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  “Guy says ‘I’m tired.’” Nava fished another strawberry Twizzler out of the pack resting on her stomach and bit into it. “Manspeak for ‘skip the foreplay?’”

  The campfire at our feet crackled merrily, throwing dancing shadows onto the huge pieces of driftwood washed onto this beach in Metro Vancouver. A freighter sat out in the Strait of Georgia, a dark silhouette at this time of night.

  “Could be ‘sit on top, honey.’” I caught her fist, snagging the candy and biting off a piece. Adjusting my arm under her head, I flung my leg over hers to snug her closer against me.

  The soft fleece blanket under our backs shifted, sand coating one edge. “For all those lazy bastards that still wanna get laid.”

  “Pathetic.”

  “Luckily, you’re with a man of great prowess who would never utter such inanity.” I inhaled deeply, her citrus shampoo mixing with the salt air and the sage we started burning a while ago to draw out our demon target and procure a diamond we needed as a bargaining chip on another mission.

  The night was still young for the creature to show and I was happy to hang out with my girlfriend away from the Vancouver chapter house where all the Rasha lived.

  She handed me my own Twizzler. “It’s early days. You’re still trying to impress me.

  Wait a while and then it’ll be ten minutes of missionary and straight to lights out.”

  “Sweetheart, I’ll still be rocking your world decades from now.” I winked.

  Nava stilled. “Decades?”

  Shit. She’d fought so hard against us being a couple that part of me was still waiting for her to freak out like a skittish cat and run. I bopped her forehead with the Twizzler. “I can feel you overthinking that.”

  2

  “Punchbuggy outbound.” She punched my shoulder at the plane overhead that was little more than a shadowy outline and two blinking lights, one red, one white, rising up into the night sky with a loud roar. It zoomed behind a dark cloud, disappearing into inky nothingness.

  “We’ve got a beach, a campfire, all the elements for romance while demon hunting, and you’re already trying to jet off?”

  “No.” She ran her foot up my leg. “The planes are the only interesting things that have shown up so far.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve been watching the sky,” I said, tightening my arms around her,

  “when I could distract you in so many ways back on earth.”

  “That could be good.” She propped herself up onto one elbow, her blue-gray eyes shining down and a saucy smile quirking her lips. “But you know what would be even better?” Her mouth ghosted mine, her dark curls tumbling around us like a curtain.

  My gut tightened and my dick jumped to attention. This girl and those full, pink lips that I finally got to taste to my heart’s content. I slid my hand along her hip. “What?”

  She batted her lashes. “If you painted my bedroom for me.”

  “That’s what you want to go with?”

  “Okay, no. Wait. Marshmallows.”

  Right on cue, the fire snapped, sparks bouncing. The sharp sound echoed out over the water. It startled the birds in the reed-choked marsh immediately west to us, sending them flocking into the trees with loud calls. I scanned the shadows but it was simply regular fire noises, not a portend of a demon arrival.

  Nava sat up and I reached for her, my hands closing on thin air as she rolled away.

  3

  “Come back here.” I flopped my arms out, drizzling cool sand between my fingers. I always wanted her to stay a little longer and she always danced just out of reach. It was a pattern that I wished I was a little less familiar with. “I was comfy.”

  “You can be comfy again in a minute.” She padded barefoot to her purse that she’d stashed beside some particularly gnarled driftwood. Rooting around in it, she triumphantly held up a half-empty bag of marshmallows. “Ta da!”

  I looked at her skeptically. “How long have those been in there?”

  “They’re marshmallows. They have a shelf life of about a thousand years. When there’s a fire in the moonlight heading into summer, there needs to be marshmallows.”

  “Really? Who said that? Shakespeare?”

  “Me.” She sank down on the blanket, prodding my side with her index finger. “Sticks, please.”

