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“But I am curious.”
    Dressed in jeans as he was, he shouldn’t have the ease of movement. But it was nothing for him to hop over fallen logs and boulders. Never once did he attempt to offer her his hand to help.
    She liked that—it meant he saw her as an equal and fully capable.
    “About?” he drawled.
    The tone of it caused her body to tingle. Wetting her lips, she took two deep breaths, reminding herself that she did not wish to mate with this male; it was simply the heat manifesting.
    “You.” She dug her nails, which were as tough as claws, into a sheer rock face, climbing it easily. They could have walked around the stone, but it went in either direction for at least a mile, so they’d lose precious and valuable time doing it.
    She glanced down at him when he did not follow. “What’s the matter, knight? Afraid of heights?”
    She laughed when his eyes narrowed. But stopped completely when a moment later he shifted into his ebony shadow, keeping pace with her.
    Huffing a lank of hair out of her eyes, she smirked. “Show off.”
    It was his turn to laugh. The sound of it was still as deep, but when he spoke it was with a sibilance he’d not had while in his physical form. “Sssooo says the rock-climbing wolf.”
    Blowing a raspberry, she wiggled right up the mountain face as though it were nothing. Though her biceps did tremble with fatigue by the time she’d finally crawled over its ledge. Bending over, she gazed down into the valley that made up the shifter’s homeland. It wasn’t that she’d never left it before, she had once, but she was no lone wolf and did not enjoy leaving the safety of her pack for long.
    The verdant green valley that rolled with moss and sparkling blue waterfalls almost beckoned her back. Blowing out a puff of air, she stood and turned to Giles, who’d once again returned to corporeal form.
    “Did I frighten you as my shadow?” he asked quietly.
    She meant to laugh his question off, but then her nose caught his scent of smoked cherries and every nerve ending inside of her buzzed to life like sparks of lightning. Clenching her jaw, she forced herself to count to ten before answering.
    “I’ve seen your kind before. Come, we still have a journey yet, and there’s a dragon to fight.”
    “A dragon?” He frowned. “I read no mention of dragons in these lands.”
    Laughing, she shook her head. “I can now see why Rumpel sent you to find me. Don’t worry, knight, I’ll keep you safe.”

The woman got under his skin.
    But it wasn’t all bad, he supposed, though she seemed to delight in teasing him, she also never complained that the pace was too hard. He could move faster if he became his shadow, but he didn’t wish to press her too hard.
    They were now descending. The cliff they’d scaled was actually part of a long chain of ragged mountains that veered toward a valley below full of sharp rock spires and dusty sand.
    The sun was now at its zenith in the sky and blasting them full on.
    Lilith slipped on a patch of loose slate. Grabbing her by the elbow to make sure she’d not slip again, he asked, “Are you okay?”
    She jerked her arm loose and growled. “I’m fine.”
    Tossing his hands up in a gesture of peace, he shrugged. “Okay, then.”
    Rumpel had warned him that shifters, but especially the wolves, were a prideful bunch prone to quick bursts of fury that just as quickly could fizzle out. It wasn’t that Giles regretted journeying with a female, or even a shifter, more that she was a spitfire of emotions whereas a demone fought to maintain calm and control. To lose that peace could send his kind into a berserker rage that nothing but a mate could stop.
    A wild demone was a monster unlike any other.
    Sighing, he plastered on a determined face and kept his human form, though traveling in shadow would have been much easier. So long as she struggled, so would he.
    The slate was so loose in places even he had a rough time of it, and eventually he knew if he