a smile to hide how frazzled I feel around this man.
It’s not just his good looks, it’s him. He is overpowering in a way I don’t understand, and my wolf likes him. My wolf, who likes pretty much no one but me, likes this stranger who literally blackmailed me when we met. She has messed up tastes, that’s for sure. Not that I’m any better crushing on my brother’s best friend, a man who’s blackmailed me and the literal son of the alpha who rejected me and is trying to kill me. “And it’s too early for your flirting.”
“Who said I was flirting?” he asks, turning back around and flashing me an innocent gaze. He strides right up to me, and I arch my neck to meet his gaze. He winks. “Flirting seems like it would be fun and not witnessed by a load of boring shithead wolves with nothing better to do.”
I peek around, seeing we have quite the audience. “Maybe they’ve never seen flirting with an actual woman.”
“They certainly aren’t as good at it as jackass over here,” Caspian grumbles. He walks around Alaric to me. “We have to go, partner.”
“Sure, wait.” I catch Caspian’ arm. “Have you met Alaric? I mean, properly?”
I certainly hope their first introduction wasn’t when Alaric knocked him out after saving my life.
Caspian slowly rests his eyes on Alaric with a bored gaze. “I’m Caspian. Stay the fuck away from Lilith or I’ll kill you.”
Alaric laughs when Caspian drags me away, and I glare at him.
“What the hell was that for?”
“You really shouldn’t make friends with that one.”
“Why?” I ask.
He doesn’t know about the blackmail thing, mostly because I knew it would freak him out. Caspian runs his hand through his hair.
“Because I told you to,” he responds, like that makes everything clear.
“You have a serious communication problem, Caspian,” I warn him.
“And you have shit taste in men,” he counters, and my cheeks burn red as I pull my hand from his. “We are working on actually being partners now, so I will try to listen more to you. My thoughts on Alaric aren’t changing, though.”
“If we are now working on being proper partners, you have to learn you can’t control everybody I’m friends with,” I respond.
“I’m not controlling your friendships,” he replies with a sour tone. “But I’m just mentioning perhaps that guy isn’t a good idea for a friend.”
“Duly noted.”
“You’re not going to stop being friends with him, are you?” he asks around a groan.
I want to tell him I’m being blackmailed into the friendship, and he did save my life, but the words don’t leave my lips. “Nope. Thanks for the advice, though. Now, where are we going?”
He hands me the holographic card from the board out of his coat pocket.
“A demon market. What is that?” I ask, popping the holographic card into my coat.
There’s not much information on the card, which is likely the reason none of the other hunters took it. It’s a risk.
“Demon markets are like big shopping centres for demons,” Caspian answers. “Imagine Tesco, but for illegal demon shit. Not many people take these, mostly because demon marketers are, in a way, boring. But if we can catch a few it will be more points to get us up the board.”
Talking of the board, we walk past it, and I pause to look up for our names. Caspian and I are quite low down, somewhere near the bottom, but that’s only because at least thirty demon hunters are dead or left already.
Alaric is somehow right at the very top.
“How did he get so many points?”
Caspian follows my line of sight. “That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be anywhere near him. He’s clearly dangerous.”
“I wish I was as dangerous as he was. I could avenge my parents and fix my life,” I say.
Caspian shakes his head. “Being trained by the prince is the best way you’re going to get better. Let’s go, songbird. We need to get to the portal.”
I jog to his side, watching him closely. “So when did you start being trained by the prince?”
“The first time I was here in the trials,” he finally answers.
It’s rare for him to say anything about his own life, and I greedily listen as he finally talks, wanting to know everything about him. The man I live with, who is risking his life for me, I know nothing much about, and it bothers me.
“I didn’t have a partner in my first trials because the one I was partnered with