A Demon’s Guide to Wooing a Witch -
: Chapter 17
Astaroth wanted to bang his horns against the truck window.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
How was it possible one witch had thrown him so off-kilter in so short a time? Sure, the amnesia wasn’t helping, but he wasn’t delusional enough to ascribe all his odd behavior to that. Amnesia wasn’t the reason he had leaped into a violent pack of werewolves, then offered to hunt down Calladia’s ex-partner and make him suffer.
Historically, Astaroth didn’t do things out of the goodness of his heart. He did whatever it took to maintain his image and consolidate power, and while collecting souls benefitted the demon plane, his motivations weren’t exactly pure.
So why had he risked his safety for Calladia, when it was clear she loved getting in fights? When she had, indeed, jumped straight into one without hesitation? Had it been anyone else, he would have left her to it and found something more productive to do with his time.
“Griffin’s Nest, five miles,” Calladia said, pointing at a sign. It was the first either of them had spoken since the awkward leaning incident over an hour ago, when he’d been a heartbeat away from pressing his lips to hers.
He grunted in acknowledgment, then snuck a glance at her. Her profile was elegant for such an aggressive force of chaos, with a high forehead, classically straight nose, and pouty bottom lip. The fight had mussed her braid until gold hair escaped in haphazard clumps, and her tan skin practically glowed. She was so lovely it made his fingertips tingle with the urge to touch her.
Her skin would always be cool compared to his, and he’d bet anything the curve of her cheek would feel like satin under his fingertips. Naked, she would be exquisite, all firm muscle under smooth skin, the perfect mix of hard and soft.
Speaking of hard . . . Astaroth shifted on the bench seat, turning his hips away to disguise his growing erection. This was also abnormal. Astaroth had been shagging for centuries in every combination and permutation one could imagine. Sex could be a tool or a bit of fun, but he’d never been ruled by his desires.
Now? Just imagining the witch naked was enough to make him hard.
Trees flashed by, a mix of coniferous green and bare or autumn-clad branches. An osprey circled overhead, wings stabbing black against the gray sky. The demon plane was beautiful in its own way, but the brilliant shades of Earth were more to his taste. Rather than relying on outside magic to thrive, the human world produced its own, and he hadn’t found anywhere else in the universe quite so vibrant.
Calladia switched the radio on and scanned through channels of static until she found a station she liked. It was a pop song similar to the one by Taylor Swift, though this one didn’t trigger any memories. Calladia hummed along, voice wobbling above and below the melody.
Why was the witch so compelling? Astaroth stewed on the question as he snuck more surreptitious glances at her. He’d known courtesans and famed society beauties in centuries past and was familiar with the tools of attraction. Cosmetics, costume, and a puff of scent took care of the physical lure; polite conversation, flirtatious witticisms, and dazzling displays of talent accomplished the rest. Beauty was crafted like any other work of art, and its perfection took effort.
Calladia didn’t try at all. She wore no makeup and didn’t care about fashion. She sang off-key and was more likely to punch someone than engage in polite conversation with them.
And she was the most beautiful person Astaroth had ever seen.
“Tits!” Calladia exclaimed.
Astaroth was startled out of his reverie. “Tits?” he repeated dumbly. His eyes dipped to where her breasts were hidden by soft-looking flannel. Did she have tan lines? Or did she sunbathe nude? The thought wasn’t helping the situation in his trousers, so he told himself not to imagine her bare breasts or speculate on the color of her nipples.
Shell pink, maybe. Or dusky rose, the hints of brown echoing her tan.
“Mother Nature’s bosom or whatever.” Calladia pointed ahead. “They just came into view.”
Right, the quest. He followed the direction of her finger and saw two rounded hills rising in the distance past a deep valley, the slopes visible now that they’d topped this latest ridge. Jagged snowcapped peaks towered behind the “tits” as the mountains claimed the horizon.
A town sprawled along the top of the ridge, the buildings lining the road and extending into the trees. Unlike Fable Farms, these were far from uniform. There were wooden cabins, adobe buildings with flat tops, and spiraling towers with pieces of colored glass pressed into the stucco. A mounded hill with a door built into it indicated more housing underground, and a wooden platform ringing the top of a tree had rope bridges extending from it.
