Page 6 of Controller's Obsession

The threat was genuine, and Merihem didn’t need to be attuned to his demon side to know it.Can’t you be reasonable?

Find him, and I’ll show you exactly how reasonable I can be.

Merihem heaved a sigh and gave in. He got up off the step, wiping the dust off his ass to swing around, coming to a decision. Doing nothing, was it really an option?

No.

So where did that leave him?

Going to find our tiny goat and…

One step at a time, okay!

Whatever you say.

Merihem felt his demon’s glee and satisfaction at having won the first round.

We have to find him first, so don’t go getting excited.

We can use our power for that.

No, we can’t! We don’t want Asmodeus suspecting anything, we’re already in his bad books.

Oh… bad books? What’s that?

Merihem opened the door and tried to think of a way to explain it when something he’d not noticed when he’d first entered the house struck. The unfamiliar scent, one that gave a powerful punch to his balls that matched the hooves kicking him earlier.

Because of his demon being hell bent on finding the goat in his rampage, they’d not taken the time to scent the place. A mad dash through the house bellowing ‘mine’ at the top of his lungs wasn’t rational. They needed to be rational about this.

Rational…

Yes, rational. We use our other senses, the ones that don’t require using our power.Warming to the idea, inside, Merihem blocked his other half, his nose wrinkling as he sniffed the air. He followed the unfamiliar scent to where it was strongest.

He’d been coming to Dakata’s house for a long time, and he knew how it smelled. Knew where everything was… he came to an abrupt halt in the kitchen and stared.

His eyes gleamed with the knowledge the tiny goat hadn’t disappeared—or not far—when the clothes and headphones were nowhere in sight. The cloth the little one had dropped was gone and on the side of the sink was a clean one. Merihem picked it up and sniffed. The goat’s scent was all over it, and it was fresh.

He held on to the cloth and followed his nose into the laundry room. There, he looked at the one door, opening it silently, hestared at the mops, bucket, and other cleaning stuff. Was the scent strongest in there?

Filtering out the other scents of detergents and whatever else, Merihem kept the tiny goat’s smell as his focus. He edged into the small space, getting half a foot in, and scowled. The space was far too cramped for someone of his size. His gaze narrowed on the back wall…but not for someone who was small.

Did Dakata say the place had a basement?

His heart doing a little pitter-patter thing, Merihem backed out and carefully closed the door too, but not all the way as he’d found it. A grin that Dakata would have recognized instantly as wicked appeared while Merihem considered how best to find out, if indeed, the little goat had used that way as his escape route, and if he was the new cleaner who would be back the next day.

His demon was quivering with excitement and that suggested to Merihem he was going to have to keep a tight rein on his demon side, or they’d be back chasing a tiny goat around the house.

Merihem was a hunter. He’d trained for many years to stalk his prey.

Not prey!

He didn’t respond because arguing with his demon half had so far proved fruitless and increased the risk of worsening the headpounding. No, Merihem had to think clearly if he was going to catch the little goat.

He placed the cloth back where he’d found it and left the kitchen, going upstairs to get as far away from where the goat's scent was strongest. He didn’t need to have that playing havoc with his thoughts when he needed to be sensible. Shutting himself in the bedroom for good measure, he reached for the phone at the side of Dakata’s bed. He dialed the number he knew by heart and waited as it rang.

Putting his thoughts in order, Merihem needed to clarify a few things first to give him a starting point and that he could do without raising suspicion. He was positive about it!

“What now?” Dakata growled breathlessly. “You’ve barely been in charge five minutes. You can’t have fucked anything up already.”

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