“Leave him be. It’s okay for him to wait until he meets his Mr. Darcy.” Emilia winked at Sammy, alluding to the best bookever. “And he has two healthy hands and the Internet. The relief part should be covered.”
Sammy buried his beet-red face in his hands. If having friends meant suffering through comments like this, he wondered if staying a loner would have been so bad.
“Can we please talk about something else? The weather maybe? And, just for the record, I don’t watch porn. I don’t want to get strange ideas.”
“Oh man, I’m not sure if this is sad or cute. Maribell is right. You need a boyfriend. Just work is no fun.” Amber slipped into her black coat. It was April and the temperatures still dropped during the night.
“Easier said than done. I’m working on it, okay?” Sammy sank into Maribell’s hug. She smelled of chocolate, a flowery perfume and, very faintly, of a strange herb he had come to associate with her. After Sammy had hugged all the females, Declan gave him a firm handshake and reassured him once more that he and Troy would be more than willing to help him out should he decide to go for Grindr, which he was determined not to do.
Jon waved at them all before he disappeared through the back door that led down to the cellar. He wasn’t big on touching, because the body warmth of others always reminded him that he was no longer alive. Sammy found it sad and would have loved to help Jon, but the zombie seemed to have found some balance in his life that Sammy didn’t want to upset.
When his friends were all gone, he closed the shop’s front door and started cleaning up. Thanks to Maribell, he only had to put the cups back on the nineteenth-century hanging shelf and clean the coffeemaker. On his way to the stairs that would lead him to his apartment, Sammy found the trash he had meant to take out earlier in the day then forgotten. After a short internal debate, he sighed, picked it up and went to the back door.
The dumpster loomed like an alien monster in the small back alley that looked shady, even during daylight. Sammy gulped. He wasn’t easily frightened, but the way the shadows seemed to move in the semi-brightness of the single lightbulb over the door had him hurrying to the dumpster. After he had disposed of the sack, Sammy was headed straight back for the door and the warm safety of the house, when he suddenly heard something. It sounded like a cat going through the trash in search of leftovers and the rats that fed on the leftovers. Sammy shuddered. Some of the street cats in Beaconville were small, mean killing machines and he always tried to stay on their good side. Not interfering when one of them was on the hunt was part of the plan. He reached for the door handle, recognized a presence behind him that was most definitely not a cat, felt something soft and horrible-smelling being pressed against his nose then…nothing.
Chapter Two
“Damn it, Dre! Would you mind paying attention? We’re playing a serious game here and, thanks to you, I just got blown up with a plasma grenade!”
Barion, Dre’s younger brother, gave him a vicious jab with his elbow. Dre didn’t retaliate, because he deserved it, for one thing, and second, he was distracted by an all-too-familiar tingling at the back of his skull.
“Sorry, little bro. Seems like someone is trying to summon me—again!”
Barion groaned. “Damn. The same idiots from last time?”
“Feels like it. They’ve been doing this all week. I’m getting tired of it.”
A mischievous gleam appeared in Barion’s eyes. “You gonna take care of them?”
Dre pressed the pause button on his controller, freezing the battleships on the one-hundred-ten-inch flat-screen Barion had bought only a week before. Dre was sure the thing was worth a fortune, but, as a demon prince, his brother could easily afford it. Demons were not as big on hoarding as dragons, but they weren’t exactly poor either.
“I think I have to. This is getting on my nerves, and who knows what they will come up with next?”
Barion rolled his eyes. “Whoever thought it was a good idea giving humans just enough information that they are able to call us should be roasted alive.”
“Good luck with that one. Father is convinced it was Great-Uncle Corriwyn, and he’s fireproof…like all of us, moron!”
Barion whined. “Why would he do such a thing?”
“Because he was bored and thought it would be funny. And he had fun—still has. He answers every summoning he gets, just to mess with the humans. Damn old man should have gotten himself a mate and children at some point.”
The tingling got stronger and Dre wondered what kind of spell the humans were using this time. It was a widely believed myth that demons could be summoned and controlled by a human with the right spells and magic circles. It was a belief that was very false. For one thing, only a true witch had the means to infuse a magic circle with enough power to actuallyforcea demon to appear. And if she wanted to do more than just have a stare-off with a pissed demon, she had to be a member of one of the five witch clans. That narrowed the amount of people who actually did have the means to control a demon to less than two hundred. As for truly mastering a demon? He knew of three who could probably pull it off, and they had other, easier means to get what they wanted.
All ordinary humans could do was the equivalent of a phone call—or prank call, to be precise. Mostly, demons simply ignored the summoning, unless they were bored, like Uncle Corriwyn, or pissed, like Dre was. As far as he could tell, the same group of humans had been trying to reach him at least six times during the past one-and-a-half weeks. That much he could sense through the weak bond caused by the ineffective spells they were using. He got up from the bright orange leather couch that Barion thought was the latest in fashion—and who was he to argue with his hip younger brother? Dre let his knuckles crack while he contemplated how to go about this. Barion watched him with interest.
“Are you going full demon on them? I’d love to see that!”
“Shut up. I don’t need comments from the peanut gallery.”
Dre pulled his black silk shirt over his head. There was no need to destroy a perfectly nice item of clothing. Then he closed his eyes and allowed his true form to burst through the thin veneer that hid it. He stretched from six foot seven to over eight foot tall. The silver hair that fell down his back turned into a broad stripe of silver scales that went from his head down to his ass. Dre unfolded his wings and knocked over a vase on the windowsill across the room.
“Hey, watch it!” Barion dove forward to catch the vase before it shattered on the ground. Since one of his talents was time-bending, he’d easily managed it.
Dre held up his hands to look at the beautiful silver patterns swirling over the red skin. His fangs prodded his lower lip and the claws on his toes made a clacking sound on the hardwood floor.
“Don’t you dare get any scratches in that wood, Dre! I mean it! Do you have any idea how long it took me to find the perfect planks for this room?”
Barion sounded almost hysterical, which had Dre resuming most of his human form within seconds. Nothing took the fun out of changing like the whining of an annoying little brother.
