“Dude, stop,” I finally snapped.
“I’m trying to figure out what you are,” he replied in a voice that hadn’t quite hit puberty yet.
I gave him the side-eye.“Just use your senses, man.That’s what they’re there for.If you trust them, they usually won’t let you down.”
“Use my senses…” He said it like he was having an epiphany, which was strange because the dude was a werewolf, the species at the top of the senses food chain.
“You are such a loser, Krishna,” someone called out from the other side of the street.I did not even need to glance up to know who it was.Selina the Bad Witch’s voice was permanently burned into my brain.
I shouldn’t give two shits about the clueless werewolf by my side.
But.
I really, really disliked bullies.
“Shut the fuck up, Selina,” I bellowed.
Far, far too loudly.
As if my shout had summoned everyone to a town meeting, the sidewalk on both sides of the street suddenly was full of creatures.A dragon, a hydra, genie, other werewolves.I noted a minotaur, a centaur, the yeti from the ice cream store.There was Queenie…and of course, Asmoday, who was jogging toward us with a pinched look on his face.
No, wait.He was jogging toward—“What the hell is he running to her for?”I muttered, forgetting for a moment that a tiny werewolf named Krishna was standing next to me.
“Because Selina tends to cause trouble, and Asmoday is pretty much the only guy in town who can talk her out of whatever shenanigans she’s up to,” Krishna replied matter-of-factly.
Yes, the wordshenaniganssounded weird coming out of the mouth of someone who looked like a twelve-year-old dressed up for Halloween as an old hairy guy.
I stalked across the street, heading toward Selina and Asmoday, even as I tried to will my legs to not do this.While checking out the hellmouth right now did not seem like a wise option with all these people staring at us, neither did striding toward the man who turned my insides to molten lava and the woman who’d decided to hate me on sight.
Krishna trotted along beside me.
“What are you doing?”I asked.
“I haven’t figured out what you are yet.”
I sighed.“Mermaid.”
I caught his frown out of the corner of my eye.“You smell like incense.”
“What?”I yelped, sniffing at my pit.I’d bathed, and Asmoday hadn’t been close enough for long enough to make me sweat recently.Until I’d landed in this town, I’d had no issue keeping the incense scent hidden away, courtesy of my shifter side.
But Krishna was a werewolf, and while he clearly didn’t understand how his own senses worked, they just as clearly did.
Through gritted teeth, I ground out, “I’m part demon.”
“Really?”Krishna’s ears perked up, like a dog’s would when someone said, “Good boy.”
“Did you know Asmoday is a demon too?”he asked.
“Yes.”
“But you don’t have wings,” Krishna noted.“I thought all demons had wings.”
“Not all,” I said, although most did.In fact, less than one percent of that population did not.
Another reason to stay the hell out of Hell.For my entire life, I’d tried everything in my power to not be the center of attention.I’d only ever wanted to grow up and just, oh, you know, be happy.Was that really too much to ask?
“So what kind of demon are you?”Krishna asked.
