“Do you want to tell me about him?” Astaroth asked.
She still couldn’t laugh right. After a pathetic sort of wheeze, she asked, “What is this, demonic psychotherapy?”
He didn’t blink. “I mean it.”
Tell the sexy demon she hated—or ought to hate—all the sordid details of her embarrassing failed relationship? The story made her look like a fool, but it was alarming how tempting the prospect was. The two of them were alone in the wilderness, with no shared past and no shared future. They were stuck together in the suspended moments between the end of one story and the beginning of another.
Her next story wouldn’t include him, which meant her confessions wouldn’t follow her like vengeful ghosts, but vulnerability wasn’t something she knew how to do anymore. Fighting thirty werewolves? Easy. Stripping back her armor to reveal the soft, wounded creature beneath?
Impossible.
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I can’t.” And then, because she didn’t like the unsettling feeling that she was slamming the door on a possibility, she clarified. “Not now, at least.”
Astaroth nodded. “If you ever want to, I’ll listen. And Calladia . . .” He set his hand on the bench, his pinkie finger a scant inch from her own, so close she felt the heat radiating from his skin. “You’re a good person, even if you don’t always believe it, but I’m not. Say the word, and I’ll punish him in the vilest ways you can imagine.”
Calladia’s breath hitched at the deadly promise. Her fingers twitched, and she almost hooked her pinkie finger over his.
She came to her senses just before she made contact. “Thank you,” she said, pulling her hand back into her lap and wondering if this was the beginning stage of madness. The words came out breathy, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “That’s a very generous offer. I won’t lie and say I haven’t imagined castrating him, but I think the police would frown on it.”
“You think human police would be able to stop me?” His smile was grim. “I’ve been around a long time, Calladia. Just because these are less violent times doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to be a monster.”
Shit. She shouldn’t like that as much as she did. What kind of person threatened to destroy someone’s sucky ex? And what kind of person found the idea not just intriguing, but titillating? Her lower belly felt tight, and the throb of arousal between her legs grew heavier with every moment their eyes stayed locked.
Calladia licked her lips, and Astaroth’s eyes tracked the movement. He shifted closer, and she canted toward him in response, as if drawn by a magnet.
Alarm bells shrieked in Calladia’s head. This was a demon, not some harmless date she’d swiped right on using Bumbelina or one of the other supernatural dating apps. He had horns, and that model-gorgeous face hid a cunning and ruthless mind.
Still, she wondered. What would he taste like?
“A mistake,” she blurted.
Astaroth shook his head and blinked rapidly as if emerging from a spell. “What?”
Calladia fumbled with the keys, looking anywhere but at him. Dear Hecate, had she really been about six inches and one very bad decision away from kissing her nemesis? The demon who had tried to hurt her friend mere days ago? “Castrating my ex would be a mistake,” she said, voice higher-pitched than normal. “Or any other maiming.”
“What about light torture?” Astaroth asked, clearly aiming for levity but failing. The strain was as evident in his voice as it was in hers.
“No torture.” Her heart raced, and the dizziness she felt as she reversed away from the cliff had nothing to do with the height. “The best revenge is to forget him and live a happy life.”
“How odd,” Astaroth said. “I always heard the best revenge was flaying a bloke alive, forcing him to eat his own liver, and lighting him on fire.” He’d recovered the edge of snark that hinted he was probably kidding.
Calladia played along. “We really need to work on your conflict resolution skills.”
Astaroth might be joking about flaying people alive, but he hadn’t been kidding about taking vengeance on her ex. He’d let his smiling mask slip, and for maybe the first time in their brief acquaintance, she’d seen the true monster beneath, the one that had spent six centuries in the hunt for power.
Whatever Astaroth said, Calladia wasn’t a good person. How could she be, when seeing the monster inside . . . just made her want him more?
SEVENTEEN
Astaroth wanted to bang his horns against the truck window.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
How was it possible one witch had thrown him so off-kilter in so short a time? Sure, the amnesia wasn’t helping, but he wasn’t delusional enough to ascribe all his odd behavior to that. Amnesia wasn’t the reason he had leaped into a violent pack of werewolves, then offered to hunt down Calladia’s ex-partner and make him suffer.
Historically, Astaroth didn’t do things out of the goodness of his heart. He did whatever it took to maintain his image and consolidate power, and while collecting souls benefitted the demon plane, his motivations weren’t exactly pure.
So why had he risked his safety for Calladia, when it was clear she loved getting in fights? When she had, indeed, jumped straight into one without hesitation? Had it been anyone else, he would have left her to it and found something more productive to do with his time.
“Griffin’s Nest, five miles,” Calladia said, pointing at a sign. It was the first either of them had spoken since the awkward leaning incident over an hour ago, when he’d been a heartbeat away from pressing his lips to hers.
He grunted in acknowledgment, then snuck a glance at her. Her profile was elegant for such an aggressive force of chaos, with a high forehead, classically straight nose, and pouty bottom lip. The fight had mussed her braid until gold hair escaped in haphazard clumps, and her tan skin practically glowed. She was so lovely it made his fingertips tingle with the urge to touch her.
Her skin would always be cool compared to his, and he’d bet anything the curve of her cheek would feel like satin under his fingertips. Naked, she would be exquisite, all firm muscle under smooth skin, the perfect mix of hard and soft.
Speaking of hard . . . Astaroth shifted on the bench seat, turning his hips away to disguise his growing erection. This was also abnormal. Astaroth had been shagging for centuries in every combination and permutation one could imagine. Sex could be a tool or a bit of fun, but he’d never been ruled by his desires.
Now? Just imagining the witch naked was enough to make him hard.