Chapter 9 #2
She tossed the reformed ball more softly this time. The young hellhound caught it with exaggerated care, holding it between teeth that could crush steel. Its tail wagged so hard its entire back end wiggled.
The middle hellhound took a step forward, whining low in its throat.
“You want to play too?” Hazel couldn’t help the smile spreading across her face. “Marcus, give me your… do you have anything throwable?”
“I am not participating in…”
The largest hellhound padded forward and dropped something at Marcus’s feet. They both stared at it.
“Is that a tree branch?” Marcus asked faintly.
“I think it wants you to throw it.”
“This is insane.”
“They’re still dogs, you pompous ass. Look at them. They want to play.”
And they did. Three hellhounds, each capable of leveling city blocks, sat in a semi-circle with hopeful expressions. The youngest still held its tennis ball with delicate care. The middle one had found its own stick. The largest waited patiently by its offering, flames banking to a gentle glow.
Marcus looked at her, then at the hellhounds, then back at her.
He picked up the branch.
“If anyone asks,” he said, testing the weight of it, “this never happened.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
He threw the branch with perfect form, sending it sailing far into the trees. The largest hellhound bounded after it with ground-shaking enthusiasm.
Within minutes, they had a full game going.
The hellhounds were terrible at fetch. They kept incinerating the toys or bringing back the wrong things.
The middle one proudly presented Hazel with what appeared to be most of a deer carcass.
The youngest got distracted chasing falling leaves.
The largest kept bringing progressively larger trees, apparently engaged in some size competition with itself.
And Marcus… Marcus was laughing.
He threw sticks with the same precision he brought to legal briefs, offering helpful suggestions about proper fetch etiquette that the hellhounds completely ignored.
“Your form is atrocious,” he told the middle hellhound, who had just crashed into a tree while chasing a pinecone. “You’re telegraphing your trajectory.”
“Are you coaching hellhounds on fetch technique?” Hazel couldn’t stop grinning. Her cheeks hurt from smiling so hard.
“Someone has to. Their current approach lacks efficiency.” But he was smiling too, the kind of smile that reached his eyes.
The young hellhound bounded up to her, tail wagging hopefully. She’d run out of tennis balls three throws ago.
“Sorry, buddy. All out of…”
It coughed up a ball at her feet. Covered in hellhound saliva and slightly charred, but intact.
“Did you just… produce a tennis ball?”
The hellhound’s tail wagged harder.
“That’s disgusting and impressive.” She gingerly picked up the slobber-ball. “Good boy? Girl? Terrifying entity of indeterminate gender?”
She threw it again, watching the hellhound chase after it. When she turned back, Marcus was looking at her with an expression she’d never seen before.
“What?”
“You beautiful, insane witch.”
A portal opened behind the hellhounds, red light spilling across the clearing. The largest barked once, a sound like a small explosion, and all three began moving toward it.
“Playtime’s over,” Hazel said, her voice only slightly unsteady.
The hellhounds filed through the portal with apparent reluctance. The youngest looked back, tail wagging hopefully.
“Same time next week?” she called after it.
The portal closed with a sound like tearing silk, leaving them alone in the sudden quiet of the forest. Leaves rustled overhead.
She turned to face him fully. He stood motionless, hands at his sides, looking at her with an intensity that pulled her one step closer before she’d decided to move.
“You meant it.” Not a question.
“Every word.”
“Marcus…” She took a step closer, drawn by the same magnetic pull that had been building for seven days. “This is…”
“I know. I know we shouldn’t…”
“Complicated,” she finished, another step. The air between them felt electric.
They stood three feet apart in a clearing that still smelled faintly of sulfur and singed tennis balls. The afternoon light caught in Marcus’s dark eyes, turning them to burnished copper.
“I can’t believe that worked.” The words came out breathless, carried on a laugh that was part adrenaline, part pure delight. “Did you see their faces when the ball bounced? Like they’d never considered the possibility of toys.”
“You threw a tennis ball at hellhounds.” His voice held wonder. “Most people run. You decided to play fetch.”
“Well, running seemed rude. They came all this way.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and noticed his eyes tracking the movement. “Besides, Azrael was right. They’re still dogs under all that hellfire and brimstone.”
