A Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch （Glimmer Falls, #2(44)

Calladia narrowed her eyes, then reached across the table and dipped her finger in the ramekin holding the sauce for Astaroth’s salmon. She loudly sucked the sauce off her finger while making unblinking eye contact.

Astaroth gaped, horrified and aroused. As an expression of dominance, it was unorthodox but effective. He’d thrown the gauntlet, and she’d picked it up. “Appalling behavior,” he said, eyes dropping to where her pink lips were wrapped around her finger. “Truly distressing.”

Calladia popped her finger out of her mouth. “Enough about my table manners,” she said. “Let’s talk about the fact that your mom is Lilith, you’re half human, and you had a thing with the Borgias, which you apparently remember clearly.”

“When she mentioned them, I remembered.” His appetite had vanished, but he started cutting his salmon into small pieces for lack of anything better to do. “I was young then, less than a century old, and I was studying human behavior across the Papal States.” More hazy memories unfurled, and he closed his eyes to focus on them past the residual echoes of his headache. “Mum sent me there. She said I needed to see what humans were capable of, and the Church was the best place to see the absolute worst behavior.”

“That’s very interesting,” Calladia said, “but I can’t get past the Borgia bit. Did you really date both of them?” She leaned in, practically salivating.

“I don’t know if I would classify it as dating . . .” He envisioned red satin sheets and bare skin, but when he tried to focus on the person beneath him in that memory, he only saw Calladia’s face.

Lucifer, this wasn’t good. Carnal thirst was a slippery slope. Soon, he might find himself—horror of horrors—pining for the witch.

Astaroth shifted in his chair, trying to push the image of a nude Calladia out of his mind. “We had a bit of fun, that’s all.”

She scoffed. “That’s what you call hooking up with two of history’s most notorious schemers and murderers? Come on, drama queen. Give me the dirty details. Was it separately? Or like . . . at the same time?”

Astaroth might not know much these days, but he had a suspicion Calladia’s moral scruples wouldn’t stretch far enough to condone incestuous threesomes. “A gentleman doesn’t shag and tell,” he said in a dignified tone.

Calladia clapped a hand to her mouth. She was making a stuttering, high-pitched sound it took Astaroth a moment to identify as laughter. Her shoulders shook, and her eyes were bright with hilarity.

Astaroth was torn between fascination and annoyance. She laughed so infrequently, and never in these bubbly giggles, as light and intoxicating as champagne. But what was there to laugh about? His life was in shambles, and he’d just been clobbered upside the head—metaphorically this time—with details of his existence he didn’t know how to process.

“This isn’t funny,” he snapped.

“Oh, come on,” she said through her fingers. “You had a threesome with the Borgias!”

All right, maybe her morals did stretch that far. A good thing if she was going to spend more time around him, since more memories of hedonism would certainly follow.

Not that she was going to spend more time with him. This was a brief quest she had reluctantly embarked on due to some foolish notion of responsibility. Once her duty was carried out, she’d return to her life and leave him behind.

His chest ached at the thought. He rubbed his sternum, wondering if he’d cracked a rib somehow.

“Sorry,” Calladia said when Astaroth didn’t reply. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I shouldn’t have laughed. I just can’t believe I’m hanging out with the sixteenth century’s most gutsy lothario.”

He scowled. “How did I not remember being a hybrid?” he blurted out. “Or being a member of the high council? I craved that bloody position for centuries, and now I can’t remember getting it?” His temple throbbed again, and he stabbed his plate with the fork, eliciting a loud metallic screech. “Lucifer, this is a disaster.”

“How is it a disaster? You’re remembering more and more every day.”

Astaroth made a frustrated sound and jabbed the plate again. “There aren’t many demon hybrids, and feelings about them have always been . . . complicated. Some of the most influential demons don’t consider them true demons at all, and there’s never been one in power before.”

“Until you,” Calladia said. “That has to be gratifying.”

It should be, but it wasn’t. “How, when I can’t remember gaining power? When I have no idea how or why I lost it? When I know if my secret gets out, I’ll never hold a position of influence again?” A thought seized him, accompanied by tendrils of icy dread that wrapped around his ribs. “What if they did find out, and that’s why I’m here?”

Saying half demons were controversial was just the start. While there were those who lived and thrived in the demon plane, albeit without much institutional support, others had been sent to live off-plane or disowned entirely. The ones who did remain tended to have more demonic traits, such as horns and immortality.

Hybrid minds are weak, someone had once told him, the sneering words echoing through history. How can we allow human frailty to shape demon society? Only the strong can lead the strong.