“Sometimes….”

“Sometimes?” the woman prompted when the man’s voice trailed off.

The paliton camp was only half a mile away, but they were alone out here in the woods, which was just the way she liked it. The woods were a place of peace, and she didn’t want anyone to interrupt them.

The rays of the sun filtering through the trees danced across the ground around them. When the barren branches swayed and clacked together overhead, they made a sound like dancing skelleins. Not that she’d ever seen the skeletal demons dance, but she’d heard them charge into battle, and their teeth clacked when they got excited, and their bony feet clicked on hard surfaces.

The man’s fingers dug into the rotting log they sat on as he stared at the forest. When bits of wood broke away beneath his hands, the scent of rotting wood, moss, and earth rose around them. He seemed not to notice any of it though.

She batted her lashes at him in the hopes he would look at her, but it seemed as if he were caught in another world when all she wanted was to catch him up in her.

“Sometimes?” she prompted again.

He shook his head as if he were clearing it. “Sometimes I wonder if things could have been different in this world.”

“Oh, me too,” she replied with a sigh. “Every day I daydream about how this world should have been, how it once was. It’s all so… so terrible now.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

A bird fluttered between some of the branches above them. It chirruped before taking flight. Beneath her ass, the damp log leeched the heat from her, but she didn’t move. “What would you change?” she inquired.

“What wouldn’t I change?”

She chuckled. “True.”

“What would you change?”

“All of it.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, and his pinky finger brushed her hand.

She glanced down as he continued to rub the outer edge of her hand. He may have been lost in his thoughts earlier, but she had him now. She gave him a sultry smile from under her half-lowered eyelashes.

“I think,” he said. “I would change it so demons never came to Earth.”

“Oh, what a difference that would have made.” She leaned closer until she smelled the mint on his breath. “I think about it often.”

“Think about what often?” he asked.

They were so close now she could feel his breath on her lips. His hand stilled against hers.

“What it would have been like if the demons never came to Earth,” she said.

“I often wish….”

“For?” Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips, and his gaze fell to her mouth as she’d hoped it would. Sliding her tongue over her mouth again, she teasingly licked the edge of her full bottom lip to entice him further.

“I don’t know. There are so many things I’d change that I don’t know where I’d start or what I’d wish for.”

Disappointment filled her when he leaned back a little and bowed his head. So close! She’d been so close!

Then he leaned closer again, his hand sliding over hers once more. Gotcha. Excitement hummed through her when his fingers dipped between hers.

“I know what I’d wish for,” she said.

“And what is that?” he asked as his lips brushed her forehead before moving lower to her temple and down her cheek.

“Every day, I daydream about what it would have been like if the gateway never opened and we were all anywhere but here. Every day, I wish we could all experience the lives we want most, the lives we were supposed to lead before Hell came to Earth.”

“Who is all?” he inquired.

“All the people in the camp and the demons too, I suppose. I bet some of them would like their old lives back too.”

“Oh, how perfect.” Placing his finger under her chin, he lifted her head until she gazed into his striking, electric blue eyes.

“And you? What would you wish for?” she asked.

“I know better than to make wishes, but your wish is my command.”

She giggled, but when she leaned closer, he abruptly rose and wiped the bits of bark from his mouthwatering ass. Confusion swirled through her as she watched him step over the log and stroll further away from her. She’d been so certain she was about to get laid by this delicious man.

They’d just met, but she’d had sex with plenty of men she barely knew or hadn’t known at all since that demon murdered her Ricky. No man would ever matter after Ricky; they were merely a way to forget, if only for a few minutes.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I have what I came for,” he replied with a backward wave of his hand.

She tried to rise, but a wave of darkness slid over her, and she collapsed onto the ground.

• • •

“Your wish is my command, isn’t that a little cliché?” Eron asked.

Olgon smiled as he clapped his younger brother on the shoulder. “It is, but as we’ve learned during our time on Earth, it is what these ridiculous humans expect from the jinn, and who am I to disappoint?”

“At least it finally got us the wish we required.”

“It did. Come now, we have a wish to fulfill for so many others.”

They grinned at each other before separating to sow their misery.