Aware of the laser stare her grandmother leveled at her from the head of the table, Nia tried to keep her expression neutral as she set her glass down and picked up her napkin. Discreetly, she dabbed her damp brow, wishing she could step outside in the chilly air for a minute. With only one course down, there were six more to go…
She set down the linen and counted her breaths, trying to calm her anxiety. She didn’t do too well in crowds, especially this lot. With shaky fingers, she traced the several tiny studs marching down her left ear.
The woman and man on either side of her continued to ignore her but engaged Lecher Boucher in small talk, which suited her just fine. No, Grandmother would never see her friends as anything other than pious, God-fearing people.Yeah, right.
They were nothing but a gossiping crate of shriveled prunes.
The next course arrived: a small bowl of white bean and garlic consommé. Nia finished it in three mouthfuls. And her speed-eating wasn’t helping.
Her headache and temperature amped up. Darn. She hoped she wasn’t coming down with the flu or something, and thecloying drift of perfume from the lady next to her didn’t help either.
She only hoped she could make it through to dessert, but with the frigid stares aimed at her, she wasn’t so sure. Maybe that was her grandmother’s aim—death by social freezing. Then she’d rejoice, finally freed of her burden.
But debts had to be paid. Since Nan funded her studies, Nia couldn’t hightail it out of there like she longed to.
The Christmas Eve dinner was a thank-you to Nan’s comrades for a charity event her grandmother had spearheaded with smashing success.
“Poor Cora, still burdened with her…” At the low, sniffed murmur, Nia’s gaze arrowed in on the Botoxed dustball who’d give Madonna a run for her money, seated near Lecher. She leaned into her husband, a pale, thin, stick of a man. “Imagine being stuck with a freak for life.”
Freak?Freak?
She’d heard it all before, but tonight, the slur hit hard. She shot to her feet, the heat within her intensifying. “I. Am. Not. A. Freak!”
“Rania, sit down.” Her grandmother’s cold order cut through the voices.
Dead silence fell.
No one said a word.
They wouldn’t dare in front of Nan, but their condescending glares sliced like knives.
Nia straightened her spine and met her grandmother’s cold stare. “Nan, thank you for dinner,” she said with all the politeness she could muster, “but I’m working the late shift at the clinic. I have to go.”
It was early still, but she didn’t care. Nia marched out, aware her grandmother wouldn’t call her back. More, she knew this wasn’t the end of the incident. Her telling-off would follow.
She rubbed her trembling hands down her pants as she made her way to the foyer. Nia was what Nan hated the most.
An anomaly.
No amount of praying over Nia’s ‘troubled soul’ from the local priest Nan had roped in could diminish her ability.
So what if she possessed that extra bit of awareness of the supernatural and could see demons? There was little she could do about that ability short of dying. And that brought her right back to her current problem.
A damn demon and former date that wouldn’t take no for an answer.
She called Uber and made her way along the driveway to the gate. As she stepped out onto the quiet street of Garden District, caution tightened every nerve in her body, and she cast a wary glance at the shadowy trees lining the road.
Everything remained still, yet her heart thudded with unease.
Please, don’t let him be here.
Chapter
Two
Nia settledthe two newborn pups in a warm, blanket-lined basket. She’d found them a few days ago in a cardboard box in the alley behind the veterinarian clinic where she interned in the Quarter. The smaller one wasn’t feeding properly yet.
She stroked their soft, silky pelts. “It’s going to be all right,” she murmured, soothing their whines. “You’re not alone anymore.”
