Page 86 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

“Look, I can lift her up.” The kitten held tight to Percy, wriggling around with a joyful growl as he raised his arm.

“Percy, could you put the damn cat away?” Joe snapped.

Percy, Althea, and especially Leo, looked over at Joe, aghast. Percy apologised and slipped the kitten back into his shirt pocket.

“I was saying?—”

“Look, she’s still watching me.” Percy nodded down at his pocket.

“I was saying,” Joe reiterated ten times as loud, before dropping out a heavy sigh. “Don’t you think it’s weird how attached she is to you?”

“Moxie?” Percy held his finger over his pocket to be swatted. “Not really. We have a connection.”

Lips drawn tight, “She’s a cat. You’ve known her for a day.”

Percy topped up Joe’s wine, somewhere very close to the top, and said, “Handsome, I’m beginning to think we need to talk about your jealousy issues.”

Already pushed to close to the limit of his patience, Joe verily seethed, “My what?”

Percy gave a placid, consoling, infuriating pat of Joe’s hand. “I love you. Only you. But this is the point that I feel like it’s tipping over into a you thing and not a me thing, you know?”

“What?” Joe very nearly shouted.

“Moxie’s my forever girl. But you’re my forever guy. And there’s no need for you to feel threatened.”

Joe’s fist slammed down on the table so hard the glasses rattled and he jumped to his feet, shouting furiously, “It’s Moxie! Can’t you see it’s Moxie?”

Percy, in perfect shock at the outburst, said softly, “What’s Moxie?”

Joe, cowed by the scowls of the waiting staff, dropped back to his seat. He took a few deep breaths and tried a shift to the comforting nature he’d learned as a priest. Percy’s feelings were on the line, so Joe explained as calmly as possible, “The familiar and Molly were in love. It watched her—felther die, horribly. It lived her descent into madness. It’s never stopped loving her and it… It didn’t leave because you almost killed me.”

Percy grew quiet, listening intently.

“After it possessed me, it took a long time to trust you. To trust us. Because it’s traumatised, terrified by everything they went through. But when you said those things to me…” Joe moved his chair closer, taking Percy’s hand. “Percy, when you said those beautiful, beautiful things to me, it was the most pure, most romantic moment of my entire life.”

“So murder-suicide does it for you.”

“Percy…” Joe fought back the chuckle, though his smile was irrepressible. “Percy, I’m so madly in love with you.” His tone and face set a little more serious as he went on. “And those things you said, they were so loving, and that’s when it understood. What we have, it’s real. It’s a love that will span all of eternity. It’s a love that even death can’t conquer. It’s so rare, and so beautiful, and… And it didn’t want to take that away from us. Because that’s the kind of love it had with Molly. And…” Joe took a breath and squeezed Percy’s hand a little tighter. “Percy, you’re very handsome, and you’re—you’re very sexy?—”

Both Althea and Leo groaned loudly.

Joe carried on, disregarding them both, “You’re captivating. And enigmatic. And that familiar… it… it reacted to you like… most people do when you decide to be charming… Even if it was totally artless. Which made it that much more charming.”

A quiver of worry shot its way through Percy. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.”

“The, um…” Something akin to the idea of gutting himself popped into Joe’s mind, and he began to think that might be preferable. “The familiar likes you. A lot. You have to understand, you’re the first man it’s seen in centuries. And you’re a very attractive man. And you did that sexy blood-play thumb thing…”

Percy grinned. “That was hot, wasn’t it?”

“So hot,” Joe agreed ardently.

“Why did they invite us?” Althea whispered.

“I don’t know!” Leo snarled.

“So, all things being what they are,” Joe sighed out, “I would go so far as to say… the familiar developed a small crush on you.”

Percy’s mind had not yet grasped the concept simply because his self-preservation instinct wouldn't allow it. Perhaps the familiar had liked him. What of it? What did any of it have to do with anything now? With finding and slaying the thing? It wasirrelevant, so why was Joe harping on about it? Percy said, “I know you’re not jealous of a beast from the abyss, Joe.”

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