I nod slowly. “Something like that.”
I can’t read the look in Callum’s eyes.
Dark and stormy and forbidding. But also warm and hungry and…
I stand from my seat.
“Is there a back door?” I ask the question under my breath, and the barkeep nods.
“Right around the bar, love. Through the side entrance there.”
She gestures to a swinging wooden door, but I’m already moving. Around the end of the bar, through the door to a cramped kitchen space, then out of the tavern entirely. The back door swings wide, and I dart through into the night beyond.
Even then, I don’t stop.
I sprint into the darkness of the forest, dodging low boughs and putting as much distance between me and the tavern as I can.
I hope I won’t be alone for long.
I hope Callum will follow, and heat floods through me at the memory of his words.
Demons like a chase. We like to pursue our mates, to catch them, to claim them.
Goddess, I hope he likes this.
I hope he sees it for what it is.
Not me running, not me wanting to get away from him.
It’s me wanting to claim him, too.
My feet pound on hard-packed earth, slick with rain. It’s hard to hear anything over the deluge and my own frantically beating heart, but I can’t sense anyone behind me, can’t hear any heavy, booted footsteps pursuing me.
But that doesn’t mean he’s not coming.
It probably just means he’s airborne.
A shiver of anticipation races down my spine, and I turn my eyes skyward the next time I pass a break in the trees.
There.
Is that a shadow?
Wings against a rain-dark sky?
When I tug at the bond again, the answering pulse of magick is dark and burning. Filled with a wonderful, toe-curling, sensual taunt, a promise of what’s coming.
It sparks an answering fire in my veins, spurring me on.
I run faster, harder, flames of want and need and something that feels a hell of a lot like love licking at every inch of me.
I’m ready for my demon, whenever he decides to catch me.
44
Callum
My star should have known better than to run.
