Page 394 of Flirting with Darkness

Traipsing about…

His home!

I take in the surrounding scene. The daylight, tall trees with leaves I don’t quite recognize. Colorful birds roosting on the lower branches, their songs unfamiliar to me. The purple and pink flowers blooming among tree roots, in shades I never thought possible.

This is not the forest by the manor. This isn’t any forest I’ve ever traveled to. None I could have ever imagined.

This place is far too beautiful to be the Underworld.

“Liar! This isn’t your home. You promised me you’d go home. Now send me back to my home and be on your way, demon!”

That damnable smile twists his mouth into a cruel slash. “In fact, I did no such thing, princess. I said I wouldn’t bring about Hell on earth. I made no such promises about leaving you in your home.”

Quick as a viper, he snags my wrist again, this time pausing, his thumb running over the smooth, raised skin. “What is this?” he asks, peering down at it, dark brows pinched together.

I snatch my wrist away. “None of your business.”

He snatches it back with the ease of catching an idly tossed coin. “Everything about you is my business while you’re in my realm,” he says with a snarl.

I glare at him, meeting his hard stare with my own determined ire. “It’s a callus.”

Before I can move it out of his reach, he grabs my other wrist, examining it as well. “Who bound you like this? Who kept you tied down so long the wounds hardened to calluses?”

I set my jaw, shift my weight to my back foot, and kick out with all my might. Right at his twig and berries.

He collapses inward, grunting and releasing my wrists. “Fucking human,” he wheezes, hands on his knees.

I give him another kick, this time to the side of his head. He falls to the dirt. “That’s right. Now take this fucking human back to her home.”

The demon’s eyes roll inside his head, and he loses consciousness.

* * *

He wakes with a groan several minutes later, after I’ve had no luck determining where I am or even what time it is. Hand to his temple, he stands, or tries to. He only manages half sitting, half leaning on the stump next to him and glaring at me like he is trying to cast death curses. “Do you have any idea what danger you just put yourself in?” he hisses.

I shrug, glaring back at him. “You kidnapped me and put me in these.” I lift the hem of my dress to show the muck boots he saw fit to put on my feet. “Can’t blame a human for using what’s at her disposal. Now, are you ready to take me back home, demon?”

He shakes his head, wincing at the pain.

“Serves you right. You tortured me for years.”

“Your family trapped me in a wooden box for generations!” he roars, wincing once again.

“That’s what we do with demons, demon!”

He sighs as if I’ve said the most ludicrous thing in all creation. “Exactly what about my presence says demon to your feeble human brain?”

I don’t have an answer for that.

He stands, gripping the tree behind him for balance. “Kicked me in the head,” he mutters as he finally gets himself upright. “I’m no more a demon than you are, human.” He takes my wristagain,but this time his grip is firm.

Searing pain wraps around it. It’s different than the fire from before. This isn’t so brutal. A yelp teeters in the back of my throat, but just as quickly as the pain descended, it lifts, and the man who says he’s not a demon releases me.

I clutch my arm to my chest and glare at him, but not before a glint of golden light onhiswrist catches my attention.

He tugs his sleeve over it before I can see it clearly. “You’re now bonded to my side, human. You may not leave until our journey is through, or else we both die. Am I clear?”

No. He most certainly is not clear. “Pardon me? What do you mean, bonded to you? I’d like to go back to my manor. I set you free, and that means I kept my end of the deal.”

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