Chapter 43
Seren
“Another pint, love?”
I shake my head.
One is more than enough tonight, even though drowning my problems might help me forget them for a while.
Back in the Middle, I’m perched on a barstool in the tavern that’s probably developing a permanent print of my ass after how much time I’ve spent here over the past few days.
I’m becoming a regular, and I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing. Leaning toward bad, but that could just be the miasma of misery hanging around me.
Even the weather is in a mood tonight.
Drizzling rain when I arrived in this realm, which has developed into a deluge over the last hour, pounding down on the tavern’s tin roof.
My cloak could barely keep the wet out, and my clothes are damp and itchy against my skin.
My hair is drying in the worst possible frizzy waves, and yes, I know I have bigger problems, but it’s all really stacking up to make me wonder what the hell I’m doing here.
It’s been a few days since I stopped by and met with Callum’s boss to pay off his debt, and my demon mate hasn’t come for me.
I don’t know if it’s because he hasn’t found out yet, or if it’s because he has and he’s mad I went and meddled in his life.
I give the bond in my chest a tug.
There’s a bit of resistance and a glowing, warm presence somewhere on the other end. It’s bright enough I’m sure I could seek it out if I wanted to. I could follow it across realms, walk along the path it makes from me to the demon I want to see more than anything.
Only… Callum said he would come to me.
Besides, it’s not exactly easy for me to make my way from one end of a realm to the other. I don’t have my own portal magick to draw from, so Goddess knows how long it would take me to find a demon who would be amenable to taking me wherever Callum is.
I thought the Middle would be as good a place to wait as any.
But I’ve come to this tavern for the last few nights, and… nothing.
No demon.
Maybe I should do what he suggested and get on with my life.
I’ve got a handful of coins and a few jewels left after I used the rest to pay off the debt. They won’t be able to buy me much, but depending on who I can get to buy them off me, maybe it would be enough for the deposit on an apartment.
Or something.
Honestly, thinking about all the logistics of setting up a life back in the human realm is enough to bore me to tears. There’s nothing I want to do less than start making plans before I get the chance to talk to Callum and figure out all those plans together.
I don’t want to do anything but tug on that bond again—still so warm and alive in my chest—until it… it…
Until it tugs back.
Faint, at first, then a hard lurch just beneath my ribs that nearly yanks me off my barstool.
I look wildly around, scanning the faces of each patron, like there’s any way in hell I would have missed a six and a half foot tall bearded demon Viking sitting amongst the rest of the crowd.
He’s not here. I knew he wasn’t here.
But that tug tugs again, and I whirl around just in time to see the tavern door swing open.
My heart leaps into my throat.
Callum fills the entire doorframe, dripping with rainwater and looking every bit as intimidating as he did the last time we were here.
Leather armor, wild shaggy hair, a formidable frown beneath his beard as he scans the bar looking for—
“Witch.” I can’t hear the word from all the way across the room, but I read it on his lips.
He must have talked to Myron.
He must know what I did, what it means for him.
“A friend of yours?” the barkeep asks, brow raised as she takes in the demon standing in her doorway and the way he’s looking at me.
I nod slowly. “Something like that.”
I can’t read the look in Callum’s eyes.
Dark and stormy and forbidding. But also warm and hungry and…
I stand from my seat.
“Is there a back door?” I ask the question under my breath, and the barkeep nods.
“Right around the bar, love. Through the side entrance there.”
She gestures to a swinging wooden door, but I’m already moving. Around the end of the bar, through the door to a cramped kitchen space, then out of the tavern entirely. The back door swings wide, and I dart through into the night beyond.
Even then, I don’t stop.
I sprint into the darkness of the forest, dodging low boughs and putting as much distance between me and the tavern as I can.
I hope I won’t be alone for long.
I hope Callum will follow, and heat floods through me at the memory of his words.
Demons like a chase. We like to pursue our mates, to catch them, to claim them.
Goddess, I hope he likes this.
I hope he sees it for what it is.
Not me running, not me wanting to get away from him.
It’s me wanting to claim him, too.
My feet pound on hard-packed earth, slick with rain. It’s hard to hear anything over the deluge and my own frantically beating heart, but I can’t sense anyone behind me, can’t hear any heavy, booted footsteps pursuing me.
But that doesn’t mean he’s not coming.
It probably just means he’s airborne.
A shiver of anticipation races down my spine, and I turn my eyes skyward the next time I pass a break in the trees.
There.
Is that a shadow?
Wings against a rain-dark sky?
When I tug at the bond again, the answering pulse of magick is dark and burning. Filled with a wonderful, toe-curling, sensual taunt, a promise of what’s coming.
It sparks an answering fire in my veins, spurring me on.
I run faster, harder, flames of want and need and something that feels a hell of a lot like love licking at every inch of me.
I’m ready for my demon, whenever he decides to catch me.