Page 36 of Demon's Beauty

“Hello,” he says softly, waiting just on the other side of the door. “Is it alright if I come in?”

I look back over my shoulder and nod, taking care of the bottles of solvent I was working on before turning slowly to face him.

In his hand, my canteen.

It’s the third time he’s refilled it since we got here.

He’s doing it in such a sneaky way, I haven’t had a chance to tell him I’m alright, that I don’t need to be coddled. One momentI’ll take a drink, set the canteen down and go back to my work, and the next I turn around and it’s disappeared, only to show back up in Finn’s helpful hand a few minutes later.

It’s a kind gesture, it really is, but having him be so nice to me just makes me feel even worse.

He hands it over. “Are you feeling—”

“Fine. I’m feeling fine.”

It comes out more clipped and annoyed than I intended, and the way his face falls makes my stomach twist painfully.

It makes me feel like the unfriendly, standoffish witch I’ve been accused of being around the coven hall more than a few times over the years.

Not to my face, of course, but I’ve heard the whispers.

Usually I don’t care. It’s never been my priority to make people like me—they either will, or they won’t, and I don’t twist myself up in knots about it either way—but something about the hurt Finn immediately hides under another bright smile makes me wonder if I’m the problem here.

Goddess, he’s at least trying, isn’t he?

I bet if he was given the choice, he wouldn’t have ended up with a mate as unsuited to him as I am.

He’d probably like someone lighthearted, effervescent, with the same devil-may-care energy he has. Well. At least that he seems to have, or would have, if I wasn’t out here making his life miserable.

In any case, he’d probably like someone else.

Not a surly, unpleasant witch with a perpetually bad attitude who doesn’t know how to accept kindness or help in any form.

I press a hand to my forehead, trying to rub away the budding ache there. “I’m sorry.”

He immediately shakes his head. “No. Don’t apologize, I know I’m hovering.”

“You are, a little,” I say, and surprisingly, he laughs instead of getting offended.

“Fair enough,” he says, then takes a step back toward the tent’s entrance. “I’ll get out of your hair then.”

“You—” He turns back around, just as surprised as I am that I said anything at all to stop him from going. “—don’t have to.”

He looks genuinely surprised. “Really?”

“Really.” I let out a breath. “Unless you want to.”

“If I don’t want to?”

I nod toward a wooden stool at the side of the tent. “Then you can sit there and stay out of my way while I work.”

Again, Finn surprises me. He grins, which isn’t the response I’d anticipated, but this demon is determined to subvert my expectations.

He dutifully takes his seat, and I make myself turn back to my tasks.

Only, having him this close is… distracting. Not because he’s doing anything but sitting there just like I told him to, but because this close to him it’s impossible to ignore the magick pulsing between us.

It’s so distracting I have to say something.