Daemoncrabs.
In the bathroom.
With me.
I was not okay with that.
However, I was fine with Asa guarding the door while I tugged fresh clothes on in a rush.
“Asa?” I stomped on my boots after turning them upside down and giving them a good shake to be sure I wasn’t about to get my toes pinched. “What happens to your challengers?”
“The fight is to the death.” He rested his forehead against the wood. “Does that bother you?”
Walking up behind him, I pressed my palm to the center of his back. “Only if you lose.”
The supernatural world had rules. Most were common sense laws. Some were more colorful. Either you followed them, or you died horribly. Dominance fights were essential to establishing hierarchy in all shifter cultures. Most of the time, those brawls ended in submission, but death was always a possibility.
From the sound of it, daemon culture wasn’t so different from gwyllgi and wargs in that respect.
“I won’t lose.” He glanced over his shoulder, eyes burnt crimson and ravenous. “Not for a long while yet. Not for centuries. Not for millennia.” He twisted until his back hit the wood. He faced me then, my hand on his chest. Gripping my wrist, he placed my open palm over his heart. “I would fight for you…forever.”
“You have no brakes, do you?” Unable to tune out his heart, I was drugged by its quickening beat. “You just keep stomping on the gas.”
“I’m old.” He stroked his thumb up the inside of my wrist. “Older than you might realize.”
“Is this the part where you tell me you’ve waited for me your whole life?”
“You just did it for me.”
“You don’t even know me.” I laughed, and yeah, it sounded a bit crazed. “How can you be so sure?”
As drawn as I was to him, I imagined the moth to a flame phrase was coined for idiots like us.
Fire bad. Danger ahead! Do not pass go. Here be dragons.
And yet—I smelled smoke. I was dancing so close to the flame I was working on my tan.
“The more time we spend together, the more certain I am.”
All I knew for sure was I didn’t want him to die, and I probably would lick his horns if he asked me.
“I should go.” He stepped into my space to reach the knob behind him. “This won’t take long.”
“I’m going with you.”
He blinked at me, I blinked at him. He hadn’t expected me to say that, clearly. Well, neither had I. So, ha!
“Your presence signifies we are fascinated with each other. Word will spread.” Muscles in his jaw flexed. “My father will hear of it.”
“I hate to break it to you, Hairnado, but if your father goes around chopping off hands that touch your pretty, pretty hair, then he already knows about us. I would be willing to bet that played into why you slapped a bracelet on me so fast. You wanted me to be able to play with your hair without repercussions. I appreciate that, by the way. I’m attached to my hands, and yes, I do mean that literally.” I stared up at him, challenging him. “If he knows that much, he knows I’m invested in you not kicking the bucket.” That last part made his expression go soft. “I have a haircare line to perfect, and you’re my guinea pig, okay?” I got back on track. “I’m going with you, and you can’t stop me.”
“So fierce.” He brushed my cheek with his fingertips. “There’s no coming back from this.”
The bracelet was his declaration of intent, but this…this would be mine. “I’m good with that.”
Even if we went nowhere as a couple, or whatever, I didn’t want to see him get hurt. He was a good guy, a good agent. And his hair was so pretty. No one with hair that pretty deserved to die.
Reaching behind him, I palmed his hand where it rested on the knob and opened the door. “After you.”