Corson

Her crystalline, sky blue eyes narrowed when she spotted me. Her pale blonde hair dangled in a braid over her shoulder to one of her breasts. Anger flashed across her face, but I had a feeling the anger was more at herself than me. She hadn’t noticed me, and I’d been watching her the entire time. That had to piss her off.

She would take my head off with the same glee she’d sliced off so many others, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her. My hand went to my empty right ear as I recalled the first time I’d met her. At one time, an earring from a woman would have dangled from the tip of one of my ears, or both, and possibly from my earlobes too. When I first encountered Wren, I’d been wearing three different earrings from the three women I’d been with the night before, but none had pierced my ears since that day.

At first, my wearing of the earrings had been a joke. The first human I slept with had tried to hook one of her earrings around the tip of my ear. She’d laughed and blushed prettily as she sought to balance it there. Taking the thing from her, I’d pushed it through the point of my ear to let it dangle there.

“Now, you’ll always have something to remember me by,” she’d said with a giggle.

The only thing I remembered about her was the flower earring she’d given me. It had been a rose that I’d lost soon after. The next day, we’d traveled to a different section of the wall, and I moved on to my next human. That woman hadn't wanted to be undone by the other one, so I’d stuck her earring through my other ear.

Over time, wearing the assorted earrings became a thing for me—a thing Kobal hated, and as much as I respected my king, I couldn't deny I enjoyed annoying him by wearing the jewelry. Plus, the human women liked it. For some reason, they found me more approachable and fun once I started wearing their decorations. It didn’t take me long to realize that having something dangling from my ears equaled more women warming my bed.

Most demon women didn’t wear earrings, but the human jewelry hadn’t deterred them from my bed either. However, demon women were like me and simply easing the needs of their body before moving onto another partner. Human women made me laugh more than demons did and were often more enthusiastic in bed. Because of that, I’d started to spend more time with human females than demon ones over the years.

I’d laughed in Hell, but not like I had since coming to the human realm. Things were easier here, for demons at least. People had taken a beating since the gateway opened, but many of them still found laughter in things.

Not Wren. I’d never heard her laugh, and I was determined to make her do so one of these days. She never wore any jewelry either, but I wouldn't be surprised if one day she created a necklace from the teeth of the demons she’d killed.

“Spying on me, demon?” Wren demanded.

“Not likely, human,” I replied and dropped my feet down to swing them back and forth again. “I was on guard duty so I could have some time away from you mortals, but you interrupted my break.”

“Unlike you, and the rest of your brethren”—she spat the word brethren like it was something foul—“I don’t get a break, and we mortals require actual food to live. I don’t expect you to understand; this isn’t your world.”

“That, my dear Wren, is where you’re wrong. Some of your fellow humans made this my world when they fucked up and tore open a gateway into Hell. Even with said gateway now closed, there is no going back to the way things were. We’re a part of your world now.”

Her jaw clenched, and her eyes burned, but she didn’t reply as she swung her bow onto her back and turned away from me. I would far prefer her beneath me, her nails raking my back as she screamed in ecstasy, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. At least she’d spoken to me; she often avoided doing that much.

Maybe things would be different between us if I hadn’t tried to flirt with her the first time we met. During that brief encounter, I’d inquired if she wore earrings, told her I’d be willing to go without them for her, and that demons were capable of fucking all night.

Many women would have blushed, laughed, flirted back, or told me to screw off. Wren tried to punch me. She slaughtered demons and Hell creatures without blinking an eye, but my flirting was something she didn’t seem to know how to handle and I suspected that infuriated her.

My first impression had been the completely wrong one with her. I didn’t know how to fix it, so I continued to exasperate her, and she continued to despise me. Humans were prickly creatures sometimes, and Wren was the sharpest of them all.

I’d always been confident in my ability to get a woman; Wren had proven I didn’t know females as well as I believed I did. I’d never chased a woman in my lifetime, never expected I would, but I found myself strangely infatuated with this one.

Does she fascinate me because I can’t have her?

I didn’t think that was it either. I’d had women tell me no over the years, not many, but it had happened. I’d shrugged them off and moved onto the next one. That wasn’t working now.

Wren knelt next to the deer to examine it. Her fingers hesitated on its forehead before she bent her head and brushed back its fur in what looked like an apology. My eyebrow rose at this exchange. I’d never seen her look regretful after killing something, but she did now.

She rested her fingers against the deer’s chest and murmured something I couldn’t hear. Then, she gripped the deer by its legs and pulled it toward her.

“Are you going to carry that back to camp by yourself?” I asked.

“Yep,” she replied.

Shifting the deer, she somehow managed to lift it onto her back. Turning back to me, she gave me a smug smile as she stuck out a hip. My gaze drifted to where the weight of the deer pulled her shirt back to emphasize her breasts. Bark broke off beneath my hands as images of cupping those breasts flashed through my mind. They’d fill my hand as I bent to lick her nipples until they stood out from her body. Then, I’d run my tongue across the hardened buds before scraping my teeth over them.

I tore my attention away from her breasts and back to her face. Her cheekbones were high, her mouth full and a soft pink color. Her chin had a small point to it, giving her a stubborn look that matched her personality.

I wanted to run my hands over every inch of her—while she would prefer to shoot me with her arrow. She wouldn’t brush the hair back from my forehead after shooting me through the heart. No, she’d cut my head from my body to make sure she’d completed the job.

“It will make an excellent meal,” I told her.

“It will,” she replied.

The deer hadn’t bled much, but I detected the coppery tang of its blood on the air when the breeze shifted.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a hand with it?” I inquired.

“Not from you, demon,” she retorted.

“I do have a name.”

“I know,” she replied with her usual aplomb. “I don’t care to use it.”

“I see.” Releasing the branch, I dropped thirty feet and landed noiselessly on the ground. “If we’re working together now, you should call me by my name. You call the others who came with me by their names.”

Wariness flashed across her features when I stepped toward her. I'd never seen her fear anything before, not even Kobal.

“Don’t take offense, demon; I don’t use the names of the new Wilders who join us either. They may have survived this long out here, but I never know how long they’ll last with us. If they make it more than three months, then I stop calling them ‘new guy’ or ‘new girl.’”

“So next month you’ll start using my name?”

“Probably not.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I don’t like you.”

“Liar,” I teased.

She shifted her weight and adjusted the deer on her shoulders. “I think lying is a demon’s specialty, not mine.”

“I can assure you that demons are not liars. Most of us are brutally honest.”

“Is that so?”

“It is,” I confirmed.

“Good for you. Would you like a treat for your honesty?”

I grinned at her. “Only if you’re the treat.”

A muscle in her jaw twitched. She’d most likely try to kill me in my sleep one of these days, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop myself from teasing her.