Demonbound: A Swashbuckling Fantasy Adventure (The Blade of Highwind Book 2) by Sarah Hawke

Author:Sarah Hawke [Hawke, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jade Fantasy
Published: 2022-04-19T16:00:00+00:00

6

A Matter of Honor

Shayera

“And now…I am yours.”

The declaration hung in the air for a dozen heartbeats before it truly registered in my mind. I was still reeling from the experience of battling the demon…and sharing Isolde’s thoughts and feelings. Aunt Val had told me enough about amazon bonding rituals to give me serious pause before agreeing to Isolde’s plan, but I had eventually told myself that we didn’t have any other option. Mirek couldn’t exorcise the demon, and I refused to kill an innocent woman just to destroy the monster within her. A slim chance was better than nothing.

Incredibly, it seemed to have actually worked…at least for the moment. But I could still feel the demon roiling inside her, and then there was the issue of the lifelong bond I had just entered into with a complete and total stranger…

“I…I beg your pardon?” Mirek asked, sounding as shocked as I felt.

“I owe you both a debt I can never repay,” Isolde said, her face streaked with tears. “But I swear to you, I shall spend my life making the attempt.”

I shared a long look with Mirek. Our hands were still clasped together with the ring, I could still feel Isolde’s emotions washing over me—the relief, the joy, the absolute conviction behind her pledge…

It was almost overwhelming, and it took a moment for me to remember something else Val had told me about the ritual. While the amazon remained collared for life, her bond mate—her Maskari—had the option of deactivating or removing the ring. It didn’t exactly seem fair to me, but that wasn’t the nature of the relationship. To the amazons, serving their Maskari was a righteous duty.

I drew my hand away from Mirek’s—and my other off the amazon—and reached out to touch the ruby embedded in the ring. I had no idea what I was doing, but the artificers who had designed the thing had apparently kept it simple. The cascade of Isolde’s emotions—and my sense of the demon—shut off as if I had just twisted a valve, and from Mirek’s face, I could tell that they had for him, too.

“You don’t owe us anything,” I stammered, still trying to recenter myself. “We didn’t come here for a reward. There’s no debt.”

“Of course there is,” Isolde said earnestly. “It is a matter of honor.”

She leaned up under her own power for the first time. I could see the flex of her abdominal muscles through the gap in her armor, and it made me wonder what the average Amazonian training regimen involved. Flat stomachs were one thing, but hers was practically iron.

“My blade is yours, now and forever,” she added. But then the certitude in her eyes seemed to falter for a heartbeat before she turned to Mirek. “Both of yours.”

“Let’s focus on the ‘now’ part of that for the moment, okay?” I asked tentatively. My heartbeat had only just started to settle down, and the reality of everything else that was going on was now sinking in. “We, um…we have questions.

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