“Griffin’s Nest, I presume.” Astaroth rolled down his window, inhaling the crisp autumn air.
“It’s cute.” Calladia pulled to a stop outside a black-walled restaurant labeled NecroNomNomNoms. The menu posted outside was written in runes, and the acrid spices wafting from the building were enough to make Astaroth’s eyes water. Calladia sniffed, then made a face. “Whew, someone’s getting adventurous with valerian.” She sniffed again. “Mandrake, wormwood, and horehound, too. And definitely some blood.”
“You have a keen sense of smell,” he said.
“My mom made me take a potions course in college.” Calladia grimaced. “Not my favorite aspect of magic, but the scents stick with you after you’ve been sweating over a cauldron for a semester.” She unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. “I need to stretch my legs.” Once outside the truck, she raised her brows. “Well? Are you coming?”
Astaroth’s chest warmed at the thought that she wanted his company. He got out of the truck and shook out his legs before reaching overhead, groaning at the delicious ache in his muscles. “Lucifer, I’m stiff.” He twisted his torso a few times, then noticed Calladia staring at him. Or rather, at his waist. He glanced down and realized the stretch had lifted his shirt to expose a strip of skin. Astaroth reached even higher, arching his back to show off more of his abs.
Calladia quickly looked away. “I was thinking we should stop here for the night,” she said. “We only have another hour or two of sunlight, and I’d rather reach Isobel’s place during the daytime. Visiting strange witches after dark is a good way to get hexed.”
Relief washed over Astaroth at the realization that his time with Calladia would be extended. It was followed by swift self-condemnation, because that was the opposite of the scenario he should be hoping for. He needed to reach Isobel as soon as possible to learn how to restore his memories and kill Moloch; every minute spent delaying that goal was a minute he risked himself—and Calladia—encountering further danger. “Are you sure?” he asked. “The tent isn’t exactly comfortable. We could push through and see if Isobel has a spare room.”
She shot him a knowing look. “I find the tent perfectly comfortable, but I’m willing to take pity on your delicate constitution. We’ll book a hotel.”
“I’m not delicate,” he objected, despite the relief he felt. “I’m discerning.”
“Definitely delicate,” she tossed over her shoulder as she walked away, hips swinging. “And a frightful snob, to boot.”
He stifled a chuckle. “Do you know how many people dare disrespect me?” he asked in a mock-stern tone as he caught up to her.
“Not nearly enough, I bet.”
Astaroth couldn’t help it. He laughed, a full, hearty guffaw. “You’re so bloody mean!”
She smirked. “You can take it.”
“And so I shall, gladly,” he said, placing a hand over his heart.
Calladia shook her head. “It’s like you want me to insult you. Are you a masochist or something?”
“Just a demon who likes a challenge. A mortal constantly trying to take the piss out of me is unusual.”
“So you like being called a delicate little purse dog because it’s a novelty?” she asked.
They were passing a bakery with an array of large, colorfully shelled eggs in the window next to the pastries—a sure sign of griffin occupancy, since the creatures used their talons to puncture eggs before slurping up the yolks. On impulse, Astaroth cut Calladia off and backed her toward the window. She went without resistance, and her breath hitched when her shoulder blades met the glass.
Very interesting.
Astaroth planted his hands on either side of her head and leaned in until his mouth was inches from hers. Her eyelashes fluttered. “It is a novelty,” he murmured, reveling in the pleasurable tension strung between them. “But part of the enjoyment comes from imagining all the ways I can prove you wrong.”
“Oh, yeah?” Calladia asked. “How would you prove me wrong?”
She was trying to play tough, but the breathy quality to her voice sent triumph spinning through him. Every sense felt sharpened as he took her in. The unsteady waft of her breath, the pink tinge to her cheeks, her dilated pupils . . . she was far from unaffected by his nearness.
Did she want him as badly as he wanted her?
Astaroth brought his mouth even closer to hers, watching her eyelids sink to half-mast . . . then shifted until his lips brushed her ear. “You wouldn’t call me delicate if you’d seen me in action,” he murmured.
She shivered. “I saw you fight.”
“Not the kind of action I meant.”
