They don’t see it. That’s amazing.
There’s an enormous courtyard with a waterfall right behind the stairs, and this place, the shape of the buildings, the balconies and everything reminds me of Hell—especially the prince’s realm.
“Do you think the French stole their style from Hell?” I question.
He laughs as he glances around. “Yes, definitely, considering one of their kings was literally a shapeshifting demon.”
“What?”
“Did you not know that?” he asks, leaning closer, his shoulder brushing against my chest. “Don’t even get me started on the werewolf genes in the royals of England.”
“Holy shit,” I mutter. “We really are everywhere.”
Caspian chuckles and he walks towards the hotel, tugging me along. I hate to ruin the kinda pleasant moment between us but I do anyway as I make him stop and he lets my hand go.
“Look, you’re going to have to debrief me a little bit on this hunt,” I say. “Though I appreciate the random and amazing facts about the royal families. That was pretty cool.”
He peers back with a sigh, leaning against a green telephone box. “What do you want to know?”
“What are we going up against?” I ask, putting my hands on my hips.
Caspian flicks his chin in the direction of the hotel. “A wendigo has made this place its new home.”
“A wendi-what-now?” I try to search my brain for information on them, but I just can’t remember seeing them in the demon book. I do have a few pages left to read, though. Figures it’ll probably be listed there.
When he sees my confusion, he pulls me inside the telephone box. Several people buzz past us, not paying us any attention. The box is too small for two people, leaving our bodies pressed together as he leans over me. I have no clue where to place my hands, but Caspian does. He puts them on the glass panels near my hips, boxing me in.
I don’t hate it… In fact, I kind of wish he’d get a little closer.
“I need to get you some more books,” he says, looking intently at me. “Reading might be more productive for you than hanging out with Dove or whatever else you do when I’m not there.”
“I don’t always hang out with Dove,” I defend, even when he is right. I might spend too much of my free time doing anything other than reading about demons in the thousand-page book he gave me.
He gives me a look which suggests he is calling bullshit on that. “Wendigos are creatures of nightmares,” he says. “They’re known as monstrous spirits that almost seem like humans. But they’re not. They don’t possess humans and they can’t hold a human form for long, like many upper-class-level demons can do easily. But it’s still deadly, and no human would stand a chance against it. You must not let it touch you. Its touch is its power. It makes the person become the worst form of themselves. A tiny bit of jealousy will turn into insane jealousy. If they’re greedy, it becomes insatiable greed. If they’re angry, they become murderous. Do you see the problem here?”
“Got it,” I say with a gulp. “Don’t let the scary demon touch you.”
“I can’t even imagine what it would do to you,” he comments. “You’re so angry about your parents…you’d become a monster.”
“And what would it do to you?” I tilt my head. “I don’t even know what your demon side is so I don’t have a clue what it would change. Could it hurt you?”
“And you’ll never find out what my demon side is,” he replies. “Telling you would give you the answer to who my father is, and I don’t tell anyone that.”
“Why not?”
He doesn’t give an answer, but he keeps staring down at me in the small space.
“How are you sure the wendigo is here?” I ask quietly, breaking the silence.
“In the last few weeks there have been constant problems at the hotel with the guests.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through the recent news reports for me to see. It shows a hell of a lot of human deaths. All of them went to this hotel before going batshit crazy. Other reports show humans who have stolen from banks after staying here, and the reports go on, just getting worse.
“I’ve cross-checked around a hundred reports, and all of them have a connection to this hotel. Wendigos like hotels. It’s an easy place to charm prey and feed off their souls as it corrupts them.”
“Sounds delightful,” I say with a shiver.
His lip twitches, threatening at a smile. He always is so much sexier when he smiles. “Here’s the plan,” he says. “You’re going to pretend to be my girlfriend, and we’re going to check into a room for the night.”
“How romantic!” I link my arm in his just before he pulls us outside.
He chuckles and throws me a devilish wink. “Look. If I wanted in your pants, songbird, I wouldn’t choose demon hunting in Paris for our first date.”
My stupid little heart skips a beat at that. “Out of interest, what would you pick?”
He leans down, brushing his lips across the tip of my ear for a brief second. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Yes. Yes, I would because I’ve had a big-ass crush on you for years, you asshole!
I don’t reply, but his smirk tells me he can read my answer, anyway.
Caspian straightens. Now he’s officially flustered me, we walk into the hotel. It has large, bright-green doors with yellow stained glass, and it really is beautiful here. I enter the entrance hall, my boots clicking on the white marble floors. There is a wooden welcome desk in the middle of several white pillars that a black steel staircase swirls elegantly around, going up to many levels.
There are a few lifts at the sides of the reception with three security guards. We walk straight up to the reception, and Caspian puts on a charming grin that no human woman could ever resist.
The pretty brunette behind
