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 wholenice 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 thoseotherwitches.