Calladia made a shocked noise, then planted her hands on his chest and pushed. He stepped back, grinning at how flustered she looked. “You are incorrigible,” she said, shaking her head.
Not a victory yet, but a tactical advantage. Astaroth slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “I think you like it.”
“And I think you have delusions of grandeur.” But as she turned to face the bakery window, Astaroth spied the points of her nipples pressing through her shirt.
Oh, yes, she liked it. Humans were a passionate species, and despite everything he’d done to antagonize her, she still wanted him.
Around her, he felt passionate, too. Had he been younger, he might have made his move right then and there, pressing her to the window and capturing her lips in a hungry kiss. But his witch was complicated. If seduction wasn’t equally her idea, she’d never go along with it. Calladia wasn’t a prize to be won—she was an equal competitor in this battle of wills and wants, and the only way to woo a woman like that was to leave her wanting until she got impatient and seized the prize herself.
Astaroth reached out to tuck back a loose strand of her hair, letting his fingers linger on the rim of her ear. She tipped her head to the side as if inviting him to trail his fingers down her jawline, then quickly straightened, narrowing her eyes.
Patience, he told himself as he withdrew the touch. Play the long game.
It was difficult when everything in him was screaming to seize her, kiss her, pleasure her.
Calladia shook her arms out and cracked her neck like she was shrugging off the carnally charged energy. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s find a place to stay.”
Astaroth followed, his pulse tapping a giddy beat. As they headed down the street, he realized something startling. Despite centuries of being a master planner and manipulator who knew all the right buttons to push to influence people . . . Astaroth truly had no idea what Calladia would do next.
And fuck if he didn’t like that.
Although Astaroth horns garnered a few curious looks, the people here didn’t seem alarmed by his presence. Everyone they passed had a smile and a wave. There was one tense moment when they passed a sweet shop and a gnome in a pointed blue cap came barreling out, but although Astaroth instinctively braced himself for an attack, he ended up confronted by a tray of free caramel apple samples instead.
“Are you a minotaur like Dr. Shepard?” the gnome asked, looking curiously up at Astaroth. He was a teenager, with acne-spotted cheeks and a diminutive letter jacket bearing a gold Honor Roll star. “Or part minotaur? You have the horns, but you don’t have a bull head like him.”
Well, that question explained the community’s general comfort with horned creatures. “I’m a demon,” he said, accepting a toothpick bearing a green apple slice drizzled in caramel.
The gnome’s jaw dropped. “No way? That’s so cool. Dr. Shepard teaches history and interplanar cultures. I’ll have to tell him I met you!”
Minotaurs had a fearsome reputation in most places, due to their penchant for lurking in caves and absconding with attractive people, but Astaroth was canny enough to recognize a marketing choice, and everyone he’d met who had been abducted by a minotaur had found the experience thrilling.
He sank his teeth into the apple and made an approving noise. “Lucifer, that’s good.”
“Right?” The gnome grinned. “The Wicked Witch provides the apples.”
Calladia and Astaroth shared an alarmed glance. “Are these apples . . . doctored in any way?” Calladia asked as she tossed her own toothpick in the bin.
The gnome laughed. “Sorry, I forgot you’re tourists. The Wicked Witch is a shop selling locally grown produce. It’s owned by two of the sweetest witches you’ll ever meet, and all they do with their magic is extend the growing season.”
“Mariel would love that,” Calladia said. “One of my best friends,” she clarified at the gnome’s curious look. “She’s a nature witch.”
The gnome launched into an excited spiel about garden magic, the quality of local produce, and various plant-related festivals Calladia’s friend ought to visit for. Astaroth half listened while surreptitiously watching Calladia. Her face lit up whenever she mentioned Mariel, and it was clear she loved the witch very much.
And Astaroth had apparently tried—and failed—to collect Mariel’s soul. He closed his eyes, begging his brain to produce anything related to the failed bargain that had turned Calladia into his enemy rather than something sweeter.
He had a flash of a wall of brambles and a furious-looking witch with curly brown hair. That image lurched abruptly into another: the same witch standing with a blank expression on her face while a demon with black horns and hair cried out, sounding agonized.