“You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t.” She met his gaze steadily. “You wouldn’t have let that happen.”
“No.” The word came out fierce. “I wouldn’t.”
His hair fell across his forehead, slightly mussed from their adventure. She’d never noticed his laugh lines before today.
“Repeat it,” she whispered.
His brow furrowed slightly. “What?”
“Beautiful.” The word felt like a spell on her tongue. “You called me beautiful.”
He took a half-step closer.
“You’re beautiful, Hazel.”
The simple words landed somewhere under her sternum. She took another step closer, close enough to notice the slight roughness of stubble along his jaw, the way his gaze dropped to her mouth.
“You’ve ruined everything, you know.” He stepped closer.
“Good.” The word came out breathless.
His hand rose to her cheek, fingers brushing her skin.
“Improved it immeasurably?” But the joke came out shaky, her whole body leaning into his touch.
“Destroyed it completely.” His fingers traced her cheekbone. “Seven days, and I’m making toast and playing fetch with hellhounds and thinking about…” He stopped himself.
“Thinking about what?”
“Things I shouldn’t.” His hand dropped, but he didn’t step back. “We said we’d keep it professional.”
She laughed. “Professional? We just played fetch with hellhounds.”
“Hazel…”
“To hell with professional.”
She closed the distance between them, rising on her toes as her hands found his shoulders. For one suspended moment, they hovered on the precipice, his eyes searching hers.
Then his control shattered.
His arms came around her waist, pulling her against him as his mouth found hers. The kiss was desperate. He kissed like he did everything else: with focused intensity that made her forget her own name.
But there was softness, too, a reverence in the way he held her. His hands splayed across her back, anchoring her to him while everything else fell away.
When they broke apart, gasping, purple and gold light drifted around them like enchanted snow.
“That was…” She couldn’t finish, couldn’t find words for what had just happened.
“I know.” His forehead rested against hers, both of them breathing hard. “Hazel, I…”
A branch cracked somewhere behind them.
They jerked apart to find Azrael perched on a low tree branch, watching with his usual inscrutable expression.
“How long have you been there?” Hazel demanded, face flaming.
“Long enough.” Azrael began grooming his paw. “The hellhound training was impressive, by the way.”
Marcus cleared his throat. “We should head back.”
“Probably,” Azrael agreed. He hopped down from the branch and started toward the cabin without looking back.
They stood in the sudden quiet, the kiss still humming between them. Marcus’s eyes kept finding her lips. She kept swaying toward him without meaning to.
“Hazel.” Just her name, but the way he said it, rough and wanting, made her shiver.
“One more,” she said. “Just one more, and then we’ll go back and figure out what this means.”
“One more,” he agreed.
This kiss was slower, deeper. Without the desperate edge of the first, but with intent. His hands tangled in her hair, and she pressed closer, trying to memorize the feeling. The solid warmth of him.
When they finally broke apart, the sun had shifted, painting longer shadows through the trees.
“We should actually go back now,” he said against her lips.
“Mmm.”
“Hazel.”
“I know.” She stepped back, already missing his warmth. “Back to the cabin. Back to reality. Back to pretending this didn’t just change everything.”
He caught her hand, threading their fingers together. “This changes things.”
“I know.”
“The trial—”
“It’s in thirteen days. I know that too.” She squeezed his hand, then let go. “But right now, in this moment, I don’t care about the trial or the future or any of it. Right now, I’m just… happy.”
His expression softened. “So am I.”
They walked back through the forest in comfortable silence, carefully not touching but painfully aware of each other.
At the cabin door, Marcus paused. “Hazel…”
“Don’t.” She pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t analyze it or apologize or make pro and con lists. Not yet. Let’s just… let it be. Just for today.”
He kissed her finger, a gentle press of lips that somehow felt more intimate than their kisses in the clearing.
“Just for today,” he agreed.
She opened the cabin door, then looked back over her shoulder. “Marcus? For the record, today was a really good day.”
“For the record,” he said, “I haven’t had one of those in about three centuries.”
The door clicked shut behind her. Marcus checked his watch. Twelve days, fourteen hours, and a margin too thin to think about.