Page 17 of Demanding Discord
“Is that your underwear?” I asked.
“You never know when you’ll need to change your skivvies, so I bought extra.” She tied the ends in a knot and rose, wiping her hands on her pants and wincing.
“You expect me to wear your panties on my foot?”
“Well, they’re definitely too small to hold your junk. And speaking of your junk…” She glanced at the clotted blood on her palm before arching a brow at me. “Why are you naked?”
“My demon form is much larger than this one. When I transformed, it shredded my clothes.” I adjusted the fabric, tightening the knot.
Her face pinched in an adorably confused way. “I thought you couldn’t shapeshift anymore.”
“It appears that our bond…my feelings for you…allowed me to push through Lucifer’s bind to save your life. Tumult is no more.”
Her lips parted again, surprise lifting her brows. “You… To save…? You have all your powers back?”
“Unfortunately, no.” I rose and tested my weight on my injured foot. “If that were the case, I would have healed by now and we’d be well on our way to our next destination. Did you locate Hecate?”
“I was about to, but you yanked me out of the trance.” Her gaze bounced to my dick three times before she looked into my eyes.
“Would you prefer that I had not?” I gestured to the rubble and willed my soldier to remain at ease, which was no easy feat. A bead of sweat dripped down her forehead, giving me the sudden urge to lick her from head to toe.
Yes, the timing was inappropriate, yet the urge remained.
“I suppose not.” She bit her bottom lip, her gaze dancing around my face as if she, too, were fighting the attraction. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, shifting my weight to the uninjured foot. “How is your hand?”
“It’s just a little cut, I’ll be fine.” Sympathy softened her eyes. “Can you walk?”
“Of course.” The excruciating pain shooting up my leg begged to differ, but I would not show weakness in front of this woman.
“Come on then.” She jerked her head toward the end of the path. “Hecate has a safehouse, kinda like your secret hideout. We can go there to regroup and hopefully find you some clothes.”
“You communicated with the goddess?” Surprise lifted my brows, and I walked next to her, the stabbing pain in my foot slowly easing to a steady burn.
“Sorta.” She turned left at the end of the path and started toward the back of the temple. “She’s incapacitated, but she managed to send me a little information.”
“Incapacitated how?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I need a minute to sort it all out. It was confusing.”
My foot landed on a jagged rock, and I fought a groan. “Where is the safehouse located?”
“I’m not sure.” She turned her head slightly, as if to look at me, but jerked her gaze forward again.
“Then why are we walking in this direction?”
She lifted her hands and dropped them at her sides. “I’m just following the pull.”
We continued on, she following the pull, I following her, until we reached the cave at the end of the valley. My foot was healing, albeit much more slowly than I liked, but the intense fatigue weighing my body down was nearly unbearable. I needed to press her, to insist she explain in great detail everything she saw while in the trance, so we could devise a plan.
But at the moment, I was too tired to care.
Cinder paused and turned to me. “Have you been inside there before?”
“I have not.” I rested a hand against the mouth of the cave, using the rock to support my weight. “I never knew it was here until today.”
She raised an arm toward me. The fine hairs stood on end along her goosebumped skin. “There’s a lot of magic inside. If I had a spell kit, I could figure out what kind. Do you sense anything negative?”
