Free Darkyn's Mate (#3, Rhyn Eternal) by Lizzy Ford

originally, which means I can’t hurt you. I’m the only
Immortal who can walk into Hell. The last time I did it, I robbed
him of a few prisoners he didn’t want to lose. He’s showing me he
can do the same,” Rhyn said. “There’s no fucking chance of bringing
you back, even if somehow you were to escape the mating
bond.”
    “I know that,” she replied. “He didn’t
hesitate to claim me once the marking appeared.”
    “Are you okay?” Rhyn’s voice carried genuine
concern.
    “Sort of,” she said. “He didn’t hurt me, if
that’s what you’re asking.”
    Rhyn didn’t look convinced.
    “I’m, uh …” she swallowed, tears blurring
her vision. “Scared. Horrified. A demon.”
    “Yeah, there’s no reversing that.”
    “Really?”
    He raised his eyebrows.
    “I guess I know that,” she whispered. “He’s
determined to keep me.”
    “I see that. The good thing is that he can’t
hurt you now. The blood bond between demons is to ensure one of
them doesn’t get too hungry and bleed the other dry.”
    “Good to know,” she mumbled. “He hasn’t hurt
me yet. But he doesn’t lose, does he?”
    Rhyn shook his head. “For someone like him …
he never even bowed down to the Dark One. The bond creates more
than dependency; it gives you a helluva lot of influence over
him.”
    “I don’t see it,” she said with a snort.
    “Trust me. The mating bond alone makes it
easy for a woman to control her mate. Add a blood bond to it? You
become the only person in the universe that can influence him. The
other deities can’t even do that.”
    She frowned. She didn’t see that happening.
Darkyn was always too far ahead of her, twisting her into knots to
keep her in place.
    “Talk,” Rhyn ordered. He threw himself down
in the seat across from her.
    “Well…” Deidre sighed, sorting through her
thoughts. She met his gaze, uncertain what to tell him.
    “Gabriel doesn’t know,” he guessed and sat
back.
    “Not yet. At least, I don’t think he does.
There’s a deal on the table,” she explained, mind on Past-Death.
“I’ll start from the beginning. I, uh, made a deal with Darkyn a
few days ago for him to remove my brain tumor. It seemed simple
enough. He saves my life. In exchange, he keeps the tumor.”
    “But that didn’t make you his mate.”
    “Indirectly it did. The tumor in my head had
a soul in it. Past-Death’s soul,” Deidre continued. Her throat
tightened as she spoke. “I guess she made a deal with Darkyn. He
brought her back, and she gave him me.”
    Rhyn growled low in his chest.
    “I made her a deal that expires in four
days, thinking I could reverse the bond. I gave her a week to make
Gabriel fall in love with her, or I get her soul. I thought if she
was gone, the bond would reverse, return me to Gabriel,” she said.
“Darkyn calls the blood bond his insurance for when I win. I can’t
go back to Gabriel, even if I do win.”
    Rhyn was quiet, his gaze intense.
    “There’s more, but …” She shook her head,
hands trembling. “Darkyn never loses.”
    “I wouldn’t say he won. He had to sacrifice
his freedom to keep you,” Rhyn said. “It’ll give you an advantage
in deals with him.”
    She almost groaned. She’d signed away that
advantage already. Another thought occurred to her as she thought
about Katie, the half-demon’s mate she met when last at the
fortress.
    “Rhyn, is any of what you feel when you
become a mate real?” she asked. “The bond I shared with Gabriel. I
mean, as soon as Darkyn’s name was on my back, it shifted, like
none of the emotions I felt for Gabriel were real … and now with
the blood bond…”
    “Gods. I’m the last person to ask this
touchy-feely stuff,” Rhyn said and rubbed his jaw again. “The bond
brings you together. You still have to … make a relationship. One
is physical, the other mental. They’re both real.”
    “Gabriel and I didn’t get that far. He kept
pushing me away,” she said. “Darkyn’s been