Chapter 27
Seren
“Do you think they’re going to take their shirts off and start counting their abs to see who has more?”
Joan and I stand at the large island in her kitchen, sipping our tea and watching our big, muscled demon mates have some sort of Very Serious conversation in the living room. It’s got plenty of scowls, crossed arms, grunts of either agreement or dissatisfaction.
“Hopefully,” I whisper. “I’ve only seen Callum without his shirt once, and I could really use another look.”
Joan snorts a laugh loud enough to catch her mate Rhett’s attention. Startled, he turns to find the source of the sound and his face immediately melts into a soft, affectionate smile.
It makes me feel like I should look away, like I’m witnessing something not meant for my eyes.
Only, the second I do, I catch Callum’s gaze and find him looking back at me with a softness in his face not all that different from Rhett’s.
My heart does a strange little twist.
Goddess, he’s handsome.
Too handsome for his own good, and way too knowing as he gives me one last long look before he and Rhett continue their conversation.
“Anyway,” Joan says, setting her mug down and leaning her elbows on the counter. “Tell me more about all this Faerie stuff.”
I give her the abridged version. I leave out some of the finer points about how I’ve nearly gotten myself killed twice in the past couple of days, and end with my theory about the fae queen’s heart being a human wielder.
That much was evident from the letters, but other than the confirmation, they weren’t much help.
Lots of long, rambling declarations, plans for clandestine meetings, some truly terrible poetry, but not many concrete details.
But the way half of the letters were written, the words and phrases used, a few vague mentions of the human realm, all of it makes me confident we’re looking for a wielder.
“Know where I can find one of those?” I ask, and belatedly remember her history when she makes a face. “Shit. I’m sorry, Joan. I didn’t mean to bring up—”
“It’s alright. Just always a bit of a jump-scare to have to think about David.”
Her ex—a real piece of shit wielder who was responsible for Joan’s own near-death experience in the demon realm, and who’s currently languishing in a prison cell beneath the demon court—is a sore subject. One I should know better than to bring up.
But as long as I’ve already put my foot in my mouth…
“Did he ever say anything about where they like to congregate?”
“Other than at all those warehouse parties they used to invite us to?”
I snicker. “Other than that, yeah. I don’t think I’m looking for a twenty-two-year-old with keg-beer sticky shoes.”
She thinks for a few moments. “There are small wielder communities all over the place, but they aren’t as centralized as the covens.
The biggest hotspot for them in this part of the country is Boston, I think?
David mentioned something about there being a few places in the city where they liked to hang out. ”
A spark in the center of my chest, faint, but growing. A lead to follow, somewhere we might begin.
“That’s where Gavin’s originally from, too, isn’t it?”
Now it’s my turn to give her a look.
Joan knows exactly what she’s doing by bringing him up, and I don’t know how good Callum’s hearing is, but I cut him a quick glance to make sure he’s not listening in.
I don’t need a repeat of what happened in the car when I mentioned Gavin in passing.
Well… I probably don’t need a repeat.
I’ve never really been a girl to enjoy it when a guy gets jealous, but there was something endearing about the way Callum reacted to me even hinting at having a guy here in this realm. Like he didn’t know if he had the right to be jealous, or to say anything about it.
It was… cute.
“Yeah,” I say, keeping my voice low. “It is. And he had a few things to say about Faerie and a wielder who might have ended up there.”
I give Joan the rundown on that conversation, too, and when I’m finished she hums thoughtfully.
“It’s a good place to start, but Boston’s a big city.”
I sigh, already resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to reach back out to Mira and finally get Gavin’s contact information, that his comment about the wielder probably is as important as I think it is. “Yeah, it is. Better than nothing, though.”
“Better than nothing,” Joan agrees, then nods toward the living room. “Come on, we’ve left those two alone long enough.”
We join Rhett and Callum where they’re still talking in the living room. Although Joan’s place isn’t overly small, with two demons crammed together in a single room, it feels positively tiny.
They have similar builds, and of course share all the same demon characteristics—horns, tails, wings, crimson eyes. Rhett is visibly younger than Callum, though I’m still not a hundred percent sure how demon lifespans shake out.
I’ll have to ask Callum about it sometime.
Where Rhett still has a bit of youthfulness about him, Callum exudes the sort of even, implacable calm that only comes with age. Add to that his thick beard, the faint hints of grey at his temples, and he’s very much giving off demon daddy energy.
I never really knew I had a thing for it.
But apparently there’s still time to discover hidden kinks.
The conversation drifts from trade in the demon realm, which the pair of them had been discussing before Joan and I came and sat down, to Joan’s tea shop and the life she and Rhett are building here in Beech Bay.
Rhett wears a glamour when he’s here, splits his time between working with Joan and trade business the court sends him on, and the two of them seem happy with the arrangement.
I’m just happy they get to live their lives together at all.
Things got way, way too dicey a few months back when Esme Hawthorn basically extorted Joan into working with Rhett to solve a string of crystal thefts that were straining relations between demons and witches.
Long story short, they found the culprit, made it out alive, and discovered they were mates in the process, but it’s just one more thing on my very long shitlist when it comes to the High Priestess.
Joan could have died. Rhett, too, for that matter. They both went through hell, and neither of them deserved to be dragged into it.
But they were, and they survived it, despite Esme’s meddling.
And now they’re here, happy, together.
As much as I don’t want it to, sitting here and basking in their radiant little couples’ glow, seeing the unlikely path they’ve forged for themselves, makes my chest ache.
It gives me ideas I shouldn’t entertain, makes little hearts and stars float around my head like I’m a cartoon character.
Nothing has changed.
I’m still not built to be content or settled down. I’m not built to be someone’s wife or mate or partner or whatever.
Besides, I don’t have any idea whether any of that is something Callum would even want.
He’s been so damn cagey about his past that I’ve got no way of knowing whether his thoughts are wandering down the same path, whether he looks at Rhett and Joan and sees something similar to a life he might want one day.
I could talk to him about it, I suppose, but that seems… presumptuous.
And stressful.
And way too emotionally fraught to want to deal with.
Maybe after we find the heart and get our prize, we can talk about it.
For now, though, I’m alright just being here.
I’m okay taking this day by day, appreciating the time I get with my friends, and waiting to deal with tomorrow’s problems tomorrow.
But tomorrow, unfortunately, is coming way too soon.
It was already past ten when we got here, and knowing Joan and Rhett have to be up early to open the shop, I don’t want to keep them up too late.
We chat for a while, then say our goodnights after Joan shows us to the guest room.
The guest room with only one bed.
Not even a bed.
A pull-out couch. Full-size, at best.
I probably should have thought this through a little more. And yes, staying back at my parents’ place would have solved the problem of beds, but it wouldn’t have solved the problem of… my parents.
So maybe this is better.
“I could take the couch in the living room,” I say quietly after we’ve pulled the door shut behind us. “Wait until Joan and Rhett are asleep and then sneak back out there.”
Callum frowns. “I could take the couch in the living room.”
“With those wings?” I reach up and run my fingers lightly over the curve of one where it rises from his shoulder. “No way. You’d be miserable.”
He shudders, and I touch the other one. Just for good measure.
Callum catches my wrist in his hand and brings it to his lips. “Or…”
His fangs press down on my pulse point, and my blood burns.
Do demons… drink blood?
I mean, those fangs have to be for something, right?
It’s another thing I should probably ask him, but I’m way too distracted by the gleam in his crimson eyes when they meet mine, a wicked spark that curls low in my belly.
“Or what?”
That spark gets darker, sharper. “Or, we could share.”