He was glad she wore no glamour. Her looks were forever unique to her. He could stare at her spectral face for hours.
“Up ahead, the view is sick! You can see miles down.” She’d discovered his discomfort and delighted in giving him grief. “There’re no more planks. It’s just little foot holes carved into the rock. Hmm. Your feet are really big. I wonder if they’ll even fit.”
Josephine could float or ghost or whatever she called it. She could all but fly.
When she casually leaned a shoulder against the rock and crossed her arms over her chest, he wanted to snag her close.
“Why are you afraid? If you fall, you can trace right back here.”
“I’m not afraid. I’m . . . cautious. I’ve told you I didn’t grow up with the ability to teleport. My cautiousness developed during my childhood.”
“But you can trace now.”
He knew that. Yet phobias weren’t rational. “This is not my natural element.” He’d been born and raised to labor in the fens, assassinate Magh’s enemies, and fuck her political targets. He was never supposed to climb mountains.
“Your natural element seems to be on top of nymphs. Starting to realize how limiting that is?” She gave him an exaggerated frown.
Despite his unease, he yearned to kiss her quiet. “I want to be on top of you.”
She shimmied around him, holding on to the chain with the crook of a finger. “All you have to do is whisper promises in my ear.”
She made no secret she wanted more from Rune—talking about love and commitments—but he suspected this was merely the infatuation of a very young female. “I’ll have you eventually. I know you crave sex with me.”
“I crave a lot of things I don’t get. Them’s the breaks.”
“It’s not possible for me to be exclusive.”
“Possible?” She snorted. “Because you’re such a lady-killer? Because your big swinging dick says, ‘Baby, I gotta be free’?”
“Maybe it’s not that I would desire other women. As a secrets master, I use sex to get information. That’s my job—but you’d expect me to quit it right at the Accession?” What in the gods’ names would it take for someone to accept him as is?
She nodded with understanding. “One day you’ll find a nice female who’ll put up with your ‘job’. Listen to my words, Rune: I am not that woman. If you stepped out on me, I’d kick your ass to the curb.”
“You think I couldn’t seduce you to see things my way?”
“Never. Your best bet is to forget all this”—she gestured at her body—“and find that dark fey you had a lead on.”
He frowned at the reminder. During the two days he’d held vigil over Josephine, he could’ve returned to Loa’s, enjoying the shopkeeper and getting that lead. In the past, he would’ve hounded Loa.
Now, he had difficulty picturing himself with any female other than Josephine. “Perhaps I could be persuaded to try an open relationship with you—a long-term commitment that allows us to stray, but always to return to the bed we share.”
“That’s your idea of a commitment? Maybe we call it something different where I come from.” The little wench winked at him. “In any case, why would I settle for less than I need when I’m only twenty-five?”
“Because you aren’t fixed in your ways.”
“Says who? I want promises that my guy’ll be in one bed: mine.”
“No doubt a vow to the Lore? You’re power-mad for those vows. What if we committed, and you realized your feelings for me were just an infatuation? A schoolgirl crush? We’ve known each other for such a short time.”
Instead of reassuring him she felt more, Josephine said, “I bet I could get Desh to make me a pledge.”
Rune’s eyes narrowed. “By the way, a male demon’s horns are considered sexual organs. Your asking to touch them was as good as offering a hand job. You probably didn’t know that, since you’re mentally the equivalent of a human. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“You’re right. I didn’t know that.” She tapped a black claw to her chin. “But I will the next time I ask him.”
Rune clenched his jaw. She could proposition Deshazior—doing anything she pleased with the demon—and Rune couldn’t say a word about it.
Whatever she read in his expression made hers light up. “My old man’s jealous of Desh! I’ll bring you around.”
“Or maybe I’m furious that a fledgling storm demon disrespected me. He was only a twinkle in his sire’s eyes when I was six thousand years old!”