Chapter 24
Callum
I can still taste her.
My attention should be on the surrounding woods. I should be scanning the dark forest for any hint of a threat, ready to spring into action and defend my mate from anything that would hurt her.
Instead, I can’t make myself stop touching her.
Fingertips against her lower back. The edge of my wing at her shoulder. The press of our bodies as we step between trees, making our way through this human forest to where Seren said she parked her car. Whatever that means.
To be fair, she doesn’t seem tense or watchful. She doesn’t seem like she’s waiting for some beast or curse-wielding Crescent witch to spring out at us from the woods.
“Why aren’t there any witches here to meet us, like last time?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
Seren chuckles. “Because I’m breaking their wards.”
Her flippant comment gives me momentary alarm, and I scan the woods again. “Won’t that make the coven angry?”
“Sure.” She shrugs. “They’ll probably be pissed they have to re-cast them, but we’ll be long gone by the time they realize.”
We press on, and at first I can’t tell if she’s actually doing anything. But when we pass what must be a particularly potent spell, I feel it. A sizzle against my skin. The faint hint of sharp, metallic magick on the back of my tongue, met by my star’s already familiar power rising up to meet it.
She shreds the wards as if they’re nothing.
Other than a briefly furrowed brow or a slight exhale of annoyance, Seren gives no sign of strain or effort. A testament to her power, how easily she leads us away from the Veil and to the edge of the warded section of the forest.
“Come on,” she says, turning toward a stretch of dirt road leading further into the woods. “It’s not too much further.”
Still on alert for any potential threats, all my senses cataloging this strange new realm now that I have the mental clarity to do so, I follow her down the road. It’s only a short walk until we reach our destination.
Or, at least what I assume is our destination, as Seren stops walking.
There’s nothing different about this place, nothing that marks it as anywhere special. But with a brief wave of her hand and another burst of magick in the air, she reveals a strange metal contraption sitting by the side of the road.
“My car,” she explains at my baffled look. “It’s a means of transportation. I’ll drive us somewhere we can get you help for that bruising.”
I hum thoughtfully. “I could just portal us.”
I’m sure I could. Probably.
The magick in this realm is not as readily available as it is in the demon realm. It’s… duller, somehow. Not as potent in the air.
Still, as I close my eyes and reach for the familiar demon magick that allows us to travel through the streams of power connecting one place to another in the realm, a portal opens without too much extra effort.
Seren lets out a strangled sound and grabs my arm. “Close that!”
I obey, the portal snapping shut in front of me. “What’s wrong?”
She lets out a shaky breath, face paler than it was before. “So, here’s the thing about the human realm. People don’t use magick here.”
“You use magick here. So do all the witches in the—”
“Correction. Most people don’t use magick here. And most of them don’t believe in it.”
“Believe in it?” I scoff. “What’s there to believe in something that’s undeniably real?”
The comment earns me a chuckle as Seren reaches into her bag and pulls out a silver key connected to a small black box.
“Good question. Maybe because most people don’t use magick, or can’t, they don’t trust it. Anyway. It’s not exactly something we just do out in the open. At least not if we don’t want to start some kind of incident.”
“What about demons?” I ask. “Are humans used to seeing demons walk among them?”
“Again, no. And that would probably start an even bigger incident, or mass religious hysteria, or something. But we’ll fix that.”
“How?”
She shrugs, clicks the box in her hand, and then reaches to open a door on the side of the contraption—the car.
“Haven’t figured it out yet. But get in. We’ll go somewhere that’s safe enough for now and I’ll try to think of something.”
By get in, she must mean the small, cloth-covered seat inside the car. But how in any of the thirteen realms she expects me to fit, I have no idea.
Seren realizes it at the same moment I do. She looks from me to the car and back again, then gives me a rueful smile.
“It’ll be tight, but the drive isn’t far.”
I grumble a little as I try to fit into the small space.
As soon as I bend to crawl in, the spot on my back where I was hit pulses with a fierce ache, but I bite back the groan of pain that threatens to slip past my lips. We’ll be somewhere Seren can heal me soon enough, and I don’t want to worry her in the meantime.
All I need to do is focus on getting into this car.
I make it work, but barely. My wings are crunched tight against my back, my knees folded in nearly to my chest, my back still throbbing, and I’m spilling over into the seat beside me, but I’m in.
“Here, maybe this will help,” Seren says, leaning into the car and over me.
Over my lap.
Seeing her there, long blond hair fanned out over my thigh and face way too close to my groin, sends a shot of fire through my veins.
She pulls on something beneath the seat which shifts it back and gives me a few inches more breathing room, but I don’t have the capacity to be thankful for it as all my attention is on the warmth of her, the overwhelming nearness of her scent.
“Better?”
I clear my throat. “Better.”
She looks up, meets my gaze, and a devious little smile plays around the corners of her lips.
