“Oh, my warrior queen,” Astaroth said softly. “Has anyone ever worshipped you the way you deserve?”
Calladia wasn’t sure what she deserved. She wasn’t particularly pure of heart or noble of spirit, and her life had been spent spitting in the faces of people who called her loud, aggressive, unfeminine, embarrassing, not good for optics. She faced the world with teeth and claws bared.
When she didn’t answer, Astaroth growled and shifted his grip from her butt to her hair. “Listen to me,” he said, fisting the strands at their roots. “You deserve everything you want. You should take everything you want, the way you once promised me you would. And if you can’t do that yet, say the word and I’ll do it for you.”
Calladia wasn’t sure if she wanted to leap on top of him or cry. One would be a loss of horny composure, the other a lack of emotional composure, and she wasn’t ready to relinquish either yet, so she grabbed his hand, removing it from her hair. “What would you do after all these hypothetical orgasms?” she asked. When he looked like he wanted to keep giving her a sexy pep talk, she sucked one of his fingers into her mouth and cocked a brow as if to say, Well?
He tipped his head back and groaned. The light shifted over his horns with the movement, and Calladia wondered what they would feel like. They were glossy as obsidian; would they be silky smooth? Cool, or hot like the rest of him?
He gave her the frankest, dirtiest look she’d ever received. “Then,” he told her, “I’d fuck you.”
He didn’t provide details, but he didn’t need to. Calladia’s imagination took over, envisioning all the ways he could take her. Up against a tree, her leg hooked around his ass, or bent over a nearby fallen log. Maybe on her back in the mulch, the two of them too caught up in animal urges to care about comfort or dirt. She’d flip him over before long, riding him hard and fast, and then it would be a battle, like he’d said. A game to find out who would end up on top.
This game had reached the tipping point. They stared into each other’s eyes, breathing heavily, bodies close but barely touching. With the slightest movement, she could turn words into reality.
The look on his face was too delicious though. He looked desperate. And Calladia liked playing games, but she liked winning them even more.
She pulled his finger to her mouth again, sucked it, then bit the tip. Then she dropped his hand and stepped back. “Interesting,” she said. “Let’s keep hiking.”
His exhale was half groan. “Witch, you’re going to kill me.” His erection tented the fabric of his pants. He was going to have a hell of a time hiking like that, and Calladia had enough of the devil in her to like that. It was only fair, since her underwear was soaked and the inseam of her jeans pressed against her clit with every movement.
She winked and turned away. “Try to keep up, demon,” she called over her shoulder as she grabbed her pack and set out again.
TWENTY-THREE
The witch had a cruel streak.
And Astaroth liked it.
He’d spent the afternoon torn between laughing, screaming, and resisting the urge to jerk off into a nearby bush. Whenever he thought he’d wrestled his arousal under control, she’d done something to set it off again. A long, graceful stretch with her arms over her head, followed by touching her toes. A wicked wink over her shoulder as she’d slid her hand over a wrist-sized branch to duck under it. In one particularly cruel moment, she’d uncapped her water bottle, taken a drink, then let some slop over her chest, the water glistening against her tan skin.
Even when she hadn’t been deliberately trying to wind him up, she’d managed. Her jeans weren’t the tightest, but every step highlighted the taut curve of her bum, and without her shirt, he could see the flex of her biceps and the toned stretch of her abdomen.
The things he would do to get his mouth on her.
He didn’t care that the trail had all but disappeared or that a stray branch had scratched his cheek. He didn’t care that he was sweaty and gross. He didn’t even care that Isobel’s cabin was nowhere to be found.
This was exciting.
The feeling was a novelty for an immortal like him. Former immortal, that was. Soon-to-be-immortal-again, once he figured out how to manage it. After centuries of the same dramas played out over and over, people blurred together, and even wars became routine.
Calladia though . . .
He’d never met anyone like her.
Ahead of him, she stopped with a sigh. “Maybe we’re on the wrong path.”
“Generous to call it a path.”
Calladia narrowed her eyes at him. “Not helpful.”
“Maybe we should stop for the night,” he said. “The light’s fading.” The snippets of sky visible through the branches held sunset hues, and beneath the canopy it was growing dark. Soon it would be risky to keep clambering over roots and rocks.
“More helpful.” Calladia rubbed her neck. “We’ll need to find a clearing to set the tent up in.”
“True.” Astaroth eyed the tangle of bushes and trunks on either side of the track. “Easier said than done.”
Calladia set her pack down, shrugged her flannel back on—alas—then pulled out the yarn she’d tied knots in earlier. She undid them, then wove a design between her fingers, whispering to herself. Astraroth watched, intrigued by the intricate movements. Not many witches preferred thread work to ground their spells, as it was a notoriously difficult discipline. There were countless types and combinations of knots to remember, and even the tightness of a particular knot could change the desired effect.
He took a moment to look at her soul using his demon senses. It glowed in her chest like a small sun, golden and radiant. In olden days he would have considered the potential of removing it from her, but he liked seeing it there, where it belonged.
As a bargainer, he should feel ashamed for a thought like that. But as a bargainer, there was a lot he was doing that he should feel ashamed about. He’d gone from a stone-cold manipulator with a fearsome reputation to . . .
Well, a demon who was currently smiling giddily at the witch he was feeling an alarming amount of emotion toward.
A stick rose from the ground and hovered in front of Calladia at waist height. It was Y-shaped, like a dowsing rod. The stick quivered, rotated in a circle, then snapped to the right, pointing off the path.
“What spell was that?” Astaroth asked.
Calladia began shoving through the bushes in the direction the rod had indicated. “A spell to find fresh running water. That’s a good start for a decent campsite.”
Astaroth followed, ducking under branches and pushing foliage aside. He noticed Calladia was doing her best not to damage the undergrowth, so he followed suit, contorting himself into odd positions rather than snapping twigs off.