Seren doesn’t pull away immediately.
In fact, she squeezes back and meets my eye with a small smile replacing that frown.
“Then that’s where we start,” I say, and her smile widens. “And this time, let’s stay away from the mushrooms.”
Her laugh is like starlight, bright enough to lead the way as we leave my apartment and head back into the hunt.
21
Seren
The cottage is just as desolate and forbidding today as it was yesterday.
Wasit only yesterday?
I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime in the last twenty-four hours. It’s enough to have me more than a little off-balance as we pause at the edge of the woods, a few feet away from the clearing, and survey our destination.
Despite that unease, we’re in the right place.
I’m certain of it.
Magick tingles beneath my skin, pulling me inexorably toward the cottage and whatever horrors might wait inside.
I glance up to find Callum scanning the woods, the clearing, doing a full three-sixty with his hand braced on the hilt of the large, wickedly sharp-looking sword in the sheath on his belt.
He’s in his leathers again. Intricately constructed armor that sits on his big frame like a second skin.
It’s… distracting.
But when has henotbeen distracting?
I’ve been trying to avoid it, but ever since things have loosened up between us, it’s been hard as hell not to notice.
Callum is hot.
Really hot, though in a way that surprises me.
Big, burly, bearded men have never been my type. I’ve always gone for clean-shaven and sleek, mostly wielders, but the occasional mundane human here and there.
No one even remotely like Callum.
It’s not so weird, though. Not anymore.
It’s starting to feel natural to have him here with me, to wait while he does his assessment, to watch his handsome face for any signs of danger.
Maybe notentirelynatural, but we’re getting somewhere.
Not that I should be thinking about where thatsomewhereis, though, when more likely than not we’re going to run into more trouble here today.
Head in the game, Seren. Now’s not the time to realize you’ve got a big fat crush on the demon who might be your mate.
I reach for the threads of my magick, making certain one last time I’m being pulled where I think I’m being pulled.
Callum must be able to sense the shift in the air around us, because he glances down at me.
“Into the cottage?”
I nod. “Into the cottage.”
