Even when she hadn’t been deliberately trying to wind him up, she’d managed. Her jeans weren’t the tightest, but every step highlighted the taut curve of her bum, and without her shirt, he could see the flex of her biceps and the toned stretch of her abdomen.
The things he would do to get his mouth on her.
He didn’t care that the trail had all but disappeared or that a stray branch had scratched his cheek. He didn’t care that he was sweaty and gross. He didn’t even care that Isobel’s cabin was nowhere to be found.
This was exciting.
The feeling was a novelty for an immortal like him. Former immortal, that was. Soon-to-be-immortal-again, once he figured out how to manage it. After centuries of the same dramas played out over and over, people blurred together, and even wars became routine.
Calladia though . . .
He’d never met anyone like her.
Ahead of him, she stopped with a sigh. “Maybe we’re on the wrong path.”
“Generous to call it a path.”
Calladia narrowed her eyes at him. “Not helpful.”
“Maybe we should stop for the night,” he said. “The light’s fading.” The snippets of sky visible through the branches held sunset hues, and beneath the canopy it was growing dark. Soon it would be risky to keep clambering over roots and rocks.
“More helpful.” Calladia rubbed her neck. “We’ll need to find a clearing to set the tent up in.”
“True.” Astaroth eyed the tangle of bushes and trunks on either side of the track. “Easier said than done.”
Calladia set her pack down, shrugged her flannel back on—alas—then pulled out the yarn she’d tied knots in earlier. She undid them, then wove a design between her fingers, whispering to herself. Astraroth watched, intrigued by the intricate movements. Not many witches preferred thread work to ground their spells, as it was a notoriously difficult discipline. There were countless types and combinations of knots to remember, and even the tightness of a particular knot could change the desired effect.
He took a moment to look at her soul using his demon senses. It glowed in her chest like a small sun, golden and radiant. In olden days he would have considered the potential of removing it from her, but he liked seeing it there, where it belonged.
As a bargainer, he should feel ashamed for a thought like that. But as a bargainer, there was a lot he was doing that he should feel ashamed about. He’d gone from a stone-cold manipulator with a fearsome reputation to . . .
Well, a demon who was currently smiling giddily at the witch he was feeling an alarming amount of emotion toward.
A stick rose from the ground and hovered in front of Calladia at waist height. It was Y-shaped, like a dowsing rod. The stick quivered, rotated in a circle, then snapped to the right, pointing off the path.
“What spell was that?” Astaroth asked.
Calladia began shoving through the bushes in the direction the rod had indicated. “A spell to find fresh running water. That’s a good start for a decent campsite.”
Astaroth followed, ducking under branches and pushing foliage aside. He noticed Calladia was doing her best not to damage the undergrowth, so he followed suit, contorting himself into odd positions rather than snapping twigs off.
The sound of trickling water grew louder. They reached a small stream tumbling down the slope. The terrain was still uneven, but Calladia made a triumphant sound and pointed. “There we go.”
Downstream, the water curved around a boulder. On the opposite bank was a shelf of rock, and beyond that a narrow patch of earth before the trees crowded in. Calladia led the way, picking over rocks and fallen wood, and Astaroth followed. Curious about the potential for a bath, he dipped a finger in the water, then shuddered. He would not be washing in that.
“Do you know any bathing spells?” he asked. “The water’s bloody freezing.”
She laughed. “Not really, but I do know spells to make you smell better. Do you want to smell like roses or lilies?”
Astaroth considered. “Lilies, if I must.”
“Wow, I was sure you were going to ask me to make you smell like sandalwood and leather or something.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not really sure what sandalwood smells like, to be honest.”
“It’s a nice scent, if cliché.” Somewhere along the line, romantic literature had informed men they could smell like a few oddly specific things: sandalwood, pine, leather, and musk. What kind of musk? Who could say. Since some perfumers expressed beaver anal glands to produce castoreum as a tincture, he suspected most people would rather not know the particulars.