“Fine,” she said, eyeing the tent with a burgeoning sense of dread. “You can sleep with me.” At his smirk, she hurried to clarify. “Next to me, that is. Not with me. Preferably as far from me as the tent will allow.”
He sighed. “If you insist you don’t want to share warmth . . .”
“I do.” She wasn’t even going to think about having his hot skin pressed against her or his breath puffing against her ear or his . . . “I’m going to sleep now,” she announced, cheeks flaming.
As she hurried toward the small orange tent, she swore she heard his chuckle behind her.
THIRTEEN
Calladia was not a graceful sleeper.
Astaroth watched the rise and fall of her chest beneath the sleeping bag. Her forehead was furrowed, and periodically she thrashed around, kicking or flailing as she changed position. She’d rotated more than a rotisserie chicken over the last hour, and it was tremendously fun to watch.
“Baggins,” she muttered, wrinkling her nose. “Shhh.”
She was also a sleep talker, much to his delight. Her soft breaths had been interspersed with nonsensical words and snuffles, and it made him want to know what she was dreaming about.
She shifted again and flung out an arm, smacking his cheek where he lay on his side facing her.
“Ow,” he said blandly.
“Pastrami,” she replied before flipping to face away from him. “Gimme.”
Astaroth yawned, and his jaw cracked. He’d slept briefly before Calladia’s latest dream had woken him up, and then he’d been too entertained to close his eyes again. It was also deucedly uncomfortable in the tent. Calladia had her sleeping bag, a pillow, and a narrow roll-up mat to provide some cushion from the hard ground, but Astaroth was left trying to fashion a cocoon out of three blankets she’d provided, one of which was an annoyingly crinkly emergency blanket. The flannel beneath him at least helped with the chill creeping up from the ground, but it was bloody cold regardless, and his neck had a crick after trying to use his dirty, balled-up suit jacket as a pillow.
After chugging a few bottles of water, he also needed to relieve himself again. He groaned at the idea of having to go outside. A light rain had started, pattering against the tent fabric. The sound was soothing, and it conjured up a sense memory of lying in bed in his London flat, listening to rain smacking the glass. Pleasant, so long as the damp remained outside and he remained inside.
His bladder would not be denied though, so he eased out of the cocoon and shoved his feet into his discarded trainers. He unzipped the tent gently so as not to disrupt Calladia, although if hitting him in the face hadn’t woken her up, it stood to reason a little noise wouldn’t either.
The night was frigid and damp. Rain tapped against his horns and sank into his hair as he made his way to the tree line. The sky was overcast, but as a cloud shifted, a sliver of moon appeared.
Astaroth exhaled as he relieved himself. Calladia had been right about demons having less frequent bodily urges than humans, so it was odd that he was sleeping, eating, and using the loo two days in a row, but maybe it was a symptom of the accident. His scrambled brain must be sending mixed messages to his body.
He tipped his head back, looking at the scudding clouds overhead. The moon peeped out again, then hid its face coyly. When another patch of sky was revealed, he saw stars shining brilliant and pure against the blackness.
There were no stars in the demon plane, only a perpetual twilight that ranged from gray to purple to deepest black. Mist wound through the city streets, and the golden orbs of human souls drifted like fireflies.
Those souls harvested from witches and warlocks were the key to the realm’s existence. Many ages past, the demon Lucifer had been banished from the mortal realm by an evil warlock. He’d opened a portal onto a world of dark, primordial chaos, but he’d brought the soul of a human he’d aided with him, and the light had pushed the darkness back. As other demons sought refuge from persecution, the lights had multiplied, and soon the plane was thriving. That essence—that pure, magical life—had been the seed to grow everything from red-blossomed fire lilies to three-headed hellhounds to the shimmering golden fish that leaped above rivers of lava. Without human souls, the plane would return to darkness, and its occupants would grow frail and eventually die—demons included.
Making bargains was a sacred responsibility, and he’d never hesitated to do whatever it took to gain those souls. Blackmail, threats, violence, manipulation . . . a human had to initiate the bargain, but some could be pushed into doing so, and others required a nudge to complete one after the initial summoning. If Astaroth could twist the words of a bargain to deliver less than what a mortal expected, so much the better. There was pride to be had in subverting the absurd deals some megalomaniacal witches and warlocks requested. One didn’t want to initiate an apocalypse while performing one’s duty, after all. As a tool wielded for the good of the species, trickery was considered a form of honor for demons, and no one had built a reputation for trickery better than his.