Olive skin would’ve shone gold in the sunlight if there was any sunlight, but that didn’t stop the unnatural, burnished sky from kissing life into his tanned skin all the same. Full lips curled, showing off perfect white teeth set in a strong, dimpled jaw. The stranger was covered in faint scars—some big, some small—all over his face, neck, and his very bare and very muscled chest. But somehow, they did not mar his beauty one iota. On the contrary, they made him look like a wild, rugged mountain man who was going to whisk me away to the middle of nowherewhere he’d build me a log cabin with his bare hands, and then spend all day and night ravishing me in it.
Oh no, I liked the scars. Especially the one that split his left eyebrow in two, because they gave me an excuse to linger on every sculpted, angular etching of his face before reaching his brilliantly golden eyes before jumping in—
Wait? Golden?
I blinked at the eyes narrowing on me. They were many things, but red wasn’t one of them. “Why aren’t your eyes red?” I blurted.
Rage stole across his face as a growl erupted from that wide, glistening chest. “Why in the fuck would they be!”
Whoops. That was the wrong thing to say.
“And I asked who were you talking to?” He dropped his forehead on mine, clunking our skulls together, and enclosing me in the long, wavy, sweet-smelling curtain that was his chestnut hair. “You trying to pull something, demon? Huh? Shouting about getting bitten, so they’ll all think it was me!”
“What? No! Of course not. I wasn’t talking to or about you.” Stumbling back, I grabbed the hem of my shirt and flipped it up shamelessly. The mean snake said everyone who looked at me only saw a man, and therefore a flat chest, but even if that was a lie, I was wearing a bra. “See? I was talking to my pet snake.”
“I am not your pet!”
“She’s a cranky broad,” I explained, “who apparently bites when she’s mad at me.”
“Ugh,” he spat, disgust crawling all over his face. Men didn’t usually have that reaction to my breasts, so it was obvious that while there might’ve been a spell on my chest, there wasn’t one on the snake. “You really are a freak.”
With that, he walked off and left me standing there with my shirt up.
“Not doing too well with this making-friends thing, am I?” I muttered, my attention wandering to the demon who plucked me off the cliff and flung me to my death.
As if he felt my eyes on him, his furry, feline-like head swiveled around and locked on to my gaze. A slow smile stretched his lips abnormally wide as he looked me right in the eyes, and drew a line across his neck.
ERLIK WASN’T WAITINGfor us when we made it back to the foot of the cliffs, but thankfully, neither were the hellhounds. The message was clear—find our way back to the academy ourselves.
I trudged behind, keeping my distance. Although, from my place in the back, I could see that pretty much everyone was keeping their distance from everyone else. Where were the huddled-up, laughing groups of friends? Or the buddies clapping each other on the back as they told each other of their summer vacations?
I pulled away my collar and peeked into my shirt. “Sorry I haven’t asked this before, but what’s your name?”
Another sniff. “Of course you forgot to ask. The elderly often struggle with their memory.”
My goodness, the sass on this reptile.
“But if you must know, it’s——” she stated, pouring out a string of hisses, head bobs, and tongue flicks that I couldn’t have gotten even if I practiced it for ten years.
“Wow, that’s a... lovely name,” I got out. “Really suits you. But if you were to translate that into English...?”
“I did translate it into your ignorant, peasant language, human. Or at least the one your earth snakes use.”
“I’m afraid I’m not fluent in the language of the earth snakes, so how about a nickname?” I tried. “What do you think of Sabrina?”
“Call me what you like,” she replied a bit snappishly. “It won’t matter once you get inside, follow your nestmate’s scent trail, and then return her and yourself to where you belong. No more than a day or two, yes?”
I blinked. “Uh, I very much want to find Dora in a day or two, but you do know I can’t follow scent trails, right? Humans don’t do that.”
“What?” She burst out of my shirt, shoving her scaly head in my face. “What are you saying? How do you intend to find her, then?”
My fist balled. “I’ll find the demons who took her, and they’ll lead me to her.”
“Lead you to her?” Snakes didn’t have expressions, and I still knew she was thinking I was the biggest idiot on hell or earth. “That’s it? That’s your plan?”
“Yes.”
“You—!”
