Read Online The Demon Duke and I by Marian Tee - Free Book Online

“Is she fine?” Adrijan demanded.
              “She’s lost consciousness.” Silviu could barely hear his voice over the intense beating of his heart. Never had he experienced this much fear for another being – or at least, not since his mother had died.
              “Good,” Mihail said.
              Silviu’s head snapped towards the half-vampire.
              “She will cause you less problems this way,” Mihail responded unapologetically. “You need to go back to your castle and recuperate. You still feel weak and if we can sense this, then surely the other demons in the land can sense it, too.”
              I hate to agree with Mihail, but he has a point, Your Grace, Ilie said.
              “I always do,” Mihail said without a smile.
              Adrijan was gazing at the darkened skies with a frown on his face. “We must leave now. Dawn is still hours away. There could be another attack.” He lifted a hand, and in seconds yet another wave he could surf on rose from the ocean and pulsed towards him. Adrijan leapt on it. “I will make sure all of our people will get back safely.”
              Let us go, Your Grace, Ilie urged, his tone serious now.
              Silviu nodded. He whistled and Granite came, both of them injured and too weak to fly. It went against everything he stood for to leave his people behind but for now, he knew he would serve them better by discovering why his body was still in pain, as if it was rejecting the soul that was being shared with him.
     
    ****
     
              “Consummated,” Silviu echoed hours later as dawn broke outside his castle, bathing the gargoyles lining his library with golden rays that only made their grotesque features appear even more hideous.
              Following Silviu’s gaze, Adrijan almost shook his head. As his cetus lineage gave him an inherent love for beauty and nature, he could not understand the duke’s fascination with such terrible looking creatures.
              Gargoyles had once been to demons what dog was to man, and because of the emotional bond that had surprisingly formed between the two races, Lucifer had ordered his demon lords to kill the entire race.
              As a half-demon, Adrijan had the capacity to grieve for the plight of gargoyles, but it ended there. He did not share Silviu’s intense desolation for the gargoyles, preferring to restrict his emotions only to those who mattered – and that was the Galeré and no other - not even the girl staring at him like he had just punched her in the guts.
              “Yes, Your Grace,” Maricha answered after a beat. As younger sister to Mihail, she was used to being in the presence of the duke and the rest of his famous Galeré. But what she feared she would never get used to was the way Adrijan stoically ignored her.
              Adrijan was the youngest of Silviu’s trusted circle of warriors, and most inhabitants of Brimstone assumed that it meant he was also the weakest, the most sensitive. But Maricha knew from painful experience it was the opposite. Adrijan might always have a gentle smile on his lips, but he was cold, heartlessly so – even more than her eternally pessimistic brother. 
    Forcing herself to look away from Adrijan, she mumbled, “Consummation is a requirement if she indeed proves to be your heartkeeper---”
              “She is.” Silviu’s voice was inflexible in its certainty.
              “How do we know that she is his destined heartkeeper?” Mihail asked at the same time, his voice just as rigid. Dressed as always in somber black, he stood apart from the rest, next to the windows that spanned the entire length of the room, his feet braced apart like a warrior always ready to go into battle.
              Silviu asked very softly, “Do you dare question my decision, Mihail?”
              Almost