I turned to meet his eyes, but he was staring at the floor like it had personally offended him. He followed the chalk line again—once, twice—hunting for the mistake he knew had to be there.
“I did it right,” I said, quieter now. “Exactly how I meant to.”
His mouth curved, all condescension. “You’re wrong. If that symbol is reversed, you’ll get a?—”
“I didn’t reverse it by accident,” I cut in, pulse skittering. “I reversed it because I wasn’t trying to call another demon.”
A thin seam of light slid along the chalk, brightening from dull ember to sharp gold-white, crawling the lines like liquid fire. The air tightened. A low, rhythmic thum—thum—thum began beneath the stone, not heard so much as felt, as if something enormous was waking up and testing the world from the other side.
His gaze snapped back to the final mark I’d laid that was pulsing a bright green unlike the rest of the sigils. His breath hitched. “Oh, fucking shite.”
He jerked backward—two quick steps—clearing space as the air behind me went tight and bright.
Wind rushed through the hall in a wavering gust that smelled like rain on hot stone. The sigil at my knees throbbed once, hard enough that the force of it tingled up through my bones. A second beat answered from somewhere behind me, and the second circle I’d scrawled flared to life in a bright, clean burst of light.
A figure coalesced in the center of it.
It was nothing like the demon’s arrival. No creeping shadows. No suffocating pressure. This came as a sudden, decisive brilliance—a clean lance of light that split the gloom and sent long, sharp shadows racing up the stone walls.
“Alright,” a new voice said, rough with authority and edged with dry irritation. “Someone’s got some explainin’ to do. Where am I?”
The light receded just enough for me to see him.
The newcomer stood in the middle of the newly awakened circle, framed by the last fading glow of its lines—a tall, broad-shouldered man in worn leathers and a travel-stained cloak, boots planted solidly on the stone as if he’d simply stepped through a doorway instead of out of thin air.
And holy hell—he was breathtaking.
The sight of him stole the air right out of my lungs. Not just handsome. Not just striking. He had the kind of presence that made the whole room feel suddenly smaller, as if the world had to rearrange itself to make space for him.
Candlelight caught in his hair like burnished gold, warm and bright even in the ruin. It fell in a careless tangle, as though the wind had been worrying it the way a lover’s fingers might. His jaw was hard-cut, shadowed with stubble, and his mouth sat in a line that said he didn’t waste words.
Scarred knuckles. Calloused hands. The quiet, undeniable strength, and the sort of muscle you didn’t build for show, but for surviving whatever tried to break you.
His eyes swept the hall with instant, controlled awareness, and when they finally landed on me, that focus narrowed into something else entirely. Something steady. Anchoring.
“Wait, lass,” he said, the word softened around the edges. “Are you alright?”
Gods, his voice.
If the demon’s tone was dark whiskey and sin, this one was warm honey over gravel—Scottish, low and edged in command.
He moved toward me in a few long strides, cloak whispering around his legs, the subtle shift of fabric loud in the charged silence. Up close, he smelled of sun-warmed pine and smoke, like the outside world itself, and it hit me hard after too many nights trapped inside my own head.
“You look half-scared to death,” he murmured, brows drawing together. “Did you summon me for help?”
Before I could answer, the demon cut in, voice sharp and offended.
“No, you glorified attack dog,” he snapped. “Summoning you was an accident. And not a happy one.”
The newcomer’s eyes hardened. He angled his body slightly, putting himself between me and the demon without seeming to think about it. He did it by stepping to my right side, half-turning so I stayed at his back and the demon stayed in his line of sight.
“And who the bloody hell are you?” he asked, all softness gone.
The demon smiled, slow and smug, lit by the faint red glow still pulsing at his feet. “My name is of no importance to you,” he said lightly. “You, however…” His eyes narrowed, amused. “You’re not a demon, are you?”
“Demigod,” the newcomer replied, gruff and unimpressed. “And judgin’ by the way ye’re dodgin’ introductions, I’d say you are, in fact, a demon.”
Outside, the wind rose, howling through broken windows, rattling loose stone and rusted iron. The fire in the hearth sputtered and spat.