Page 6

“No, you are beautiful, Little Offering. But this place…” He cranes his neck in a semicircle as bones crack and pop. “It’s supposed to be terrifying.”

“Yeah, well…” I shrug, lacing my fingers through the fur under his jaw, my palm catching a furious pulse thumping beneath the flesh, and something occurs to me I need to clarify. “Demons have hearts?”

I crinkle my nose as he blinks, once, twice. His mouth opens to answer, then closes with a huff.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“Did you say, bat?” He snaps with a sniff, his grip on my ass tightening, that protrusion between my legs still firmly held in place stiffens, and I hate that my body has liquefied down there and wonder if I’ve anointed his erection with my virgin arousal.

“No, cat. It’s a saying. Cat got your tongue.”

“Cats take human tongues? Do they eat them?”

I shake my head, then consider the idea that saying is quite ridiculous, and where does it come from anyway? Do cats actually take tongues?

This night is getting weirder by the second.

He takes the stairs with me propped on one forearm, breathing low and steady like I’m an afterthought. I’ve been told my whole life that I take up too much space, which is just another way of telling me I’m fat in a more PC manner.

Apparently, I am not too much for him.

I get the feeling he’s actually enjoying carrying me around. Like if he sets me down, I’ll vanish. His long fingers tighten on me every time I shift or wiggle, and I like it.

So, I wiggle some more.

We head down, down, and the air underground smells earthy and damp, but not stale.

Torches line the walls at regular intervals, real fire this time, casting flickering shadows across stone slabs laid like tiles on the floor, and as we go deeper, the air shifts from humid to comfortable.

Homey. Like there’s a fireplace burning somewhere.

“This is your home?” I ask.

“As much as demons have homes, yes. Now it will be our home.”

“Did I sign a cohabitation agreement on the way down the stairs?” I fling my head around dramatically as we continue our descent, shadows licking the walls. The deeper we go, the warmer it gets, until the hallway opens into a glowing chamber.

“Your soul signed, yes. I feel it in many ways. One is the way you are hugging my erection between your legs.” I look up and see the firelight dancing on his horns, things down low throbbing along with the beat of my pulse rushing in my ears.

I nod. “Hugging? Yes, I suppose I am. And, let’s just note…it’s…impressive from what I can feel.”

“It’s my first.”

I audibly gasp. “Your first…like boner? Wow. But what about the whole demon bride sacrifice every hundred years deal? You haven’t been getting your freak on once a century at least?”

He shakes his goat head as a foreboding but excited tightening clutches at my gut.

“No, little one. I ate their fear and consumed their souls. They never…aroused me in this way. You are…special.”

He lifts his chin and expands his chest as we take the last steps down and emerge into a cavernous room lit with glowing blood-red vines trailing along the expansive ceiling.

“Virgin demon.” I nod with a smirk, oddly satisfied.

An enormous pool of steaming black water shimmers between rough-hewn pillars that stretch from the cave floor to the dark rock above.

“It’s—” I shrug. “Cozy. Very demon chic.” Humor is my defensive weapon, has been since I learned how to make people laugh, but right now?

It’s something else. I’m trying to distract myself from the growing turbulence inside me