Chapter 8
I’m standing between Sofia’s spread legs, rolling on a condom. I take my time because the way this woman pants and flushes all over is the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. If I was worried about her imprinting on me before, I’m far past that now. This moment, this memory, has already tunneled deep into my brain. It’s mine forever.
Her tits heave, and her hips roll as she stares into my eyes. She likes the smoke. A lot. She’s saturated the air with her excitement.
A dark instinct rises in me.
I rest my hands on her thighs and lean over her. Her eyes flutter. “Fuck me,” she says, a demand steeped in desperation. It’s her want, her desperate need, that’s lit up my demon instinct. I want her as badly as she wants me, but she’s closer to the edge. I have the upper hand, and there’s an inner imperative I can’t ignore. I must take advantage of the situation.
“Sofia, do you want my cock?” I ask, as if I don’t already know, but establishing interest is a necessary step before I proceed.
“Yes,” she nods vigorously. I lean further, a knee resting on the mattress, and touch a soft kiss against the side of her neck.
“I want your entire body in exchange.” It’s my opening offer, and with that, our bargaining has begun.
“You can do anything you want with me,” she says. Mmm, I like the sound of that, but it’s not enough.
“I want you to say it’s mine.”
“What’s yours?”
“Your body, all of it. Say it’s mine.”
“What does that mean?” Her eyes are unfocused, clouded with lust, and her hands rise to stroke my chest. She’s barely listening. Even better. The advantage is all mine.
“It’s the deal on the table: my cock for your entire body.” A deal that’s highly in my favor, the best kind. An ancient fire dances to an ever-quickening drum beat in my mind. My pulse rises to match it even as my hips strain towards her. I grip the sheets, fighting against my own burning desire to sink into her. Our bodies are so close, already aligned, but I crave the added euphoria of striking this devil’s bargain, and for that, I have to hear the desperate soul agree to my self-favoring terms. She has to say it.
She meets my eye. “My body is yours if you fuck me right now. Fuck me hard.”
Deal.
I plant my feet on the floor, grab her with both hands, palms flat against her ribs, and I thrust deep. She lets out a strangled noise of pure erotic delight, and I go wild. I pump in and out of her with little control, the intensity of my pleasure building like a volcano. There’s lava in my veins and seismic tremors beneath my feet. But I want her to erupt first, so I slip one hand between her legs and stroke her with my thumb.
Smoke pours from my eyes, and she comes. She cries out as her back arches off the bed, her walls squeeze, and Holy Dark Mother Below, I swear I leave my body on my own release. My hips jerk, my toes curl, and I’m floating off the ground, swallowed by an electric storm that peppers my body with stinging, burning elation before I come crashing down.
My knees buckle, and I thud to the floor, my head flopping forward onto Sofia’s stomach.
“Oof,” she grunts under me.
“Did I hurt you?” My head pops up, and my heart stops when I see the dark markings across her rib cage, right over her burn scars, exactly where I held onto her. It’s a pattern I know only too well.
“What is that?” Sofia asks. She’s propped herself up on her elbows and is surveying her own torso. With a quick tongue flick, I taste the air. She’s not afraid. Not yet.
“It’s . . . it’s my firemark,” I say on a shaky breath. “Does it hurt?” I ask.
“No,” she shakes her head, and I’m relieved. Fires created by demon magic always leave a mark and, like a fingerprint, each mark is unique to its demon. This one is mine. “Will it go away?” she asks.
“I don’t know.” I’ve never left a mark without a fire, and I’ve never marked a person. I’ve never heard of it happening. My mind runs a few laps, and finding nothing else, it circles in on an unlikely explanation.
The bargain.
There’s an old wives’ tale I vaguely recall, something about Mother Darkness adding her own bit of mischief magic to every devil’s bargain, and I have to admit, this one felt different, punched up and particularly potent. But mischief magic is a children’s story, and this has to have been a fluke.
“I can barely feel it. I bet it’ll go away,” she dismisses the mark, and pulls my mouth to hers. Our tongues meet, and soon we’re burning again.
We fuck the night away.
After the measly three condoms are spent, I come on her tits again. She wants up on my shoulders to ride my face like we did in the kitchen, and I scoop her up onto my shoulders. She grabs hold of my horns with a giddy noise that drives me wild. This time, I have to be seated on the bed because the ceiling is too low, but she enjoys the ride, nonetheless.
We both pass out a few times. I usually wake up first, ravenous for her, but every time I try to eat her out, she goes for my cock, and so we’re locked in a sixty-nine more times than I can count. I’ve mostly dismissed this position. It’s an easy punch line for too many jokes, a cliché, but now it seems like an elegant solution to a problem we keep running into. I want my mouth on her, and she wants hers on me, and neither of us wants to wait our turn.
