up and wipes away a tear from my cheek. “It’s still a blessing, because I know when you need my help the most.”

“Your value does not lie in what you can provide for others or what ‘use’ you render, my bride. Your value lies in the simple fact of your life, your existence.”

“Never doubt your value, little witch. Never with me. There is nothing more precious in any realm or universe than you, to me, nothing more valuable.”

Here, now, with everything in the thirteen realms stacked against us, I’d choose this—choose her—a thousand times and a thousand more.

“Eren Dane Ashblood,” I tell him, letting the words come to me from everywhere and nowhere. “I offer myself to you in service of your realm. My magick, my body, my soul, everything I have is yours. I vow this to you, for as long as I shall live.” A sheen of tears over his eyes. “I’ll take your offer, witch. And I’ll give you one of my own. A home, where you’ll always be safe and protected. A heart, which will love you for an eternity. A soul, which will always be yours. Do we have a deal?” “Yes,” I say, magick flowing from the word like water. “We have a deal.” His answering smile could light up worlds. “A kiss, then,” I remind him. “To seal our bargain.”

I move my hands to his horns, bring his face to my neck, and drop my head back against the stone to bare my throat in a silent command I know he’ll obey. Eren chuckles, a darkly affectionate sound that skitters across my skin as he lowers his mouth. “You win, witch. But only this one time.”

“Mmm,” I murmur. “It’s a nice night tonight.” “It is,” Eren says, eying me suspiciously. “What of it?” I take a step away from him, and then another. “Nothing,” I say, all innocence. “Just observing. Might be a good night for me to take a walk.” Another step, eyes darting from side to side as I plan my route of escape. The wave of pure, sexual magick from my demon through our bond makes my heart speed up. “Allison Amethyst Ashblood,” he says, voice dropping low. “How many times must I teach you what happens to pretty witches when they run?” A wicked, wicked pulse of my own arousal and delight draws a growl from him. “Once more,” I say, just before I run. “Always once more.”