Keon
The tavern is a shit hole, but the ale is good, and they don’t have a problem serving daemons. A female with silvery blonde hair and a curvaceous figure walks past and my heart leaps into my throat.
Fee?
But she turns her head to the side, and I catch her profile.
Not Fee.
What the fuck is my problem?
I left to get away from her, from everything. From the pitying eyes and the knowledge that my prior actions will never allow me to be with the woman I love.
I murdered Azazel’s lovers. Every single one. He will never allow me to be with Fee, and I don’t deserve to be. These hands… I hold them up to my face. These hands have taken too many innocent lives in the name of a queen who chose not to love her son.
I pick up my tankard and am about to take a swig when the chair next to me is pulled back with a scrape and a figure settles into it.
My nostrils flare and then every muscle in my body tenses
“Hello, brother,” Azazel says. “I’m not here to fight.”
Fuck. “Why did you find me?”
“We have unfinished business,” he says.
“I’m not fighting you.”
“Just as well, because you’d lose.”
I snort. “I let you win the last time.”
A sigh. “I know.”
I meet his eyes for the first time and note the dark circles beneath them and the weary lines on his face. “What are you doing here, Azazel? I’d have thought you would gather Fee and go back to the human world by now. I thought you’d be glad to have me out of the picture.”
“Maybe I’d have been glad before...” He takes a deep breath. “Before you saved her life at the cost of your own and before I found out we were kin.”
“You want to play happy families?” I sneer at him, battling the hope that blooms in my chest at his words, and fighting the craving for family that I’ve denied myself all these years. “You want to embrace… this?” I indicate my daemon form. “Hmmm?”
“Yes,” he says simply. “I want to know the brother who was denied to me.”
‘The daemon who murdered your lovers.” I push him with my words, expecting and wanting his anger.
Instead he sits forward, bracing his forearms on the table. “Tell me, Keon, did you want to kill them? Did you enjoy it?”
I grit my teeth as my victims faces flash through my mind. “No.”
His smile is wry. “I needed someone to blame, and it was easier to hate you than hate my own mother, but I know it wasn’t your fault and I forgive you. I want us to be…friends. In time we might be brothers.”
The wall I’ve built is crumbling beneath his words as hope punches holes into it.
“Fee is miserable,” Aazael says. “She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and when I hold her, I can feel the emptiness inside her. We were once enough, but we are no longer enough. A piece of her heart is missing.”
What was he saying?
“I need you to come back, Keon, because the missing piece is you.”
I stare at him, momentarily stunned. “You want me to be with her?”
His mouth tightens. “I want my soulmate to be happy, and I want to know my brother.” He sighs. “I want us to be a family.”
He holds my gaze, steady, even, and sincere.
The tight band around my chest eases. I’m going home.
Fee
It would be dinner time soon and dinner at the Keep was a fancy affair now Samael was back.
“What are you going to wear?” Cora asked as we headed toward my rooms. “That red dress the imps delivered is gorgeous. Uri’s eyes will pop out of his head, and Grayson and Hunter will go into Loup heat. Wait. Do male Loup go into heat?”
I chuckled. “It also makes my boobs look like they’re about to burst free.”
“I know—fucking fabulous. Mal will have a field day, and if Azazel was here—” She broke off. “Well, you can ask him yourself.”
I looked up to find my soulmate bearing down on us. His face was streaked with the grime of travel, and he brought the fresh cold scent of the upper atmosphere with him.
“Hey, big guy!” Cora greeted Azazel as he drew near. “I’ll catch you both at dinner.”
She slipped away leaving me with my soulmate.
Had he always been this large? Heck, a week without him, and my eyes were playing tricks on me, but my heart… My heart recognized this monolith as mine. I pressed my palms to his chest, pushed up on tiptoe and claimed his mouth. He tasted slightly salty, like an ocean breeze.
I pulled back. “Did you fly toward the sea?”
He stroked my cheek. “I did, and I brought you a gift. It’s in your room.”
“A gift? Azazel, I don’t need gifts.”
“I think you need this one, and I hope… I hope when I see you at dinner later, your eyes will smile.” He kissed my forehead. “Go. Find your gift.”
He left me standing in the middle of the corridor and strode away.
That was…weird.
Maybe this gift would hold some answers.
My room was bathed in moonlight. The windows to the balcony were open, drapes blowing gently in the icy breeze that didn’t penetrate my chambers thanks to the heating built into the walls that kept the Keep warm.
The bed was empty, no gift. The dresser was bare, and the small coffee table and sofas were also devoid of any package.
Where had Azazel put it?
My heart jumped into my throat at a movement on the balcony, then Keon was standing in my room.
Midnight blue in the moonlight, his hair loose and cascading down his bare chest, pants hung low on slender hips, feet bare. He was beautiful and feral, just the way he was meant to be.
He was here.
He was…Azazel’s gift? Oh god.
“Fee…” He took a step closer.
I held up my hand to stop him, anger warring with the relief at having him here. “You left.”
“I know.”
“No. You left me.”
His throat bobbed. “I’m sorry. I thought…I thought it would be for the best.” His tone was saturated with torment, and his face was etched with longing and pain.
My anger dissipated as quickly as it had risen.
“Azazel found me,” he said. “Fee… Will you have me?”
“Stupid fucking question.” I bridged the distance between us, threw my arms around his neck, and kissed him hard on the mouth, revelling in the imprint of his fangs against my lips. I pulled back and looked into his gleaming eyes, allowing myself to drown in his dark, dilating pupils. “Don’t ever leave me again.”
His chest vibrated in a purr, then his arms were around me, hauling me up, and crushing me to his taut chest. He claimed my mouth with a hunger that spoke of weeks of denial. He kissed me like I was the anchor keeping him from drowning, fangs grazing my lips with a delicious sting that made my core contract. His hand slipped into my hair, and I mimicked him, sinking both my hands in his silken locks. He cupped my ass and hoisted me up so I could lock my ankles around his waist, gripping with my thighs as I explored him with my tongue. He wrestled mine into submission wrapping his around it and holding me immobile as he sucked.