Too aggressively, I daresay.
“Oh, I think you are,” I responded.It’d been a long time since someone in this town was attracted to me, by design.
Well, except for Selina, but she didn’t count.
Newsflash: being part lust demon was not all it was cracked up to be.Sure, people throwing themselves at me, begging me to strip their clothes off and have my wicked way with them sounded fun, on the surface.
But when I say constant, that’s not an exaggeration.Hard to run a business or, say, go to the grocery store when one was hiding from pretty much anyone they might come into contact with.
It was like being a famous rock star during the 1980s, only worse.
And then there was my elf side.
Generally speaking, nobody cared about that half of my nature.Well, except for every single one of my family members on that side, but not the point.Especially since I was pretty sure it wasn’t me they cared about but what I was supposed to represent.
Being half elf and half lust demon was exactly how I’d ended up in this rando town in the middle of nowhere, Texas.
Four years ago, I’d been cruising down a two-lane road on a stolen moped, my tattered shirt flapping in the wind, once again dodging my family and their expectations while at the same time trying to put as much distance between myself and the participants of a book club that had been meeting when I’d unwittingly stepped into a bookstore in Austin.Suddenly, the town of Arrythmia appeared in front of me.Like a mirage, except blessedly real.
The book club, all human women, had rushed on by, not seeing the town at all.I’d fallen in love right then and there.
And the minute I realized it was a town entirely comprised of paranormal creatures, I’d immediately sought out the resident witch, who’d cast a spell over me that dulled my pheromones and made it possible for everyone in this community to exist without being attracted to me.
Of course, that also meant I hadn’t gotten laid in four long years.
At first, I’d been fine with it.Reveled in it, if I was being honest.Turned out, there was such a thing as too much sex, especially when it was meaningless.I may be a lust demon, but lucky me, I also happened to believe in love.
Except no one could ever get past my lustiness to see that maybe I was a pretty cool guy to like on a more emotional level too.
And now this woman in town was attracted to me, which shouldn’t be happening.And I washappyabout it.Which was a new revelation.
I canted my head, studied her.She wasn’t a witch, so she hadn’t cast a spell counteracting the other witch’s magic.I was pretty sure she was a demon, actually, although no clue what kind.She didn’t send off any particular vibes, other than super powerful ones.
She was something else, too, but it was hard to tell with the overpowering scent of incense and river water and the fact that she could very well be cloaking herself.The blue hair and eyes were probably a clue, but I wasn’t savvy enough to pick up on it.
Not that it mattered.All that really mattered was, damn, this chick was smokin’ hot.It wasn’t often I went for my own kind, but when I did, I certainly went all in.
Which was a weird, because I’ve never even hooked up with another demon before.Yet this girl—I wanted to drown in her.I wanted to dive in and never, ever leave her again.
I tilted my head the other way.Wait.Was this what my dad warned me about?
My mom was a lust demon, my dad an elf.And elves, unlike lust demons, liked the idea of love.They liked to fall into it.Celebrated it as loudly as the residents of this town celebrated Valentine’s Day.
Even though Dad had fucked up and had an affair with a lust demon who, nine months later, deposited me on his doorstep and walked away, he still believed in fated mates.
And he wholeheartedly believed I’d eventually find mine, and then I’d return to the elfin forest and take over my responsibilities, my mate by my side.
He probably expected that potential mate to be an elf, and yet, here we were.
Me, lusting after…another demon.
“I gotta go,” she blurted, her hand curling around the shifter.
“Wait,” I said, lunging forward and grasping the door.Hopefully, her demon side wasn’t so prevalent that she’d simply roar away and possibly rip off my arm in the process.It’d grow back, but it would be a long and drawn-out—and painful—process.
“What?”she snapped, her gaze dropping to my knuckles, where the phoenix who owned the tattoo parlor had inked the wordamor.It meant love in several languages.River, the phoenix, was big on “creating a new you” for his clients, and he’d been convinced that word permanently etched into my skin would eventually guide me to my true love.
Maybe that guy was onto something.
