“I heard your oldest sister threatening Desh,” Rök told Poppy, “demanding to know where he’d taken you. But he wouldn’t crack with her. So I decided to come help you out.”
“Help me?” Great Hecate, this demon confused her!
“Yeah, you. Look, I vow to the Lore I’m not on a job.” A vow no immortal could break.
She didn’t know what shocked her more: that he hadn’t come for a cursebreaker or that he was here solely to help her. He already had. She lowered her hands. “I didn’t want to worry Lea, or any of them.”
“She strikes me as the type who can handle anything thrown her way, Red.”
Mind in overdrive, Poppy headed toward the grand staircase, and he followed. “Since our parents returned to Akelarre, she can be as protective as a mother basilisk over her eggs. She always says, ‘We don’t have individual burdens. Ours are group burdens. One of the benefits of sisterhood.’” Poppy sighed. “But I don’t want to be a burden. And Mariketa did say to come here as a ‘lone witch.’ So I lied to my sisters about the location of the castle and told them I’d meet them at the house with new information before we set off. That’s why I’m under-weaponized. If I’d asked them for help with pouches, they would have known I was setting off on my own.” She paused, her brows drawing together. “Desh didn’t give my location to Lea. Why would he give it to you?”
“I had some leverage that overrode even his vaunted secrecy, something unquestionable to a fellow demon. Don’t ask, because I’m not coming off it. Suffice it to say, I’ll be handling your ride out of here.”
“I’m going to have a word with him about this.”
In a casual tone, Rök asked, “You and he have never . . . ?”
“No. Desh is just a friend.” A thought occurred—along with fresh outrage. “You told me you heard something tasty was here, and you wanted to jump all over it!”
Rök waggled his brows at her.
“I don’t know if I should be flattered or alarmed that you would risk your life for—lemme check my notes—a kiss? You really want to check this box, huh?”
“I have many plans for your lovely—”
“Don’t. My gods, doesn’t the meaningless scoring ever get old?”
“Can’t say it doesn’t.”
“Then why keep doing it? Why keep racking up members of your swimbo army?”
“I don’t have any control over that. It’s a smoke demon thing.”
“Deciding to sleep with others is entirely in your control.”
His lips thinned. “Demons fuck, fight, and revel, right? That’s how I’m supposed to pass the centuries. That’s what you and everyone else expect from me.”
“Yeah. Fuck, fight, and revel. Go, you.” What a disappointment he was! She started up the staircase.
Rök clasped her elbow, stopping her. “What else is there for me to do? How should I have spent the last thirteen centuries? You want me to tell you my current existence is empty? It is.” He gave off smoke again . . . from frustration? “Waiting for my mate is as bad as you can imagine. I’ve paced holes in the floor in my cabin, wondering if I’ll go mad. I can be in a room packed with Loreans and feel like I’ve been exiled.”
Surprised, she asked, “What do you wish you’d been doing? Settling down? Starting a family?”
“Is that so insane? But I can’t do any of that without my mate. I’m supposed to be attempting females to find her, remember?”
That was true. Through sex, a male demon could identify his fated one because he’d be compelled to mark her neck and he would spill his seed inside her. Until that time, he could orgasm with a partner but never experience an ejaculation.
“Chin up, Rök. You might find her this Accession.” Then Poppy could stop dwelling on him. She glared at his grip on her arm.
With a reluctant air, he released her. “Older demons keep telling me I’ll sense her during an Accession. My first went by with no sign of her. Then my second. Thinking I’d never have her with me was . . . bleak.” Did Rök show at all those Lore gatherings because he was searching?
If he’d harbored any inkling about Poppy, he would have attempted her instead of remaining with that summoner—someone he knew wasn’t his mate!
As though he’d read Poppy’s thoughts, he said, “Know that what you hate me for . . . I can’t help it. You’re hating me for being myself.”
Why should she expect more from him? He had always been upfront about his rolling-stone, player existence. She was the one wishing he’d change.
When Poppy was little, her mother had told her, “Some things simply aren’t meant to be, even for a witch with miraculous powers. Letting go is a skill, one more Wiccae could stand to learn.”
Poppy had asked, “What if you let go too soon?”
“That’s a risk.” She’d looked at Poppy quizzically, her green eyes seeming to see far more than merely what was before her. “Sometimes one does have to reach the end. When all is lost, clarity can be found. . . .”
Poppy exhaled, deciding not to give Rök grief for what he couldn’t help. Though she saw no future with him, she could work to let go of the past. Clearing her throat, she said, “I don’t hate you, Rök. Look, no hard feelings, okay?” She turned to climb the staircase.
He was right beside her, seeming surprised by her words. His mood had shifted again, his smoke dissipating. He acted as if she’d conceded far more than she had. “You fancy a do-over?”
“As friends.”
“Hmm.” That deep, masculine rumble must be demon for I disagree but will hold my tongue for now.