By the time the morning comes, I’m missing her even when she’s wrapped in my arms. My tongue and fingers have pleased her over and over, but my cock is jealous and full of longing. It wants inside her again. I nuzzle her neck and kiss her cheek. “Are you sure you don’t have any more condoms?” I ask just before I jump out of bed.
I go for the nearest door, the one I’ve assumed is a closet. Maybe she didn’t look everywhere.
“Don’t!” she shouts, but it’s too late. I’ve already pulled the door open.
Inside is a stacked washing machine and dryer. For a moment, I just look at them, confused. She said there was no machine. So what are these? Are they broken? Did she not know they were here?
No. She knew. That’s why she tried to stop me from seeing them.
I turn to her for an explanation, but all she gives me is a sheepish grin. I’ve caught her in a lie.
I almost laugh it off, but then I think back to when she told me I’d have to wash the towels by hand. She lied easily, and I was easily fooled. At the time, I didn’t feel even the tiniest twinge of suspicion. But I do now. A dark cloud forms in my mind as I cycle through all the things she’s told me. Things I’ve taken her word on. There’s only one I was genuinely suspicious of from the start.
“There is a way off this mountain, isn’t there?” I growl. Why did I ever believe her?
“There’s not,” she says firmly, but her eyes dart sideways. “But—”
“But?! But what?” So, she has been holding out on me.
“There’s a CB radio in the shed out back. I remembered it on our walk back last night. I was going to tell you,” she says, but why should I believe her now? “We could call the ranger station. It’s closed over the holidays, but there’s an emergency channel.”
“If we call them, they’ll clear the road?” I ask.
“No, that’s the city’s job. The park rangers don’t have that kind of equipment, but they run search and rescue when tourists go missing. So, they must have some way to come and get you.”
We return from our trek out to the shed, and Sofia slides the dusty CB radio onto the kitchen island, pushing it in front of me. “Merry Christmas,” she says, her tone dripping with snark.
“So, what? You just say that phrase every time you hand anyone anything on Christmas Day. Is that the whole tedious tradition?” I roll my eyes at her.
She glares back. Oh, she’s mad at me? That’s rich. On what grounds?
“I don’t know how to use it,” I say, crossing my arms.
“Oh, ?pobrecito! If you can’t call, how are you going to get rescued? I guess you’ll just have to stay here and break more of my shit.”
Fine. She has some grounds. I might have stomped around and shouted quite a bit and possibly knocked over her bedside lamp. I also may have busted through the screen on her back door when I tried to kick it open so that I could keep stomping out to the shed. I didn’t apologize for either, and I’m not going to.
“Are you going to call?” I wave a hand at the radio.
“That depends on what you’re offering.” She wants to bargain now? I obviously can’t do this without her. My head snaps up, and I stare at her. This woman has unbelievably good devilry instincts, and it’s caught me by surprise again.
“What do you want?” I ask cooly, ignoring the twitch of my cock, my mind already flooding with all the delicious things she might ask of me.
“A new bedside lamp.”
A lamp? That catches me off guard and stings my ego. I know she’s been enjoying our romps. I assumed she’d bargain for more of me. But fine. Whatever. “Done.”
“De acuerdo,” she says, mimicking my tone, before she calls the station. She gets an immediate answer, but her first question annoys me.
“Hi, can you tell me if there’s any other way down the mountain besides Last Hour Road?” The park ranger on the line says no. She asks again, and he confirms in no uncertain terms that it’s the only road, and she thanks him while looking pointedly at me. “I came across a lost soul in the woods, and he needs to get back to his hotel on Mount BZB. Can you come get him?”
“Is he injured?”
“Are you injured?” she asks me.
“No,” I snort. Clearly, I’m not. Why would she even ask me that?
“No. He’s been whining quite a bit, on and off, ever since I found him, but he says he’s not injured.”
I growl at her.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but if this isn’t an emergency, he’s going to have to wait it out until the city clears the road. I’m betting they’ll get to it before the new year. Unless something else comes up, of course.”
I grab the thingy with the button that she’s talking into, and I shout, “I’m stranded on a mountain! How is this not an emergency?”
“Are you at risk of perishing due to lack of food, water, or shelter?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t call in state resources. I’m sorry, sir.” I start swearing, and Sofia grabs the thingy back from me.
She spouts a slew of nice things that the man on the other end of the radio does not deserve. Then she asks him how his holiday is going, if he has kids, if his family is in town, and he answers all her questions. Her last comment is something snarky about uninvited guests. Again, she looks right at me while she says it. And the fucker chuckles.