Was the brunette Mariel or some other witch he’d met during the centuries missing from his memory? Considering the presence of a heartbroken-looking demon, he suspected it was Mariel and he’d gotten a brief glimpse of the bargain gone awry. Which meant that large, very upset-looking demon was Ozroth, Astaroth’s so-called protégé. Former protégé now, after choosing love for a human over his duty to the demon plane.
Astaroth’s chest felt tight. He focused, trying to identify the emotion. It was . . . loss of some sort. A subtle yet bitter grief.
He chose them, Astaroth thought nonsensically.
“Earth to Astaroth,” Calladia said.
Astaroth opened his eyes to find her snapping her fingers under his nose. The gnome was nowhere to be seen. The world spun, and he braced his feet farther apart to center himself. Curse these dizzy spells.
Calladia looked concerned. “Is everything all right? Where’d you go just now?”
He hesitated, wondering if mentioning Ozroth and Mariel would anger her. Then again, it wasn’t like she’d forgotten what he’d done to them, even if he had. “I think I remembered Ozroth and Mariel.”
Calladia stiffened. “What did you remember?”
“Not much.” Astaroth weighed his words carefully. “I saw a woman with curly brown hair casting magic on a wall of plants. Then I saw a demon with black hair next to her.”
“That does sound like Mariel and Oz.” Wariness lurked in Calladia’s brown eyes, and her posture was tense. “Anything else?”
He wasn’t sure how to explain it, or even if he should. Calladia had made it clear he was the villain in her story; she wouldn’t care about his feelings of loss.
But who else could he talk to about this? The people he’d known over his long life had been sorted into neat categories: ally, enemy, entertainment, prey. No one knew better than a bargainer how easy it was to manipulate feelings of intimacy and love, which was why effective bargainers eschewed close friendships or other emotional entanglements.
Calladia might not be his friend, but she’d seen him in a vulnerable place and helped him. And fundamentally, he wanted to talk to her.
“I felt an emotion,” he said, pushing the words past his tight throat. “But I don’t know why.”
Calladia cocked her head, studying him. Then she reached out and touched his elbow. “Let’s walk while you tell me more.”
Astaroth had been bracing himself for her anger at the mention of what had transpired with Mariel. A relieved breath puffed out of him, and his shoulders relaxed. “It’s odd,” he said as they started walking. Her touch had been brief, but he still felt the echo of it against his skin. “It feels like I’ve lost something. There’s this hollowness inside.”
“What do you think you lost?”
Astaroth grimaced. “I don’t know. It’s just a sense of something missing.” Or someone, he realized. Ozroth had chosen humanity over everything Astaroth had taught him, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He made a frustrated sound. “Never mind. Talking about feelings is obnoxious.”
“If you think this is obnoxious, you should try therapy sometime,” Calladia said with a lopsided smile. “It’s great but also terrible.”
He scoffed. “No therapist has the time to unpack six centuries of baggage, and proper demons don’t need therapy anyway.”
Except he wasn’t a proper demon, was he? He was an anomaly. A hybrid who had somehow risen high in demon society before being brought very low.
Calladia dug into the sore spot mercilessly. “What do you think counts as a proper demon?”
“A strong, full-blooded one.” Shame spiked at the reminder he was less than. “Feelings are a waste of time. All they do is complicate things or ruin a decent stratagem.”
Calladia blew a raspberry. “Spare me the high council propaganda. Emotions are important.”
“Not when the rest of your species doesn’t feel them half so intensely,” he said. “What kind of aberration am I, focusing on pointless emotions that won’t help me accomplish my goals?”
Calladia was fussing with her braid, mussing up the strands further, and he wanted to smack her hand away, brush her hair out, and re-braid it properly. “You say aberration like it’s a bad thing,” she said, forehead furrowed in a contemplative expression.
He scoffed. “How can an aberration ever be considered a good thing?”
“Being different is just that: being different. It isn’t a crime.” Her voice rose as she continued. “My mother would say I’m an aberration, too, but do I give a shit? Absolutely not. And you shouldn’t either.”
By the way she was nearly shouting, Astaroth suspected she might, in fact, give a shit. He remembered the tense conversation he’d overheard at her childhood home. “You think your mother expects you to be exactly like her?”
