Retreating into the unnervingly white bathing chamber with its polished stone floors and walls, and an enormous mirror taking up nearly one entire wall, I retrieve a cloth and wet it with warm water.
Before I go back to tend to my mate, though, I pause.
There, in the mirror, I almost don’t recognize the demon staring back at me. It’s as if I’ve lost decades in a single night, as if the weight I’ve carried on my shoulders for as long as I can remember has lifted. The lines on my face loosened, my shoulders and back straighter. I wonder for a moment if this is what I’d look like… happy.
But there’s no time to contemplate it with a gorgeous, sex-rumpled witch waiting for me in the other room.
Though she protests a little when I return to the bed, she eventually relents and lets me clean her up. When I’m finished, she rolls over and stretches languidly on the mattress, kicking her feet up and showing off a pert, perfect ass I can’t resist running a hand over as I stretch out beside her.
She returns the favor by reaching over to touch the curve of my wing, and lets out a soft laugh at my low growl.
We trade touches and lazy kisses, my purr the only sound in the silence between us. No urgency, no goal other than taking the time to leisurely explore each other’s bodies now that the initial frenzy has faded.
At least until a soft ding from somewhere on the floor makes Seren groan again, more annoyance than pleasure this time.
She leans over the edge of the bed, offering me another magnificent view of her naked back and the curve of her ass, and shuffles around in our discarded clothing.
Rolling back over with phone in hand and a wide grin across her face, she looks at me triumphantly in the lamplight.
“Looks like we’ve got a date to see the wielder.”
33
Seren
The house is in a nondescript, working-class neighborhood in the outer part of the city.
On a quiet, tree-lined street filled with small but tidy homes, there’s absolutely nothing to set it apart or mark it as the home of a wielder. Much less a wielder who used to be tangled up with a fae queen.
“This is it?” Callum asks, peering out the window with confusion furrowing his brow.
We got him a second set of clothes yesterday, and even though the dark wash jeans and soft charcoal sweater look great on him, I miss his demon form.
Especially after last night.
As much as I want my head to be in the game, to be fully here and ready to talk to the wielder, I keep getting distracted.
Every time I look at Callum, every time I catch even the smallest whiff of his scent, I get distracted.
My magick is turbulent, unsettled, and I’m sure he can feel it.
Goddess, he can probablyscentit.
What did he say last night?
You have no idea how delectable you smell, star. You have no idea how crazed it makes me when I can scent your arousal,when I know you’re thinking about me, that you want this just as much as I do.
As if just remembering those words is enough for him to pick up on the direction my mind is wandering, Callum pulls his attention from the wielder’s house and fixes it squarely on me.
He inhales sharply, and his glamoured pupils expand until they’ve nearly eclipsed the temporary brown of his eyes.
“Star—”
“Yes. This is it.”
Not the time.
It’s absolutely not the time.