“I’ll tell you what, Sofia,” Park Ranger Chad says because they’re on a first-name basis now. “Why don’t I try calling in a favor? The equipment manager at the Emberlight Resort owes me one. He might be able to lend me one of their snow machines to come get your guest. No promises he’ll say yes, or that we could make it up there today, but I’d give it a shot if you want me to.”
“Oh, would you?”
“Of course. Anything you need. I’m at your disposal.”
“Thank you, Chad. I really appreciate it. You have a Merry Christmas.”
“You too, Sofia. I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear back. It was lovely talking to you.”
Fucking Chad.
She flips the switch on the CB radio and the electric hum and static crackle abruptly cut out. The absence of sound fills the cabin, ringing in my ears. I glance at her, and she’s looking back at me, not glaring, just looking.
If ‘lovely to talk to you’ Chad comes through, I’ll be gone soon. That’s the understanding that passes between us. Her brow creases ever so slightly, but the look in her eye softens until there’s no trace of the irritation she was shooting at me just moments ago. I feel my own irritation draining away. But the feeling that replaces it is worse.
“They won’t come today,” I say. Chad implied that, but I feel compelled to establish it as an indisputable truth. Not today.
Sofia says nothing. “Right?” I need her to agree with me. Not today.
She holds my eye, but her lids flutter like she’s blinking away an unpleasant thought. “They’ll probably come tomorrow,” she says and looks away.
The word ‘tomorrow’ settles with an uncomfortable weight on my chest. But it’s not as bad as the word ‘today’.
We stay by the radio, both of us watching it like it’s a kettle about to boil. Park Ranger Chad will call us back as soon as he has an answer. How long do we have to wait?
The silence stretches.
“I’m sorry, Sofia.” The words rush from my mouth, catching me off guard.
“For what?” she asks with a puzzled look.
“Your door.” I glance over my shoulder towards the back door.
“It’ll take two penny nails to fix. Don’t worry about it.” She waves her hand dismissively. “A corner of the screen popped loose. It’s nothing.”
“And your lamp. I’m sorry I broke it.” I can hear the embarrassment creeping into my voice.
She grimaces and gives me a one-sided smile. “It’s more my fault than yours. I’ve been telling myself to wind up the cord on that thing since I arrived. It was a trip hazard. I should have expected that my flailing, stomping demon would trip on it,” she says with a laugh and a shrug, but my heart has stopped.
She said my demon. I’m not sure she caught it. But I did.
“Do I still get a new lamp?” she asks with a teasing half grin. It’s a playful question, an attempt to lighten the mood, but that’s not how I take it.
“Of course,” I say, pouring conviction into my words. There’s one thing she needs to understand about me. “I will never back out on a deal with you.” Never.
Her grin fades, and I think I see a tiny tremble in her lower lip. “I know,” she says with a nod. “Excuse me,” she mumbles as she brushes her cheek and gets up to leave. But before she can make it out of the kitchen, the radio crackles to life.
It’s Chad, and he has bad news.
“Hey Sofia, I know you were hoping to send your guest home asap, but unfortunately, the soonest they can lend us a vehicle is Tuesday. Not sure exactly what time, but as soon as they deliver it, we’ll head up. You can expect us before noon.”
Today is Sunday, and it’s still morning. She thanks Chad profusely and hangs up.
Our eyes meet and she says exactly what I’m thinking. “We have two days.” A part of me knows I should be upset by the delay, but I”m quite the opposite, and she looks as relieved as I feel.
“Grab some blankets and towels,” she says. “I’ll pack some food.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, excitement sparking.
“It’s a surprise.” She shoots me a grin that lights up her whole face before she shoves away from the counter and starts dashing around the kitchen.
We have two days left.
Two amazing days.
On Tuesday, a pair of park rangers come rumbling up the mountain in a bright yellow snowcat, riding along on enormous tracks that drive a hard line in the snow, a nonnegotiable end of my time here. It’s time to go.
Lo and behold, one of the rangers is named Chad. I glare at the hornless human, but it doesn’t stop him from greeting Sofia warmly, like they’re old friends. They are not.
Chad flashes his square teeth and tips his brimmed hat at Sofia, wishing her a ‘beautiful new year’ before he saunters back to the snowcat. I can’t deny how damn suave it looks, and my chest fills with jealous fury. Demons can’t pull off cute hat tricks, and I think this prick knows it. I don’t care that he’s the reason this yellow snowmobile made it up the mountain to get me. I loathe him.