On the landing, they paused before a large portrait of the white-haired wizard in his robes, his wife, and their two kids, a young girl and boy. The wife, dressed in a strapless ball gown and a golden armband, looked wary, as if she’d foreseen how dire her future would prove. Her beringed fingers clutched her children’s shoulders.
Some detail about that portrait tickled Poppy’s brain. She and Rök both stared at it for long moments.
When they moved on, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Their eyes seem to be following us, don’t they?”
Poppy nodded. “Sometimes tropes exist for a reason.”
“I’ll take a gruesome brawl—innards oozing and hacked-off limbs flying—any day over little jolts of creepiness.”
“Then I’m surprised you can stand hanging with me. Witches broker in creepiness.”
“Yeah, but your creepy is cute. I’m hexually attracted to you.”
She stopped in her tracks. “Oh, my gods, you didn’t.”
Unrepentant grin. “Did. Will do it all night.”
Damn it, why’d he have to be fun? She turned to hide her unbidden smile and peered down a hallway lined with doors. It seemed to stretch on forever.
Growing serious, he asked, “How many rooms are there?”
“Over two hundred.” Until she found the cursebreaker, she’d have to investigate each one, and the clock was ticking. She imagined nineteen more years of visitors, corporealized now. Her family would try to protect her from these killers, but to what end?
Though her sisters must be furious with her for ditching them tonight, sometimes Poppy went off script. If she survived, she would totally make it up to them, especially Lea.
On the heels of that thought, she wondered what leverage Rök had garnered over Desh. . . .
With a pouch at the ready, she opened the first door. Sheets covered the furniture, the air stuffy. She sensed the area, feeling nothing more than lingering magic. She continued down the hall with Rök at her side to repeat her process in room after room.
Open the door . . . sense the area . . . next.
One room was all purple. One had only a spartan cot on the bare floor. One looked as if it’d been set up for a séance. Another reeked of wolfsbane.
Rök asked her, “Still nothing?”
“Each area gives off a vibe, but I can’t puzzle out anything of interest.”
“Curious that I haven’t scented a hint of the other explorers. What do you know about them?”
“Twenty years ago, six fey archers and a rage demon came here for adventure, never to be heard from again. Their families dispatched the best trackers in the Lore, but no one found a trace of them.”
“Maybe I knew the demon.” Rök considered himself an honorary rage demon, had told her he felt even more loyalty to that demonarchy than to his own.
“You’ve probably heard of him. Truller the Victor.”
Rök whistled low. “For eons, he won the LoreLympics for strength. I’d heard he disappeared out of the limelight.”
“Involuntarily.” Researching the previous explorers had almost torpedoed her resolve to come here. When she’d seen a picture of Truller, a tattooed rage demon even bigger than Rök, she’d wondered how she could succeed where that demon—backed by a contingent of fey—hadn’t.
But then, she had no choice. She’d come here to safeguard her sanity. Now she was in a battle for her life. Poppy hadn’t tasted enough of this existence, the apple uneaten; she would fight on for her future.
Rök said, “If the explorers are withered to husks somewhere inside this castle, I would have scented them.”
“Maybe they fell prey to the oubliettes?”
“I didn’t detect any trace of a rage demon in the dungeon. No fey either.”
“They might have crossed through an invisible rift to another realm and gotten trapped.” Poppy was a member of an online forum dedicated to the mysteries of Raven’s Murk, and speculation about those explorers was rampant. The “Rift Hypothesis” had gotten a lot of votes.
Rök scratched his chin. “For all we know, gateways like that could infest this place, and not many other realms are as hospitable as this one. Let me lead.” He eased in front of her to open the next door.
Brows raised, she followed.
Gateways to other realms. More visitors. A ticking clock . . . Much was on the line.
So why couldn’t she drag her gaze off Rök’s muscular back, outlined by his well-worn shirt? Her earlier resolution to let him go was already faltering. Her body wasn’t ready. Because her body was indeed a fucking idiot.
She’d always found it humorous when imperiled movie characters got distracted by sex. But maybe the lurking threats explained why Poppy’s attraction to Rök had reached stratospheric levels. Maybe physical danger called to mind other physical things.
Plus, he was temptation incarnate.
“Ah, witch,” he said, satisfaction in his tone. “I can feel your eyes on me. The chemistry between us is as undeniable as ever.”
But chemistry was all it would ever be with him. And it hadn’t been enough to lure him back to her on their date. Which made her wonder how strong it’d been with the temptress who’d summoned him that night.
He turned to Poppy. “If we could bottle it, neither of us would have to take a job again.”
“Oh, you want to retire but can’t? Haven’t saved enough coin?”
His eyes smoldered. “Just waiting for my rainy day.”
The feeling of connection she’d first experienced on their date bloomed again. Before then, they had worked in the same field, passing each other with preoccupied waves, but that night, she’d felt he really saw her.
Not so.