  The breeze off the water picked up and she shrugged into my slim-fit black hoodie with the diagonal blue zipper and blue cowl neck that she’d appropriated. Not gonna lie, the sight of her in my clothes got me hard. Fuck, who was I kidding? Her fighting ability, her intelligence, her fierce loyalty–it all got me hard. What lit up my soul was how she surprised laughs out of me in the grimmest situations, how I slept better when she nestled into me like I was her own personal teddy bear, and how arguing with her at her most stubborn was more fun than the most decadent of my rock star days.

  A furious ache dug its way into my chest. She looked so good with the fire writing love songs in the highlights of her hair and her smile glinting in the sparks. I keenly wanted her back here, pressed into my side with my chin on her head. It was colder now, without her.

  Nava looked at me expectantly.

  4

  Grumbling, I threw on my own sweater and headed down the deserted beach searching for perfect roasting sticks. My sneakers crunched over the little white shells strewn over the sand. I kicked a tangle of dried seaweed out toward the high tide lapping at the sand.

  Most of the driftwood was too large or oddly-shaped, but closer to the parking lot I found some small branches that had been blown off the trees. I bent over to pick them up, and when I straightened, I caught Nava checking out my ass.

  I can’t believe you.” I tsked and shook my head. “Can’t even gather things for a roast without invoking impure thoughts.”

  She grinned and shrugged. “It’s a damn fine ass, Snowflake.”

  I did a catwalk stride, smirking and gyrating with the stick, and she burst into laughter.

  “I’ll expect payback later.”

  “Please. Like you aren’t constantly looking at my breasts.”

  I folded myself down on the blanket. “Course I am. You’ve got very fine ones. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to look at the rest of you.” I nuzzled her neck.

  Nava squealed and pushed me off her. Behind her, the fire crackled, outlining her in gold. It was perfect, like I’d stepped into a painting of the ideal summer: warm fire, wide open slash of sky, lazily bobbing waves, and a beautifully impossible girl.

  “Want a marshmallow?” I asked.

  “How is that even a question?”

  I fished a couple out of the bag, slid one on to a stick, and handed it to her. Then watched aghast as she stuffed the marshmallow right into the heart of the flame, instantly blackening it.

  I winced. “Could you not eat carbon?”

  She pulled it out and blew on it. “What? Don’t you like them burned?”

  5

  “Oddly, I prefer a less charcoal flavor.”

  “Whatever. It takes too long to brown them.”

  I put my stick up by the fire without actually letting the flames touch the marshmallow.

  “You’ve got a serious addiction to immediate gratification.”

  “Which works out really well for you, buddy, so I’d quit complaining.” She munched on her molten disaster of a dessert.

  “Good point.” I nudged her. “You’re way more fun to do a stake-out with than Drio. They turn him into a grumpy bastard.”

  Nava snorted. “Versus his usual charm.”

  “He’s charming.”

  “So were you on a stake-out when you two had your hard, rough, night ’o love?”

  I choked on my marshmallow. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “If you won’t tell me what happened between you, I have to use my imagination.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.

  Nava knew enough of my bad behavior and past shames. This story wasn’t mine alone to tell, and if I was being really honest, I worried she’d think less of me if she knew the details.

  I rotated my stick to brown the next side. Tempting as it was to rush in for the immediate thrill, I preferred to learn how to do things properly, delay my rush, and get a larger pay-off.

  Marshmallows, this relationship–both required me proceeding very carefully so they didn’t get all charred up and burned out. “Why does your imagination always involve me and some other guy’s dick?”

  Nava torched another marshmallow. “Mostly Drio’s.”

  6

  I shuddered. “That’s just... no.” The white of my marshmallow slowly deepened to a caramelized brown. “Also, this is a highly inappropriate conversation while we’re working.”

  Nava closed her eyes, bringing her finger to her lips.

  I smacked her leg. “Quit picturing it.”

  “Hush. Uh-huh. Oh, yeah, I bet you’d like that.” She thrust her hips a couple of times.

  She widened her eyes at me. “Never figured you for that type of guy. Yikes.”

  I tamped down on my grin and pulled the treat away from the fire, examining each side for an equal golden roastedness. “You are so depraved.”

