Chapter 31
Seren
Watching Callum experience the human realm is fascinating.
I’ve been keeping an eye on him all day as we traveled from Beech Bay to the city, and despite some initial overwhelm, he seems to be doing alright.
After experiencing a handful of the other realms, I can’t imagine the shock of coming here.
It’s not that the human realm has more going for it than any other realm. We’ve got technology, sure, and cities and cars and all that stuff. But we’ve also got plenty of problems other realms don’t.
One afternoon in the city, one day dealing with traffic and parking and people and noise, and I’ve already got a low-grade headache sitting in the back of my skull and the pressing urge to go somewhere without all the marvels of the twenty-first century.
Maybe a realm where the trees shine at night with a bioluminescent glow, or one where nobody bats an eye at someone using magick, where it’s just a part of the fabric of daily life.
“Have you ever lived in a place like this?” Callum asks over the bowls of chowder we got for dinner at Faneuil Hall.
Touristy, I know, but when in Boston…
I nod. “Here and there, yeah. Mostly I’ve spent the last few years bouncing around friends’ places whenever they needed a short-term roommate. What about you? Have you lived in your place for long?”
“A few decades. Though I’m rarely there for more than a week or two at a time.”
My spoon freezes mid-sip in front of me. “A few decades? How old are you, exactly?”
Goddess, we really didn’t do the whole nice to get to know you thing, did we?
“I’m a hundred and fifty-six years old.”
That spoon clatters right back into my bowl. “A hundred and fifty-six.”
Callum gives me a wry look. “Too old for you?”
“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever dated someone almost six times my age. Is that… old, for demons?”
“Not too old.” He shrugs. “The oldest among us can live to be well over four-hundred.”
I think about that for a few moments. “Well, I’m twenty-seven, if it matters.”
Callum chokes on his bite of chowder.
“Too young for you?” I tease.
He recovers and shakes his head. “Whatever age you are is perfect, star.”
Well, if that doesn’t just make the bottom of my stomach all warm and fluttery.
“I don’t think it’s that big a deal,” I say. “I mean, most humans make it to eighty or ninety if they’re lucky. I’m not great at math, but I think the ages about average out if you calculate it.”
He smiles at that, and I reach out to run my fingers over the slightly silvering hair at his temples.
“Besides, I like this. I’m discovering that I’m really, really into dating older.”
Heat flashes through Callum’s gaze, strong enough that for a moment I think I can almost see the crimson of his eyes beneath the glamour, the sharp tip of a fang when he smirks.
Fighting back a shiver of pleasure, I drop my hand and settle into my seat.
“The age thing works itself out though, doesn’t it?” I continue. “If we were to… if we ever…”
Midway through that sentence, I realize where I’m going with it, and my words dry up.
If we ever were truly mated.
Joan explained it to me, how sealing a mate bond by stepping into the Veil and completing some sort of ceremony—a ceremony which Joan didn’t give a whole lot of details for, but which made her cheeks go very, very pink—gives the witch who mates a demon a longer life.
A demon-long life.
Callum’s eyes go soft. He reaches across the table and lays his hand over mine.
Even that one small touch is electric. Dulled, because of the glamour, but still brimming with the same undeniable magick that’s been there since the beginning.
“Yes,” he says simply. “If we were to be fully mated, your lifespan would increase to match mine.”
Handy, that kind of magick. Really the Goddess out here doing a solid for all those witches who find themselves fated and bound to big, handsome, horned demons who just want to cherish them for the rest of their long, long lives.
All those other witches.
The ones who were made for this kind of thing.
Mentally, I reach for all my excuses. I reach for all the reasons I ran away from Callum in the first place, all the reasons something like this would never work out between us.
And I’ll be damned if I can grab on to them.
Still there, hanging out in the back of my mind, but quieter tonight.
Maybe that’s okay.
Maybe just for now, I can act like they don’t even exist.
We’re here, on the hunt, in this strange place where we don’t have to decide or make any promises. Just me and Callum, in this together for as long as it takes to find the heart and get our treasure.
“We should head back to the hotel,” I say, deliberately changing the subject. “We can get some rest and wait to hear from Gavin about the address.”
Callum hesitates for a moment, like he’s not quite ready to leave our conversation behind, but eventually he nods. We get rid of our empty bowls and leave the market hand in hand.