Calladia kicked a rubbish bin at the edge of the curb. “She expects more than that. She wants a daughter, heiress, campaign manager, and hype woman all in one. Pearls and pantsuits and lipstick and all that bloody nonsense.” She apparently realized what she’d said the moment Astaroth did, because she barreled on. “And now your Britishisms are rubbing off on me—great. The point is, I’m not bloody polite or scheming or diplomatic or whatever-the-fuck-else she expects. I’m rude and loud and too masculine for her standards, and I’m a disappointment to the family who will never make anything of myself if I don’t fall in line and become the perfect little Cunnington cunt.”
Apparently he’d hit a nerve. He liked it though. He wanted to hear her rant about anything and everything, especially if it meant she was opening up to him.
Opening up to him? Lucifer, had he really just thought that? In practical terms he’d experienced less than a day of being half human, and already he was growing mawkish.
Calladia cleared her throat and yanked on her braid again. “Anyway, that’s not important. Back to your situation.”
Astaroth wasn’t going to let her get away with that misdirection. He fumbled for a response to make her feel better. “I think you’re perfect just the way you are.”
Calladia stopped walking. Her head snapped around. “What did you say?”
That had been too close to a confession of his growing infatuation. “Well, ah . . .” How to salvage this so she didn’t sense his glaring, Calladia-sized vulnerability? “Obviously not perfect, perfect,” he clarified. “You aren’t some goddess, even if you’d be an excellent model for a statue of Athena.” Wait, not better. He rushed onward. “What I mean to say is, you may be rude and loud, but some people find that interesting, and any talk of being too masculine is nonsense springing from a strict sense of the gender binary most species have moved beyond. You are wholly yourself, and that in itself is perfect, because anything else would be a lie.”
He lapsed into awkward silence. That had been way too much. Any moment now she was going to smack him upside the head and tell him he was the worst.
Calladia looked shell-shocked. “Wow,” she said. “That was actually really sweet.”
“It’s not sweet,” Astaroth hurried to say. “You have many less-admirable qualities.” He tried to come up with one. “You talk in your sleep, for instance. Horrific.”
Calladia laughed and punched him in the shoulder. “Shut up.”
“Gladly.” He’d started to sweat from nerves, so he wiped his forehead as nonchalantly as he could.
“And hey,” Calladia said, shifting from foot to foot. Her eyes darted before meeting his. “Thank you. For being sweet.”
“Yeah, well, don’t count on it. I’m still a horrible, irredeemable monster.”
“Of course,” she said, looping her arm through his. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” When Astaroth stared at where she was touching him, Calladia rolled her eyes. “Come on, you secret softie. Let’s find a place to stay.”
Astaroth let himself be towed along, marveling that somehow, despite having little practice with honesty, he’d managed to say the exact right thing.
Calladia looked far too chipper for someone about to spend the night in a tree. “Best views in town, they said.”
The eponymous proprietor of Tansy’s Treehouse was a griffin, so it made sense they’d offer accommodation many meters off the ground. Tansy had spoken English with remarkable clarity for someone with an eagle beak, but some garbled screeching was to be expected with griffins, and Astaroth had failed to understand that a cozy room with good views translated to you’ll be sleeping in a flimsy wood shack in the fucking sky.
“There has to be another option,” Astaroth said. “How is this an improvement on camping? You’re just sleeping in a tree rather than on the ground.”
“You haven’t even seen the room yet,” Calladia said. “Tansy said it’s very sturdy and comfortable. And besides, it’s the only one available.”
When Calladia and Astaroth had asked a naiad swimming in a fountain for directions to the nearest hotel, they’d been informed the Annual Griffin’s Nest Mariachi Festival was about to begin, which meant accommodations would be difficult to find. The naiad had directed them to a small shop called Tansy’s Trinkets to ask for a room, since Tansy oversaw a variety of properties in the area.
The griffin who had greeted them at the door had been a cheerful sort, with a glittery name badge saying tansy, they/them, an impressive wingspan, and beads woven into their feathers. They’d shaved curving designs into their leonine fur, and a silver stud gleamed from their tongue every time they cawed.
Tansy had been thrilled to have more visitors and announced that Calladia and Astaroth had arrived just in time, because there was one room left for the night. Or maybe the griffin’s mix of speech and screech had said Sorry to suck rather than You’re in luck, and it had actually been a threat.
