Demon’s Bounty (Crescent Coven #3)

Chapter 1

Seren

“Another pint, love?”

The tavern is filled with raucous conversation and laughter.

There’s a lute player in the corner, but it sounds like he forgot the chords to his song three or four pints ago.

Candlelight gilds all the patrons in a warm glow, and the air is thick with the scent of roasted meat, amber ale, and freshly baked bread.

“This will be my last,” I tell the barkeep, saluting him with my nearly empty glass.

He gives me a nod before moving on to the next patron.

I’m uncertain what kind of being he is, or which realm he might have come from, but to be on the safe side and avoid unintentionally offending him, I return his nod as he goes.

Part elven, maybe, with the way the tips of his ears form points, but his features aren’t as delicate as the other elves I’ve met.

His skin is a deep, rugged gray, and his eyes shine piercing glacier blue, making me think he might also have come from somewhere near the lands of the trolls in the frost realm.

All different kinds of beings make their way here, to the realm they call the Middle.

Legends I’ve heard during my travels claim it sits right at the heart of the thirteen realms. Like layers of a cake stacked one on top of the other, they claim this realm has six above and six below, holding them all together.

Whether that’s true—whether any of the tall tales I’ve heard over the last year are true—I have no idea.

But I do know one thing for certain.

Taverns are my favorite part of slipping between the thirteen realms.

No matter if I’m stopping by the demon realm, or exploring the endless winter forests of the frost realm, or taking a night off right here in the Middle, they all have one thing in common.

A warm crackling fire. A place to sit and rest your weary bones. Ale flowing—or rich wine, or honeyed mead—and conversations to last well into the night.

The human realm really needs to get its act together when it comes to taverns.

No sticky neighborhood bar or low-lit nightclub could compare with this.

I’m seated alone at a table in the corner. The orc huntress I spent the last hour chatting with just left, off to tend to her mount before heading to Midvar, one of this realm’s largest cities. Still, there’s plenty to see, so I’m perfectly content to sit and watch and take it all in.

It’s like stepping straight into a fantasy novel, only this is real. Unimaginably real, since the new bargain between demons and humans changed the landscape of the Veil and made travel between the realms possible for humans.

Well, for some humans.

The thirteen portals hidden far and wide across the human world are carefully guarded, and I sincerely doubt many who know about them would be tempted to cross just for fun, given how little we know about all those other worlds.

But for me?

It was never a question.

Almost as soon as the new bargain was struck, I started traveling.

How could I resist?

I’ve always been chronically restless, and now that I’ve got new realms to explore, there’s been no staying my wandering feet.

Not that it means there’s no risk in it. Far from it, in fact. There’s plenty of risk.

But also plenty of fun. Plenty of distraction. Plenty to keep me from thinking too hard about what I left behind.

Tonight, though, I need to be on my way.

I’m low on funds, with nowhere near enough silver pieces in my bag to buy me a place to rest for the evening. After I square up my tab here, I doubt I’ll have anything left at all.

With a sigh, I drain the last of my drink and set a few coins down near the empty glass. I reach for my bag, ready to be on my way.

Only for every single cell in my body to freeze when the front door of the tavern swings open.

A demon stands in the doorway.

Unmistakable, with his curling horns and leathery black wings, his long whip of a tail and the crimson gleam of his eyes in the candlelight as he surveys the gathered crowd.

I avert my gaze as he enters the tavern, pull my cloak’s hood higher around my face, but he pays me no mind. In fact, he doesn’t seem to spare any of the patrons more than a cursory glance as he finds an open seat in the opposite corner of the room.

Unable to help myself, I sneak another glance at him.

Demons aren’t a new sight for me. A human witch reigns as queen of the demon realm, and the new bargain she struck has caused an influx of other witches through the Veil to meet their own demon mates.

Not to mention, Joan—one of my best friends—has recently shacked up with her own demon partner back in the human realm.

But unlike Allie’s husband, King Eren, or Joan’s mate, Rhett, or any of the other demons I’ve crossed paths with, this demon looks like some kind of Viking warrior.

Broad through the shoulders and tall, with long, dark brown hair pulled back from his face and adorned with braids and metal beads.

He’s white, with a deep tan like he spends a lot of time outdoors, and more than a few visible scars—one through his eyebrow, another adorning the line of his jaw.

He’s wearing some kind of leather armor, scuffed and worn, with a sigil stamped into the shoulder that looks like a dragon or wyvern from the brief glimpse I get of it. Strapped to his back is a sword—an honest-to-Goddess sword—like he just stepped off a battlefield.

Conversations die in his wake as he makes his way across the tavern and sinks onto one of the long benches at the opposite side of the room. Though the din kicks back up once he’s seated, there’s an edge to it, a tightness, like everyone’s just waiting for chaos to erupt.

It makes a strange, shaky energy coil in the bottom of my belly, something not entirely unlike the energy I feel when I’m seeking.

The seeking instinct feels like a magnet, a deep and intrinsic force that’s always been a part of me.

From the time I was little and would slip out the back door and into the woods behind my parents’ house to find a pretty feather or a particularly shiny rock, I’ve always been able to reach for it and listen for its call.

Over time, I’ve even been able to hone and focus it, sharpening it until it’s not just about finding things that are lost, but seeing things as they really are.

Glamours, enchantments, concealment charms, wards, none of them stand a chance against my magick.