Hand in hand, because it’s a busy night here in Boston and I don’t want us to get separated.
Hand in hand, because it’s his first time in this realm, and I don’t want him to be overwhelmed.
Hand in hand, because… well, goddessdamn it, because I want to.
Because it feels nice to have his hand in mine. Because it gives me a strange, unexpected wave of calm to be here with him. To have a partner in all of this.
To not be alone for the first time in as long as I can remember.
“So much for making deals with wielders.” I fall back onto the bed with phone in hand, screen frustratingly empty of any new messages.
“Still nothing?”
“Still nothing.” Propping myself up on an elbow, I watch Callum make a slow circuit of the hotel room.
I splurged a bit on it.
Located in the heart of downtown Boston with fabulous views of the city, I could have chosen something that was a little friendlier to my non-existent budget.
But how often does a girl get to show her demon mate around her realm for the first time?
Besides, once we get that bounty and I offload some treasure for human dollars, I’ll have more than enough to pay off a few credit card bills.
We only live once, after all, and tonight we’re living in one of my favorite cities, in a beautiful hotel room after spending an entire afternoon out exploring.
It feels almost normal.
Like this is a typical trip I would take with a partner. Like Callum and I are just two people—okay, one person and one demon—free to enjoy each other and this time together.
The fantastic view isn’t the only reason I chose this place to stay.
There’s only one bed in the room.
A big, plush, king-sized mattress with plenty of room for two.
When they gave me the option to book it, I didn’t even think twice.
Last night wasn’t enough. This morning wasn’t enough. And even though this whole thing is moving fast—probably too fast for me to fully wrap my mind around it and make smart choices—I’ve never been one to slow down.
Now the only question is whether Callum feels the same.
What he told me this morning about wanting privacy, about being loud, has been echoing in my head all day, heating my blood every time I think about it.
I want to hear him loud.
I want to see what he looks like when he falls apart, when I’m the one to make him fall apart.
At the window, Callum looks down on the city lights below. Handsome, even in his glamoured form, but I suddenly ache to see what he’d look like illuminated as himself.
I cross the room in a few long strides and grab his hand.
I really, really can’t wait to be out of this realm so he doesn’t have to wear the glamour anymore.
There’s just something so disconcerting about looking over expecting to see my demon and finding a man there. I miss his wings, his horns, the flash of his fangs when he smiles. I especially miss that damned tail and the way he can’t seem to stop using it to tug me closer to him.
When I slide the ring off, the change is instantaneous. Between one blink and the next, he’s back, rolling his shoulders, stretching his wings, crimson eyes gleaming like he can see how much I enjoy having him back in his true form.
His human clothes lay in a heap on the floor. It leaves him in just the same set of undershorts he had on for bed last night—what he must have been wearing when he put the glamour on—and damn, this view is even better than the one out the window.
Magnificent black wings and the long whip of his tail.
Acres and acres of taut masculine skin and muscle, dotted here and there with scars I have the sudden urge to ask him all about, to know what stories they tell about his life.
The curve of his horns, the gleam of his crimson eyes, the hint of a fang and a very, very noticeable ridge beneath the thin covering of his shorts.
All of it makes me feel crazed, ravenous, pulsing with magick and aching to touch him.
Callum stiffens briefly, glancing back toward the window. “This is… alright? No one will see me here?”
“We’ll keep the lights turned off,” I murmur, reaching around him, fingers drifting up the broad planes of his back to find the powerful roots of his wings. “Or the shades drawn. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”
I mean it.
It really, really doesn’t matter.
The whole damn world could see. The local news could fly a helicopter right outside this window to capture the impossibility of a demon in the human realm, and I don’t think I’d care. I don’t think it would stop me.
“Star,” Callum gasps when I find what I’m looking for.
His wings are incredible. I want to know how they work, how they feel, how sensitive they are as my fingers map their curves up and up, tracing the lines of black, leathery skin.
“That,” he gasps again, “is considered a very intimate touch by demonkind.”
“Is it?” I’m barely aware of what I’m saying as my hands jump from his wings to his hair, to the arch of his horns.
When I grip him there, tip his head back, his hands land on my hips and squeeze hard.