Yet she’d had that same connected feeling last year at a big Lore bonfire. She’d spotted him talking to a few gorgeous sirens. Without warning, he’d turned to Poppy, catching her eye over a crowd of rowdy immortals.
As she and Rök stared at each other, the crowd had faded away until she could almost hear his heartbeat. She’d spied smoke rising from his skin and had wanted it to surround her. Yes, connection.
He’d mouthed something to her, but she couldn’t make out the words. Then the scantily clad sirens had tried to reclaim his attention, reminding her that he had an actual connection—a summoning pact!—with many. She’d portaled away before he could see her crestfallen expression.
Since then, trying to figure out what he’d said had driven her crazy. She could ask him, but doubted he’d remember. In any case, Poppy had too much on her plate to ponder that or his odd behavior. She certainly would never ask what that summoner had over her. “Focus, demon.”
“Very well.” Grinning, he moved to the next room. “No idea what we might be searching for?”
That we did funny things to her. “I pictured the cursebreaker as some kind of talisman, but it could be anything. I’ve seen enchanted shrimp forks and bespelled golf clubs before.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll find it.”
We.
Hecate help her, she basked in this attention. She relished his presence. She was just mercenary enough to appreciate the help of a free bodyguard.
If a bull never caught a red cape, would he chase it forever?
Rök closed the latest door, saying, “A thought occurred to me. You scheduled our second date on Halloween, the night of your curse. You never intended to show.” His expression was studiously blank.
“No, I didn’t. And you were put off readily enough, so it worked out for everyone.”
“Hmm. Maybe you insisted on that night because you were afraid you would meet me.”
How easily he saw through her. “Rök, I told you I’m looking for a relationship. I want something I can depend on. Maybe a family.” Even though Wiccae didn’t have fated mates, Poppy understood the power of a pure, abiding love; her parents had been together happily for half a millennium.
I want what they have. Had she thought Ixius could give her everything she yearned for? No. Looking back, she feared she’d used him to make her family happy while distracting her from what could never be.
Her gaze was unerringly drawn to the demon.
“A relationship, then? I’ll throw my hat into the ring.” Teasing her yet again. “What do you like in a bloke? I mean, besides not asking stupid fucking questions.”
“My bar isn’t high. He’d have to be honest and loyal and not fated to someone else. I won’t be a placeholder.” I won’t!
“Well, it is an Accession,” Rök said in a noncommittal tone. “Maybe you’ll find him soon.”
“Maybe.”
A weird frisson of tension tangled between them, but it faded as they continued their search.
“So what have you been up to over the last pair of years?” he asked.
Jobs. Spinning my wheels in a doomed relationship. Still living down my disastrous date with you. She kept it light. “Recently our cat Newt drank a transmogrification potion and turned into a dog for a week. Now she barks, slobbers, and humps the legs of the unwary.” Poppy lapped up Rök’s laughter like Newt with an unsupervised potion. “What have you been up to?”
“I moved out of the pool house I’d shared with Cade and found a new place, but I spend as much time as I can at his and Holly’s house. The twins can trace anywhere they’ve been before, so the three of us do a lot of search missions. One time we found the girls at the Valkyries’ new lair. Holly’s aunts were playing toss-the-babies with the girls, who were delighted. Mom, Dad, and Uncle Rök were less so. . . .”
As Poppy and Rök searched, conversation flowed, nearly as comfortable and natural as on their date. She tried to plumb his mood and got the impression that he was excited about spending time with her. But she also sensed . . . relief.
Strange demon. They kept the topics light, though she itched to know what had really happened to him since their date. Why had he booked so many jobs practically guaranteed to get even an immortal merc killed?
After checking all the rooms on this floor, they followed the hall to a stairwell. Inside, they gazed up and up and up.
Rök said, “I didn’t see this many stories from the outside. The exterior must be an illusion.”
“Or this is.” Up the stairs they went to the next floor and another seemingly endless corridor with dozens of doors. “Searching will take hours.” Poppy glanced at her watch. Time continued to slip past.
“I have an idea,” Rök said dryly. “We should split up.”
Despite everything, a chuckle escaped her. His expression was lively, his smile mesmerizing. Gods, she wished she could get over him. The sight of him like this was another memory she’d store, never to be erased.
“How do you eat an elephant, witch? Bite by bite.”
“Do demons eat elephants?”
“Just a human saying. Demons aren’t so different from Wiccae.”
“I would beg to differ, but I never beg.” Despite what he’d fantasized. Beg more until she begged no more.
How . . . intriguing.
“Hmm.” That deep rumble washed over her, penetrating her defenses. The comfort between them evaporated, scorched away by sexual tension. “You give a demon ideas, Poppy. When we get out of here, I’m going to . . .” His unfinished promise hung in the air, his gaze narrowing on her eyes. “Glowing again. Looks like we’re in for more adventures.”
Only then did she notice the curse churning. Somewhere in this castle, a child’s laughter rang out.