I duck my head as I climb into the vehicle. The door slams shut behind me, and I don’t look back. I don’t want to know if Sofia’s standing there watching me leave or if she’s already gone back inside. Either one will upset me, but for different reasons.
There is only one black bench seat, and it already has an occupant, a tiny blonde woman with splotchy, red-flushed cheeks and the fucking biggest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. If she weren’t so obviously human, I’d call her a crossbreed between a fairy and an owl. Her lower lip trembles, her lashes flutter, and all of it is a strange contrast to the stacks and stacks of cash poking up out the top of her shirt.
I don’t know what to make of her or her bra stuffed full of bills, so I ignore both. I slide onto the other half of the bench and turn to the window. If I had my phone, I could bury my face in the screen and pretend she wasn’t there. Phones are so useful.
“We’ve got one more pickup!” The not-Chad park ranger shouts back at us over the sound of the engine just as the vehicle lurches forward.
It’s a bumpy ride over uneven terrain, and in between the swaying and sudden drops, all I can think of is Sofia. I asked her to come with me just now, as the snowcat pulled to a stop in front of her cabin. I was filled with a momentary panic. I’d already asked for her number, but she said she’d gotten rid of her phone. I asked her to meet me in town so we could celebrate the end of the year together. She flatly refused, then tried to soften it by saying the roads probably wouldn’t be open. That’s when it sank in that this wasn’t a small goodbye. An ache settled into the pit of my stomach. It hasn’t let up since.
“Come with me.” My hand cupped her cheek. The park rangers were waiting for me. I didn’t care.
“To where, your hotel?” She laughed. “No. This is the end of our burn.”
She’d said something like it before, and I still don’t know what it means. What does that mean? Why does anything have to end?
We hit a bump and my already queasy stomach sloshes side to side. The bitty blonde gives a stifled sob, and I make the mistake of glancing her way.
“Do you live in Winter Bliss?” she asks quickly, attempting to hide her own unhappiness behind a polite smile.
“No,” I growl. Personal questions, of course.
“I’m Holly,” she offers me her dainty little hand. I try to pretend I don’t see it, but I hear her little hiccup, and it’s just—fuck! I sigh and shake her hand. It’s cold. She doesn’t have gloves, a jacket, or a hat. This mountain is positively rife with poorly outfitted women. I want to ask, “Who is taking care of you?”, but it’s none of my business. And since when do I care about humans? I don’t. But if there is someone, they need to get their act together because they’re clearly doing a shit job. She looks miserable.
“What’s your name?” she asks. Thankfully, I’m spared from having to answer by the sudden stop. We’ve arrived at another quaint little cabin, but I bet there’s no brick hearth inside this one. No giant kitchen island or sexy, steely-voiced chef to lay out on it. I hear an echo of Sofia moaning as she comes, and I have to fight the urge to jump out and run back to her.
The door on the snowcat opens, and another woman climbs into the cab. She’s redheaded and amply curved, another would-be treat to look at if her lower lip wasn’t as trembly as Holly’s. At least she’s not hiccupping. I press myself against the door, determined not to be sandwiched between these two. I’m miserable enough as it is.
The redhead squeezes into what can hardly be called a middle seat on the bench and turns right to Holly. They exchange names immediately, first and last, followed by their hometowns, where they were born and where their relatives live. I expect them to exchange photo I.D.s and mother’s maiden names any minute.
“Were you also renting a cabin for the holidays?” Holly asks. The other woman, who I now unfortunately know is named Noelle, just shakes her head ‘no.’ She doesn’t expound, thank every god in the pantheon, and a blissful silence stretches out for three whole minutes before it’s broken by another tiny sob.
Damnit, Holly! It’s not that long of a ride. Can’t you keep it together for a measly ninety minutes? Do you see me sniffling in front of strangers over my aching heart? No.
Noelle responds in the most humanly human way possible, just peak-human. She wraps an arm around Holly’s shoulder, patting and cooing, and here come the waterworks. Holly sobs and spills her guts, downloading like a free app.
I tune them out as best I can for the next hour, but a lot of it gets in. A lot. I sag against the window. My horns clank against the pane, and my stomach continues to pang as we thump along at fifteen miles per hour.
Did it bother her at all to see me leave? I should have looked back. I regret it now.
I perk up ever so slightly when the conversation takes a turn towards commerce. “Oh, that sounds wonderful. I’ll buy a ticket!” Holly says. Buying and selling? That’s an appropriate exchange between strangers and a worthy distraction. I heartily approve.
I turn to see Holly pulling one of her stacks of cash from her shirt and another tumbles onto the floor. “Oops!” She says as she bends to scoop it up. I want to sneer at her for being so careless with her money, but I have no ground to stand on. It crumbles beneath my feet. Harrumph.