“Come on,” Calladia said, tossing the ragged remnants of her braid over her shoulder and hitching her backpack higher. “Let’s climb before it gets dark.”
Astaroth prided himself on being a master tactician. He considered the elements at play and a variety of possible outcomes, then settled on a strategy. “You go first,” he said, gesturing at the trunk.
Calladia shrugged and started climbing. Astaroth followed, gripping each rung tightly before shifting his weight. The climb was harrowing, but the wisdom of his strategy was proven whenever he looked up, because he’d never gotten to see her arse from this angle before.
Eventually, they reached a wide platform built around the trunk. Astaroth hauled himself up and collapsed on his back. “Tansy is begging for a wrongful death lawsuit,” he said. “How is this safe?”
Calladia abruptly started laughing.
Astaroth turned his head to see what had amused her. A building had been erected around the trunk at the center of the platform, and Calladia was returning from the far side, where she’d evidently been exploring. Her grin was huge as she hiked a thumb over her shoulder. “We should have walked around the tree before trying to get up here.”
Astaroth pushed to his feet and headed toward her. On the other side of the building, he stopped at the sight of an ornate metal cage. The cage was hooked to a pulley system drilled into a thick branch. “Wait,” he said. “Is that—”
“An elevator!” Calladia leaned against the wall of their hotel room, clutching her ribs as she laughed. “We didn’t need to climb.”
Astaroth glared at the elevator, his new nemesis. “Very well, we should have looked more closely, but how were we supposed to call it down in the first place?”
Calladia was still chuckling. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out the key Tansy had given them. “I have a suspicion.”
Astaroth eyed the key, which he hadn’t paid much mind to, assuming it would electronically open the door. It was oval-shaped and carved out of soapstone, and at the base was a simple etching: ^ ⌵.
Calladia brushed her thumb over the ⌵. Instantly, the cage began to sink through a hole in the platform cut to its exact dimensions. It moved seamlessly, with no mechanical humming. Calladia hit the ⌵ again, which stopped the elevator. She tapped ^, and the cage rose.
“Magic,” Astaroth said, impressed despite himself. “How did they manage that?”
“Binding objects is difficult,” Calladia said as the cage returned to its position. “You have to layer spells to accomplish it, but basically, you infuse magic into two separate things and then force them to share the same resonance. It’s like tricking them into thinking they’re the same object.”
“Like quantum entanglement,” Astaroth said, having a flash of a science documentary he’d watched once while drunk. “Particles linked across a distance.”
As had happened before, one memory unlocked another, and he recalled watching that documentary with a demoness who had dark skin, wild white hair, and black horns. He couldn’t remember anything else about her, but it seemed like a good memory. Did he have a friend?
“Yes!” Calladia beamed. “So you charm multiple objects into acting like one. When I touch this stone, the pulley system responds.”
Astaroth held out his hand, and Calladia dropped the stone into his palm. He turned it over, running his fingers over the waxy gray surface and toying with the runes so the cage bounced. “You’re quite knowledgeable about magic,” he said. “I can see your raw power, of course, but it takes more than that to be an accomplished witch.”
Calladia’s smile turned wistful. “My parents enrolled me in magic classes from a young age, hired private tutors, the works. I didn’t like the expectations that came with it, but I loved learning.”
She was looking out at the trees, but Astaroth had a feeling she wasn’t seeing them. He wondered what road her thoughts were leading her down.
“It’s a hard thing,” she continued, “being good at magic. That sounds ridiculous, and it is, but you learn quickly that magic isn’t just yours, and it isn’t just a skill set. It’s a legacy, passed down through generations. It doesn’t come free.” Then she scoffed and shook her head. “Listen to me, being maudlin for no reason.” She looked around. “Where’s my backpack?”
Astaroth retrieved it and handed it over.
“Thanks.” She pulled her water bottle out of the side pocket and drank, then passed it to him so he could do the same. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter,” she said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “Let’s check out the room.”
Astaroth wanted to demand she stay there and share all her secrets with him, but that would make her snap and raise her defenses further. He pushed down his burning curiosity and bowed, sweeping his hand toward the door. “Then lead the way, oh fair nemesis.”
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