A slither of dread tightens my throat, but I ignore it. I straighten, pull myself up to my full height and paste on my cockiest smile.
“Then I’ll just have to make sure they don’t catch me.”
A low rumble breaks in Callum’s chest.
“Don’t growl at me,” I snap, cutting that rumble off before it even really gets started.
A flash of surprise on his face, followed by a budding smile that he scrubs a hand over, as if he doesn’t want me to see it.
“You don’t like the growl?”
“Of course I don’t like the growl! Why would I? Why would anyone want to be—”
“Noted. I’ll refrain from growling at you in the future.”
“There won’t be any ‘future’. Goddess. Why do you have to be so—”
“If you won’t work with me, will you at least tell me your name?”
My head spins from the whiplash of this conversation. Without giving him the satisfaction of an answer, I turn and start tromping back through the leaf-littered ground toward the Veil.
Most of the other hunters are long gone. It leaves me and Callum alone in the middle of the waste. I fight back a shiver and the urge to reactivate the invisibility spell.
This place is wrong. The whole feel of it, the air, the sky, the dead plants beneath my feet. Magick that tastes like rot in my mouth.
I need to get out of here. And I especially need to get away from this pushy, irritating, handsome demon before I do something stupid like entertain his very good points about what I’ll be up against in this hunt, and that maybe it makes sense for the two of us to…
No.
Not going there.
At least not until I get out of this realm and start planning, start searching, until I have a better grip on my magick and can—
In a flash, Callum is in front of me.
I look at him, then behind me, then at him again, head whipping so fast I’m sure I look like a cartoon character.
It takes a second for what just happened to make sense.
Portals.
Right.
Demons can open portals.
Callum clocks the realization on my face and chuckles. “Tell me your name, witch.”
It’s not an order, the way he says it. Low and soft, the words curl around that strange, shaky energy in the center of my chest like a gentle plea.
I meet his eyes, crimson and burning in the light of the rust-colored sky.
“Seren. My name is Seren.”
The energy curls tighter, squeezes gently, and Callum lifts a hand to rub at his sternum.
“Seren.” My name is different, in his voice. Still so low and soft, a caress against my ears as he murmurs it back to me. “It’s a beautiful name. I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone with it. Does it mean something, in your realm?”
“It means star.”
