“Is that how you know so much about people?”
He couldn’t hold back a snicker. “I fear my knowledge of your kind might be a touch outdated.”
“Sure is,” she said with a grin. “So you don’t possess people?”
With a scoff, he gestured at himself. “Why would I trade this shape to wear mortal flesh?”
“Point taken.”
He didn’t miss the way her gaze darkened as it raked along his form.
Nor did he miss the way his body reacted to that heated look.
Nyte wound his tail around his fist to keep it still.
When they reached Ember’s home, she opened the door, letting him enter before stepping inside and locking it. After she removed her hat and footwear, she made her way back to the kitchen with Nyte trailing her, where she set her handbag down on the counter and took out that thin black box. She tapped on it, shaking her head with a laugh before tapping it again. It vibrated a moment later.
Tilting his head, Nyte watched her interact with it. He’d seen many of the mortals who’d come to her store today using similar objects. It seemed all humans possessed such items. By what magic did it glow from within? The more he observed of this world, the more questions he had. “What is that thing?”
Ember looked up at him and smiled as she turned the box to show him. The front was no longer black, but white with blocks of color. There was a name at the top—Maggie. “It’s a cellphone. It’s used…well, for a lot of things, but mostly to communicate with other people. I was just texting my friend Maggie. Texting is when you send written messages back and forth to one another.”
“With no need for a courier? How can such sorcery be mundane for you, yet you know nothing of inhuman creatures or your own magic?”
“It’s not sorcery. It’s technology. It’s…electronics and wireless signals and wavelengths in the air. But I guess to most of us, it might as well be magic.”
Technology… It seemed that even as humanity had regressed in their knowledge of the arcane, they’d greatly advanced in other ways.
“Hmm.” Nyte ran his eyes over the writing on the screen, which was far crisper and more uniform than anything he’d seen produced by humans in the past. “Which are your messages?”
When she indicated the right side, he pointed at a message on the left. “This is Maggie asking you how your date went?”
She nodded and set the phone on the counter. The screen was now black. “It is.”
“What does she mean bydate?”
Ember stepped away from him and moved to a tall cabinet. When she opened the doors, light spilled out, revealing shelves stocked with food and drink inside. “A date is something people go on. Usually a couple looking to get to know each other romantically. Sometimes it can be an outing with a friend.”
“And which was yours?” he asked as she removed a package and some vegetables, cradling them in her arm.
She closed the doors and placed the items on the counter. “I went on a date with a guy hoping to make a romantic connection.”
Nyte froze. Something shifted in his gut, something thick and heavy and cold. He didn’t like her answer. Didn’t like it at all. He didn’t want to hear about her going on adatewith another male, didn’t want to hear about her romantically connecting with anyone else.
The thought of another male putting his hands on her, kissing her, fucking her, enraged him to an unreasonable degree.
Fuck.
How had he gone from wanting nothing to do with her to feeling this in less than a day?
Nyte didn’t want to speak the next words that emerged from his mouth, but he couldn’t hold them back. “And did you find that connection?”
She scrunched her face and vigorously shook her head. “Hell no. He was an inconsiderate ass who kept calling me Amber.Amber.”
“Should he have called youmortalorwitchinstead? You seem to enjoy that.”
“You’re only doing that because you’re frustrated about our situation…and because you’re a demon. He saw my name on the dating app and had been texting me for a couple weeks prior to our date, but he still got it wrong when we met. When I corrected him, he basically blew me off and got it wrongagain. A guy should know a girl’s name when they’re out on a date.”
She frowned as she picked up a wooden board and drew a large knife from the block, placing them in front of her. “I’ve tried so many times to find a partner, and every try has ended the same. It’s a real shitty feeling when someone who says they like you turns out to not be interested in you at all…just in what you can do for them. My name wasn’t important enough for him to remember, but he went into that date expecting he was going to be rewarded for his time by getting laid.”