Esme Hawthorn—the Crescent Coven’s High Priestess and Allie’s mother—was always fascinated by my gift.

She’d never seen anything quite like it, and my novelty made me a pet of hers.

She worked with me personally to develop it, to challenge it with tasks that usually benefited the coven in one way or another, to put me on the exalted little pedestal where she kept all her gifted students, the bright and shiny future of the coven.

At least until the day I turned eighteen and decided I’d had enough.

So now it’s just mine, this Goddess-given gift. It’s mine to own and mine to wield, no more covens or priestesses to do that for me.

But unlike my seeking magick, this new energy is ever so slightly… off.

Sideways, upside down, just out of reach. Like I can’t control it completely. Or, maybe more accurately, like it’s controlling me.

Two ends of taut, invisible twine stretch between me and this demon, insisting I do something. Stand, go to him, discover what it means.

Part of me wants to do just that. I could sidle over and sit down next to him, bat my eyes a little and see what a demon like him is doing so far away from his own realm.

I should get out of here.

Nothing good ever comes from temptation like him.

As alarming as the demon’s appearance is, and as much as he radiates an aura of stay the fuck away from me, I’d be a damn dirty liar if I tried to deny how handsome he is.

I'd be lying to deny how much that energy’s pulling me toward him, whispering what a good idea it would be to see if he wants some company for the evening.

Before I can decide whether I’m going to listen to that stupid, reckless thread of magick, movement from the front of the tavern catches my attention again.

An ogre, tall and corpulent with deep green skin and two sharp tusks jutting up from his bottom lip, swings the door wide and throws off his cloak with a swagger and a grin. He gets the attention of everyone in the room, and I’m almost certain I know who he is.

A smuggler, and a famous one to boot.

I’ve never met him myself, but Pytri’s reputation precedes him. The ogre is infamous in some of the less reputable circles of folks who regularly cross realms.

All sorts of goods make their way from one realm to another, along with the traders and smugglers who peddle them.

And Pytri smuggles more dangerous goods than most.

Last I heard, he’d just escaped a hangman’s noose in the frost realm for the illegal transport of the highly prized minerals mined from beneath its mile-thick fields of ice.

This crowd, though, always has its ears open for news of a big score, a daring adventure, and I’m not immune to the way the tide in the room shifts with his appearance.

Neither, it seems, is the demon.

He’s out of his seat as soon as Pytri steps over the threshold. Crossing the room in a few strategic strides, he sidesteps a handful of other patrons all headed in the same direction, fast and graceful despite his size and the bulk of his wings.

He greets Pytri with a hearty clap on the shoulder and a call to a passing server for two more pints of ale. The two of them take new seats together, this time at one of the pair of long trestle tables that run the length of the center of the room.

I should leave.

My back is to the demon, his back to mine, and he’s seated a couple of meters down from where I am, but that strange, shaky energy calls to me again.

It has me peering over my shoulder, trying to get a better look, even though it’s probably monumentally stupid to catch either Pytri or this demon’s attention.

Rule number one of traveling the realms—don’t draw attention to yourself.

Rule number two—don’t be an idiot.

Don’t eavesdrop, don’t start any fights, don’t think for a moment that most beings you cross paths with aren’t infinitely more powerful than you.

I’ve almost convinced myself to take the wiser course, to leave, to get myself the hell out of here and head back to the relative safety of the human realm, when the demon speaks.

“What news do you bring?”

Pytri belches. “News of?”

The demon lets out a deep rumble that almost sounds like a… growl.

Do demons growl?

In all the time I’ve spent around Rhett, I think I’d remember.

Especially considering how that sound carries through the room, the attention it draws, the way it makes my stomach squirm and my chest spark again with whatever magick is in the air.

The demon says something else, too low for me to hear, followed by a booming laugh from Pytri that draws twice as many sets of eyes as the demon’s growl did.

“You never were subtle, my friend.”

Their tones lower again, and based on the infrequent rumble of the demon’s voice, and the much more animated tenors of Pytri’s, it’s clear the ogre is steering the conversation.

The noise in the tavern has kicked back up, too, though there are still a few disappointed looks thrown in Pytri’s direction by the patrons who weren’t quick enough to catch him.

All of it means I can’t hear any more of their conversation, even when I strain my ears.

Good.

It’s good I can’t hear them.

Self-control has never been a strong suit of mine, and tamping down my seeking magick ranks even lower. Though I’m not even sure if that’s what this is, the temptation stirred by this demon Viking and whatever he might be saying to Pytri is one I’m well-aware I should ignore.

Only…

Before I can think better of it, I scoot a few inches down the bench, and then a few more. With a half-glance over my shoulder, eyes fixed on the demon so I can snap my attention away from him if he turns to look, I move myself closer.

And then even closer.

Until I’m almost near enough to pick up the faint strains of their voices. Near enough to feel the heat of the demon at my back. Near enough for the magick tugging at me to spike harder, hotter, the irresistible urge of something I’m meant to find.

When I’m within a couple of feet of them, I pull the hood of my cloak higher around my face and lean as close as I dare, straining to pick up more of their conversation.

What I hear sends all those instincts, all that frenzied magick, into overdrive.

“If you’re looking for your next bounty,” the ogre says, a conspiratorial glint in his tone, “I’ve got one that’s worth a fae queen’s fortune.”