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I wished he would elaborate a bit more. It was hard making conversations all the time when the other party wasn't really participating. Suddenly, a twig snapped somewhere off the trail. The sound was soft. Barely noticeable. But the reaction beside me wasn't.

The shimmering outline vanished. One moment Azaren was walking at my side. The next... he was gone.

"Azaren?"

No answer.

Another rustle.

Before I had a chance to even turn my head, a dark shape materialized between me and the trees.

I forgot how to breathe. He was... enormous. Towering well over six feet, all broad shoulders and impossible muscle, like he'd been carved from black marble. His back filled my entire view, every movement made the muscles beneath his dark tunic shift and tighten. Powerful legs disappeared into fitted black trousers tucked into knee-high boots that looked as though they'd marched through centuries of war.

Massive obsidian wings unfurled just enough to make him appear even larger, their feathered edges caught the last rays of the setting sun with an iridescent sheen.

Every muscle in his body went rigid. He didn't speak. He didn't hesitate. He simply placed himself between me and whatever lurked in the trees. My heart stuttered.

Wow.

Okay... Mrs. Wilton might've forgotten to mention one tiny little detail. My demon was... devastatingly handsome. If it weren't for the horns curling back through his midnight-black hair. Or the enormous wings. Or the fact that he literally came from Hell... he could've stepped off the cover of one of my romance novels.

My heart slammed once, hard, against my ribs, and I pressed a hand flat to my chest as if I could physically slow it down. It didn't work.

Not that I'd ever admit that to him.

His head tilted ever so slightly, listening. Alert. Ready. There wasn't an ounce of uncertainty in the way he stood. Every line of his body promised one thing. If something comes out of those trees... it won't get to you.

For reasons I couldn't begin to explain... that realization sent a completely different kind of shiver racing down my spine.

In a very anticlimactic conclusion, a doe stepped cautiously from the brush. She froze when she saw us, her ears twitched. Azaren didn't move until she snorted softly and bounded back into the trees. Only then did his shoulders relax.

He turned as though nothing happened. "We should continue."

I blinked at him. "You protected me."

"I protected the quest."

"The quest."

"Mrs. Wilton requires the flowers."

"So if it had been a bear..."

"I would have protected the flowers."

Right. Somehow he didn't sound convincing. I smiled. "Uh-huh."

He started walking again. "I fail to understand your amusement."

"I don't think you do."

We walked for another minute, before he dissolved back into smoke and then… nothing besides the occasional flicker remained. The forest settled around us once more. Crickets began their evening chorus. A breeze stirred the leaves overhead. I glanced sideways, first right then left. Nothing.

"So demons don't sleep?" I turned back to our earlier conversation.

"No."

"Ever?"