  Nava winked, cramming her burnt marshmallow into her mouth, her cheeks bulging.

  “Wow. You are really committed to devouring that.”

  “It’s yummy,” she mumbled around a mouthful.

  I bit into my perfectly browned one. “I’ll stick with mine, thanks.”

  Nava shrugged. “Your loss.”

  I tore off a small piece off o

f my marshmallow, blew on it, and popped it into her mouth.

  “Tell me that’s not better.”

  Her eyes widened and she gave a soft moan.

  “See what happens when you put in the time to do something properly?”

  “Smirking is unattractive at this moment, Snowflake.”

  I adopted a somber look. “Noted.” I opened my mouth to take a bite of my marshmallow, but she jammed her hand in between my lips and the treat.

  “However,” she said, “I would be willing to concede the point about delayed gratification in this instance only, pursuant to you giving me more.”

  “Ooh. Bringing out the legalese. You make a valid counter-argument.”

  7

  She leaned in, her eyes glittering with anticipation. I smiled wolfishly and ate the rest of the marshmallow. Before she could protest, I crushed my mouth onto hers, hard. All I could taste was caramelized sugar and Nava.

  The sugar rated a distant second.

  She clutched at my shoulders, pulling me closer. Without breaking the kiss, I lowered us onto the blanket, gladly taking the weight of her soft curves. I wormed my hands under her shirts, feeling her ribcage expand and contract under my palms. The kiss was hot and dark, her mouth truly a marvel. A fact she’d reminded me of on many an occasion.

  Nava finally had to take a breath. “Such a skilled boyfriend I have,” she said.

  “You inspire me,” I replied and claimed her mouth once more. I sucked on her lower lip and she moaned aloud, tangling her fingers into my hair.

  My knee snaked between her thighs and she ground up against my leg. Not gonna lie, my balls were tight, and a hard fizziness spiraled out from my core, growing and stretching to the tips of my fingers. It felt amazing.

  But when she smiled down at me, her face edged in close enough to mine that I could count each of the sun freckles she’d gotten on her nose this week, her body soft and pliant, and happiness radiating out from her just from being here with me? That was what I’d been fighting for, what I wanted to return to after every day of killing demons.

  My entire body trembled on the edge of a knife, wanting to tip over and devour her.

  There was chitter, a rustle of plastic, and sand kicked into our faces.

  “That asshole stole our marshmallows.” Nava wiped the sand from her face. Her pupils were blown out, all smoky desire, her lips swollen. She looked past me at the bandit, did a double

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  take, and scrambled to her feet. “He’s the size of a fucking turkey.”

  I rolled to my feet, wincing as my now-too-tight jeans pinched my balls, and followed her disgusted stare. “Cancer demon. Giant evil crab. What did you expect?”

  The crab demon didn’t cause the disease. Its name was a reference to the astrological constellation.

  “I told you when we met the gemini that I never wanted to meet a cancer. Ugh.” She cursed all noble causes, hopped into her runners, and, leaving a trail of footprints in the sand, sprinted after the red, spiky crab.

  The wind picked up, howling along the coast. Our blankets fretted in the breeze, and I anchored them down with a rock as the waves frenzied along the coast and the sky grew darker still. Shit omens all around.

  I doused the fire, grabbed the small messenger bag from the blanket, and raced after her.

  “Nava, wait!” I caught up with her at knot of trees at the far end of the beach that the demon had scuttled into.

  All was still inside the grove. Gnarled branches twisted into the sky like knotty witches’

  fingers.

  “Shit.” Nava shook out her arm, bleeding from the scratch of the prickly blackberry bushes that tangled together wild in here.

  I grabbed her by the belt loop of her jeans, pulling her behind me, and flicked the blade along my right forearm out. “Allow me.”

  “Happily.”

  I cut the worst of the thorny brambles away, clearing a narrow trail. My chest swelled with all kinds of caveman “me useful” feelings of pride. Fuck it, I liked showing off for her.