My star, the temptress, doesn’t look contrite in the slightest for the havoc she’s wreaked on my senses as she closes the door and circles around to the other side of the car.
Sliding into her own seat with much more grace than I did mine, her smile is still sharp and teasing as she inserts the metal key into a small slot and turns it.
The roar of something in the front portion of the car makes me jump and reach for the door’s handle, but Seren lays a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s alright.” She points to the front of the car. “That’s the engine. It’s… a machine, I guess, that runs using gasoline—fuel—and makes the tires turn. I use the steering wheel—” She touches a solid leather circle in front of her. “—to make it go where I want it to.”
With a hand on the small lever between us, she pulls back, and the car starts moving.
“And this is safe?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Safe enough.”
Not a particularly comforting answer, and I’m about to ask if we shouldn’t just walk if portalling isn’t an option, but after a few quick seconds it’s obvious this car is faster than walking or even running ever could be.
We pick up speed down the dirt road, and I grit my teeth even harder, shifting in my seat.
Seren glances over. “It really is safe. And I promise I’m a good driver. It’s been years since I got a speeding ticket.”
I don’t have the faintest idea what a speeding ticket is, but I’m likely not doing Seren any favors by sitting here with my anxiety written all over me, so I make myself relax.
“I trust you.”
A wide, beautiful smile breaks over her face, and I decide it might just be alright if we die in some sort of fiery wreck, if that’s the last thing I see.
“So,” I continue, shifting my wings a little against the seat. “You’ve got an idea who we’re looking for?”
Seren is silent for a few moments, eyes lost in thought as she peers out at the road ahead of us.
“I think the ‘heart’ might be a wielder, what males who practice magick in this realm like to call themselves,” she says finally. “I met up with a… a friend recently, and he let something slip about a wielder he knew of who went into Faerie and became a queen’s consort.”
“Who is this friend?” I should be more focused on the details pertinent to the hunt, but the way her voice changes when she references this he sends an unwelcome pulse of jealousy through me.
Goddess, look at me. Like an untried youth losing my mind over a pretty female for the first time.
But this isn’t just any female. This is my mate.
So perhaps I can be excused for wanting to know.
Seren scoffs and rolls her eyes. “He’s old news. Really, no one you have to worry about.”
“And you think I am,” I ask, unable to stop myself from teasing her a little, “in a place where I might be worried? In a place where you’d care if I was?”
Instead of answering, she reaches over and rests her hand on my thigh.
High on my thigh.
High enough that blood rushes to my groin, my knot, heavy and immediate, making me shift in my seat as my co—
“You can worry, if you really want to, but I promise there’s nothing to worry about. I’m single. Unattached. There hasn’t been anyone special in my life for a long, long time.”
And am I someone special?
I bite back the question.
We kissed. Once. Only kissed.
And though that kiss may have permanently rewired something deep in the primal recesses of my brain, it doesn’t mean she felt the same about it. It doesn’t mean she’d worry whether I had someone waiting for me back in the demon realm or anywhere else.
“What about me?” Seren asks, as if she can read my mind. “Should I be worried about any of your friends?”
I press my hand over hers, squeeze, make her grip my thigh tighter.
“Do you think I’d allow you to touch me like this if there were someone else for me, star?”
I don’t know how she feels about the nickname, but she hasn’t corrected me yet, so I intend to keep using it. Gently, I take her hand in mine, turn it over, lift it to my lips and press a kiss to the fragile skin of her inner wrist.
“Do you think I would have kissed you, held you like that, let it go on so long that I had you moaning, made you so hot that the scent of your arou—”
“Got it,” Seren chokes out.
I chuckle deeply. “There’s no one else for me, Seren.”
I release her hand. The way this metal contraption works is still a mystery to me, but it’s likely not a great idea to distract her while she’s operating it.
“Good to know.” Her cheeks are pink, delectable with her blush.
We continue on for a while in silence. I try to look out the window to get a better sense of our surroundings, but between the darkness and the speed we’re moving, it’s hard to see anything clearly. After a while, just trying to see makes my stomach hurt, so I close my eyes and lean my head back.
Hopefully it won’t be much further.
A few minutes later, Seren reaches forward and clicks a button on the console in front of us. Music fills the car, as if there’s a tiny orchestra hidden somewhere within.
She grins at my startled expression. “Radio. Not magick, but pretty close.”
The music is soft, filled with strange instruments and unfamiliar melodies, but it’s nice to listen to as we turn onto a larger road, and then a smaller one, taking more twists and turns through another forest.
The car slows. Seren turns the wheel and steers us onto one last road, this one short and leading up to a three-story stone building.
It’s a charming place. Quaint and cozy, with a lamp lit near the front door and a cobbled walkway that meanders through a small front garden.
“We’re here,” she announces, and I’ve never been more glad to stretch my wings than I am when I hoist myself out of the vehicle and follow her into the cottage.