A Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch (Glimmer Falls #2)

by Sarah Hawley

Ozroth hadn’t claimed the witch’s soul though. No, he’d dawdled and brooded and pined for the witch like bloody Lord Byron himself (and Astaroth ought to know, since he’d shagged that dramatic bastard for a few months in the early nineteenth century).

“What part of Lilith is insane are you missing?” Astaroth snapped to cover up his unseemly fear. “Just because she wrote something down doesn’t mean it’s true. She writes explicit Wars of the Roses tentacle fan fiction, too.” Way, way too much Wars of the Roses tentacle fan fiction, which she posted to AO3 like a horny human teenager rather than the millennia-old demoness she was.

Every day, she felt worse and worse about . . . well, most things. Her dating prospects, her mother’s reign of terror as the mayor of Glimmer Falls, and all the ways life had gradually ground her down until she was more sharp edges than anything else.

“The real world is terrible,” Calladia said. “But there’s no homework, so that’s good.”

He eyed her profile, amused that someone with the bone structure of a storybook princess had the manners of a feral cat.

Being in nature made her feel small, but in a good way. Maybe that was part of being human. In the long stretch of time, she was just a blip. And when you were a blip, you didn’t have to worry about the weight of eons. You could live as loudly as you wanted in the space allotted to you.

Calladia’s life had been lacking in joy for a while. Had she let her fear of being hurt stop her from living boldly?

“It’s because I’m human,” she said in a teasing tone. “Small life, big dreams, zero fucks to give.” Like a corgi in the universe’s dog park. He lifted her hand to his mouth. “Your life is many things,” he said, lips pressed to her skin, “but it’s far from small.”

Eventually, Calladia shifted and groaned. “Gonna pee,” she said. Astaroth nodded and released her, though not before an affectionate pat to her bottom. “Sounds good,” he slurred. “Prevent those UTIs.”

👏👏👏

“I had a boyfriend in college,” she blurted out. “Though maybe it’s weird to call him that, since he was fifteen years older than me.” “Taylor Swift would call that a problematic age gap,” Astaroth said.

“Being strong doesn’t mean winning every battle. Sometimes it means surviving to fight again.”