  9

  Snap! The cancer’s razor-sharp pincer sliced out of the gloom at us.

  Nava shoved my head down and blasted the demon with her magic current. The air lit up with a flash.

  I tasted the sharp bite of electricity.

  The cancer scurried away.

  “Damn it.” I slashed a path after it.

  The air here in the trees smelled vaguely of sewage. Nava had mentioned something about a treatment plant on the drive up. We emerged from the trees at the water line near a large outflow pipe in time to see the crab disappear inside it.

  “You’re up-to-date on your tetanus shots, right?” I pulled out two headlamp sets from the messenger bag and handed one to her.

  She Velcroed the headlamp on. “You really know how to show a girl a good time.”

  We had to duck in order to walk through the pipe, but at least it was dry. The beams of our LED headlamps were bright searchlights on the slime-coated pipes. There was no sign of the cancer, but no sign of any thing else living in here either.

  “Ro.” Nava shone her light on to a rusted round grate that had been yanked out of the concrete and tossed to one side. The passageway declined sharply into a dirt tunnel.

  Pulling out a couple pairs of thin, nearly indestructible gloves from my messenger bag, I tossed one pair to Nava and put the other pair on. I slung the messenger bag diagonally across my shoulders. “Which position do you want?”

  “All of them at some point.” Nava got onto her hands and knees. “But for now, point will do.” She patted her ass. “Try not to get too distracted,” she said, and crawled into the tunnel.

  I stayed close on her heels, inching downward into the bowels of the earth.

  10

  “This diamond better get us some leads on the purple magic bullshit,” I said. We’d recently discovered that someone had found a way to bind demons to do their bidding. Given witches’ magic signature was red and demons’ was blue, the leading theory was witches were behind it with some tie-in from my own illustrious Brotherhood. The sole people I’d thought were actually doing some good in this messed up world.

  My magic blades snicked out from my shoulders to my wrists hard enough to make me flinch. I willed my power off, focusing on getting this diamond which we hoped to trade with another demon for confirmation of our suspicions.

  “The tunnel gets narrower.” Nava’s voice was grim. She halted in front of me for a moment and circled her ankles, almost braining me in the face.

  I tapped her feet to get her moving again.

  This new section of tunnel was almost too narrow for me to fit, even crawling on my belly. The edges of my vision blurred, my breathing speeding up. My headlamp cast just enough of a glow for a heightened awareness of the rock and dirt pressing in on us.

  The air grew more humid and rank, suffocating me.

  “You okay?” I focused on each placed hand, my voice a harsh rumble. Reminding myself I could breathe.

  “I don’t love it, but I’m fine. Hey, let’s play worst case scenario. If we get stuck, worst case scenario, I’ll pee my pants in terror.”

  I gave a half-smile at her attempts to distract me.

  She snapped her fingers. “Come on, Ro. Your turn. Don’t overthink it.”

  “We run out of oxygen and our lungs seize up,” I croaked out.

  11

  “That’s the spirit,” she said. “Turning blue, bulging eyes. There’s probably rats down here, too.”

  “The bulging eyes will make it easy for them.”

  “Right? And at least we’ll be blind when they dig into our soft underbellies.”

  Hearing these ridiculous extremes out loud was helping. The vise around my ribcage eased. “They’ll go for the soft bits first: boobs, balls,” I said.

  “Smart rats. Your balls make a perfect snack.”

  There was the laugh she could pull out of me no matter what. “That’s creepy and you’re never getting near my testicles again,” I said.

  “Pfft.”

  My back hit the top of the tunnel, which was way too coffin-like for comfort. Nava’s brother Ari hadn’t been willing to risk shadow-transporting us deep underground because if he messed up trying to get through the dirt and rock we could die, so we continued to slog along.

  Dirt and tiny loose pebbles fell into my hair and face as I squeezed through the tunnel. I swiped at the sweat burning my eyes with a dirt-streaked glove, lifting my body enough to clear a gnarled root popping out of the earth. My headlamp swung in a crazy circle over the tunnel walls.

 

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