Page 53 of Bad Demon

“Relic, man, I was just—”

I slapped him in the face again. “Only one thing I want to hear from you, Kaleb.”

His eyes darted between a now barely holding it together Fern and me. “I don’t … touch her?”

“That’s right,” I said, then released him. “Now, fuck off.”

He spun around and rushed back to his packmates, and I didn’t miss that Lothar, Rome, Jag, and War were all watching and grinning so widely that they looked ready to fucking burst out laughing. I ignored them.

“You good?” I asked Fern.

She was still biting her smiling lips as she nodded. “That wasn’t something you see every day. I gotta say, hound, I like your style.”

“Thanks, Tinker Bell. I like yours as well.”

She seemed to relax a little after that—for the next half hour anyway—until War came over. All my hard work getting her to relax went down the drain when he stood at the other end of the bar, his all-knowing gaze shifting from me to her. Fern instantly stiffened, quickly looking down.

Goddammit.

“There something we should know?” he asked low when I reached him, not that Fern could hear all the way over here, and definitely not over the music and loud voices.

He slid his empty my way.

“She’s mine.”

He nodded as I poured his drink. “Yeah, brother, we figured that part out for ourselves. You staked your claim. No one here’s looking to challenge you. But when you say she’s yours, you mean what? You’re just fucking for a while or something more?”

He knew, and he was going to make me say it. I had no reason to hide it. I was fucking proud she was mine. I wanted everyone to know, but there was still this niggling feeling inside me that it shouldn’t be my turn yet, that Lothar or Jagger or any one of the older hounds was more deserving. Fate had had other ideas though, and who the fuck was I to question fate?

“She’s my mate, War,” I said, then rubbed at my chest, at the deep ache there. “Only one problem: she’s scared of me more than half the time, and I’m pretty sure she hates me.”

“Understandable,” he said. “You’re a hound.”

He hadn’t missed she was a demon.

“What the fuck do I do?”

“No idea, brother.” War grinned wider. “Try and enjoy the ride.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”

He shrugged. “No way I can describe what you’re about to go through. All you can do is ride it out and hope like hell you don’t fuck it up. Because if you do? You’ll have a whole lot of new emotions that will make being without her suck that much harder.”

“Good talk.” I walked away to the sound of War’s laughter.

War had slowly developed a whole lot of new emotions when he met Willow. Somehow, our mates were the key to unlocking all of it, and I couldn’t lie—I was fucking terrified.

ChapterThirteen

FERN

Relic smiledand chatted with people as he served drinks, and there was no missing the way the female population of this room reacted to him. Lust. All the lust. Females touched his arm and looked up at him with awe. I saw several slide napkins to him with their numbers, and then I watched him toss them in the trash when they weren’t looking.

“You need anything?” he asked me when he was at my end of the bar.

“I’m good, thanks.”

He asked me that every time he was down here—always checking I was okay, that I had a drink, that no one was hassling me. I was starting to think that perhaps Relic really was a good guy, and that made me feel kind of like shit. I was also feeling a lot calmer. My anxiety had been through the roof, not just from coming in here, there was also the break in, and because of that, my emotions had been getting the best of me. Then, his alpha had eyeballed me across the bar, and I almost peed myself. No, he hadn’t done or said anything threatening, but he didn’t have to. That healthy fear of hellhounds, built into my DNA, had wailed in my skull, telling me to run. Yes, I’d gotten used to Relic, but the other hounds were another story completely. So I’d done the only thing that would help: I’d taken a small shot of my “courage” potion when no one was looking. I’d pay for it later, but there were too many predators in this room, not only hounds but wolves, and I’d even seen a couple of crows in the corner—a breed you did not ever want to draw attention from. I sure as fuck didn’t want any of these beings sensing my weakened emotional state.

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