“She reversed the curse as soon as she stepped back into Hell. While I was dealing with Ludo.”
“And the spell?”
“I don’t know,” I breathe. “Wouldn’t be so bad.”
She snorts, shaking her head. “Sure it wouldn’t.”
“Hate me that much, huh?”
She lets out a frustrated cry. “Hate you? How can I hate you when you were driven as much as I was by this bullshit? By other people meddling in our lives? No, I don’t hate you. I hate how they fucked with us. I hate how nothing makes sense anymore. I hate how none of it was real—that magic wove our lives together until we don’t know what’s our own decisions and what was a trick.”
“It wasn’t a spell or a curse driving me when I found you while you looked for your sister.” I step closer. “It wasn’t magic when I brought you to the dragon realm.” I move again, and she matches me step for step until her back hits the wall. “It wasn’t anything other than desire when I fucked you.”My hands land on either side of her head, and I lean closer. “You want real? This. Magic can’t conjure feelings. It can’t force me to fall for you. Magic may have been the thread, but it didn’t tie us together.Wedid. Us and only us, spitfire.”
She bites her bottom lip, dragging my gaze down. Indecision and hope fight for dominance in her eyes. It’s killing me to wait for her to take a chance on us. To figure out what’s real and what’s not.
“Why me?” she finally whispers, genuine confusion in her tone.
I let out a chuckle, then rest my forehead on hers. “You match my chaos. You’re resilient, loyal—no, don’t do that. You are, otherwise you wouldn’t have been so hurt when you thought you’d failed your sister. You find wonder in things I’ve long since gotten used to. You’re all fire and attitude, and I swear it gets me hard every fucking time you yell at me. Your turn.”
She jolts back, her head thumping on the wall. “What?”
“You think I don’t need a little reassurance? After you told me to take you home? After you shut me out?” I could go on, but she’s alreadygritting her teeth. “That hard to come up with something?”
“No, but I have a feeling as soon as I tell you, your ego will get so big it’ll make the house explode.”
“Oh, little witch has jokes, does she?”
She presses her lips together, fighting a smile. “I think you’re funny. And even if it was the spell, I like how protective you are. Even when you’re pissed off, you’re still genuine. You can tell you still care. They don’t see that, do they?” She studies my face,and I shrug. “I don’t know…I can’t turn off the part of my brain saying you’ll walk away again. That eventually you’ll get bored of a mediocre witch when someone more interesting comes along. You have entire dimensions to find someone else.”
“I’d walk through worlds for you. Only you.”
Tears fill her eyes, and she launches herself at me. I stumble back as I wrap my arms around her. Things might not be magically better, there’s still shit to work through, but right here—right now, it feels like we’ll get there. As long as we’re together, we’ll figure it out.
Three Months Later
“There it is,” I grumble, pointing toward the horizon.
Mari’s nose crinkles and she glances around. “I don’t think the volcano would bother me as much as the smell.”
“Well, when your skin is being burned off while your eyeballs melt, it definitely bothers you.”
She gives me a side-eye. “Except none of that happens to demons when they’re thrown into fire.”
“How do you know that? Thought you weren’t that well-versed in demon-y things.”
She shrugs. “Imayhave been doing some reading. And Imayhave been talking to Clara. She’s a lot more competent when it comes to witchy things. She’s also been teaching me about being soulbound to a demon. Apparently, it makes demons grumpier. At least, that’s the conclusion we came to.”
“Is that so?” I murmur, and she nods, a smirk playing on her lips.
I lunge for her and she shrieks, taking off down the barren rocky hill. There’s nowhere for her to run, but I chase after her, anyway. Better than her tumbling headlong down the whole damn mountain. When I catch her around the waist, she shrieks again. I spin us straight into the void, then step into a dense forest.
“Shh. You’ll wake them,” I whisper in her ear.
She freezes and I point over our heads. Crows nest above us, sleepy and silent. They won’t hurt me, and I’m banking on them leaving her alone. They’re more likely to follow her around like lost puppies, begging for a bit of her attention. I befriended them centuries ago when I was a very young demon. For a while, they were my only companions besides Karma. Until Omen came along, that is.
“Where are we?” she breathes, glancing around at the dense trees. Fog weaves its way through the trunks as if it’s sentient. Hell, it might be. I always found it the calm to my volatile nature.
I carry her into a clearing and plop her onto the trunk in the dead center. “Welcome to the woods, spitfire. I used to come here a lot.”
