Page 36 of Hell’s Half Acre

He nodded.

“Another occupant of your former home?”

Luke grinned. “Well, when you create a forest of impaled bodies to scare your enemies, it tends to piss off the big guy upstairs and impress my father. I’d be lying if I didn’t say Vlad is one of my father’s favorite…”

When he didn’t finish, she prompted him. “Favorite what?”

“I know how much you hate horror movies so I’m trying to think of something that won’t give you nightmares.”

“Victims?” she asked, stretching the word out.

“Sure. I’ll go with that.”

As he approached her, she noticed the shadow was moving inside his hands.

“So, what exactly does a hellcat look like?”

Instead of speaking, he simply held his hands out and showed her…

Well, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of the poor thing. It sort of looked like a cat. From Hell. Which made sense. But this was nothing like she’d expected.

She wasn’t sure how to describe it. Frankenkitty? Kitty bits?

If a wet rat mated with a wire fox terrier and somehow spliced DNA with a kitten, this would be their baby. She had to resist the urge to shiver.

One entire side and most of the other had wiry black fur, but one half of its face was orange. Only it wasn’t evenly split. The orange spilled over its pink nose and came back around to frame half of its mouth. A splotch of white covered the kitty’s throat and the back left paw was sleeved with orange and tipped with white. The same white tip also covered its two black front paws.

Its whiskers were exceptionally long and curled every which way. The scraggly tail was thin and singed. And its ears…

They reminded her of a Pomeranian. Poor thing looked like it’d been in a fire.

It’s from Hell, moron. Of course it’s been in a fire.

Yeah, okay. It definitely looked like that.

Two big green eyes stared up at her in that unique way that belonged to pets and small children. A look that was given to make even a snowman’s heart melt.

“So, this is a hellcat?”

“Yes.”

“Aw!” She started to reach for it, but Luke quickly pulled the cat back and held it to his chest. “I wasn’t going to hurt it.”

“Him and that wasn’t for his protection. Trinket is a bit…”

“Vicious,” Envee finished for him as she moved to stand on the bottom step. “It’s why Helly locked that little bastard in the closet with us demons. I hate that animal. It’s creepy and mean.”

Luke scoffed, then spoke to Trinket. “You’re not creepy or mean, are you?”

Envee continued to curl her lip as if that was the most detestable creature ever born. “I hate that hellcat. Luke adores it because Trinket knows if it hurts Luke, it’ll be tossed out on his ugly, furry ass.”

“He’s not really ugly.” Sorcha looked back at the mismatched fur and reconsidered the thought.

Then again, it was so ugly it was actually adorable.

Luke clucked his tongue. “Be nice to the lady, Trinket.” He held the cat toward her.

Sorcha carefully reached out to pet it on the head.