Still, she shouldn’t be pulling out wads of cash like that. She’s bound to draw the wrong kind of attention. I should know.
Noelle is inexplicably hesitant to accept the bundle of bills Holly hands her. Is she trying to raise money or not? Just take it.
Holly notices me eyeing them and leans her tiny blonde head around Noelle. “Would you like to support the library? She’s raffling off a big prize,” she says as she shoves the flier into my hand. Paper. Great. What does she expect me to do with this? Noelle pipes in that the winner will be announced at the Truthfire Festival, but they must be present to win, and for some reason, that captures my attention.
The Truthfire Festival? Suddenly, the flier in my hand isn’t trash. I look it over. If I invest in raffle tickets, I’d have no choice but to stick around to see if my investment paid off, wouldn’t I? And if she happens to make her way into town while I’m waiting to find out if I’ve won, it’d be nothing more than a coincidence. A fortuitous fluke. Nothing cringy or desperate about that.
“How much are tickets?” I ask.
“It’s by donation, so whatever you feel like giving. Choose your price.”
“That’s a truly terrible idea,” I say out loud. My whole face pinches at the sheer awfulness of this scheme. Choose your price? “You’re basically starting negotiations at zero; you realize that, don’t you?” I ask, pinning her with a hard look.
“What? No, I’m not.”
“You are. You’re saying I can pay as little as I want, throw a few cents at you, and I’d be entered to win. You’re supposed to start high and give me room for a counteroffer. That’s how bargaining works, and you want to strike a good bargain, don’t you?”
She blinks at me like a little red bird. I’d hardly be surprised if she chirped. “That’s not really the point.”
“The correct answer is ‘yes.’ Everyone wants to strike the best bargain possible. Now, tell me you’ll sell me a hundred raffle tickets for a thousand dollars,” I tell her sternly.
“But that’s so much.” She sucks in a breath. I’m sure that’s what Holly has already given her. If Noelle plays her cards right and drives a hard bargain, she just might make two grand on this ride down the mountain.
“Say it.”
“I’ll sell you a hundred tickets for—for a thousand dollars?” she says in a voice that’s far too uncertain for a serious bargainer.
“Five hundred,” I counter.
“Ok!” Her whole face lights up, and I don’t know how, but the woman’s hair seems to bounce even more. She only had to counter once to get me up to eight hundred, and if she’d stuck to her guns, I would have agreed to a thousand, but so be it. I’ll give her five hundred.
“I don’t have it on me, but I’m good for it,” I say with a sigh and return to looking out my window.
“The pay app info is on the flier.” She taps the paper in my hand.
The park rangers drop us near the fire station just off the town square. As soon as we climb out, I pull not-Chad park ranger aside. “I need a small bag,” I say. He gives me a quizzical look, and I level a glare at him. “A good bag, about this big, with a clasp or a zipper. Nothing see-through.”
He eyes my horns nervously before nodding. He comes back with a knapsack with the park ranger logo on it, probably his lunch sack.
“Woman,” I say, walking up to Holly. Don’t use people’s names if you don’t want to build rapport. It’s a useful little trick. “You’re going to get mugged if you go walking around with cash falling out of your top. Here.” I hand the bity blonde the bag, and she beams at me. It’s the sweetest, glowy-est face I’ve ever seen. It’s such a small thing, the bag, and yet she’s smiling like I’m a butterfly that’s landed on her nose. If anyone ever does decide to take care of this woman properly, they sure as hell better like being showered with open, sunny affection. I roll my eyes and turn to walk away.
“Do you need a ride somewhere?” Noelle, the redheaded librarian, shouts after me. I stop. I do, actually. “I can borrow my uncle’s car. He doesn’t drive anymore,” she says. Her hair is bouncing again, and because it’s red, she’s like a cheery little cartoon fire, practically demon catnip. I briefly wonder if I should warn her, so she knows to steer clear of them, but then I remind myself, yet again, that I do not care about humans.
“What will it cost me?” I ask.
“This bag.” She points to Holly’s bag with a grin. I got the bag for free, so it’s an excellent deal.
“Could you drop me by the Emberlight Resort?” I ask.
“Of course!” The two women, who are now apparently good friends, walk my way. “I didn’t catch your name,” Noelle says, looking at me expectantly.
“Samite,” I say, my mouth flat lining as I follow the pair down the sidewalk.
“Where are you visiting us from, Samite?” Noelle asks me over her shoulder, and I rub my eyes in irritation as too late I realize what the true cost of my ‘free’ ride is going to be.