Page 12 of Muzzled

Dropping his head in deference, he held position until Seph knelt down and cupped his chin with her hands. “Ooh, I just miss this face,” she cooed, moving her delicate fingers behind his ears and giving him a good scratch. He risked placing a paw on her knee, chuffing when she lifted it to inspect his claws. “These need a trim.”

“They don’t need a trim,” Hades huffed. “He needs those to kill.”

Seph placed his paw on the ground and stood. “They can still be shaped.” She held out her skirt and ran her finger across a tiny rogue thread. “They’re snagging on my dress.”

Giving her a grim smile, Hades turned back to him. “Have you found your target?”

Tracking an oncoming car, he backed up into the darkness again with the shake of his head.

Persephone clasped her hands, full lips pouting in a letdown that, for the first time in his existence, he didn’t feel down to his core. “I’m tired of this game,” she sighed, looking up to Hades. “Alex is always too busy for me. Bo speaks of nothing but the succubus he wedwithout permission. I want my dog back.”

Hades’s face darkened, and he grabbed him by the snout. “Hear that, Orion? Our patience is growing thin. Wrap this up so we can get back to normal.”

With a quick squeeze before he let go, Hades turned his back and led Seph into a secluded park where they could reenter the underworld without notice, leaving him alone on the stoop.

Normal.

This was his new normal.

He’d been on the hunt for centuries, moving from place to place to fulfill Hades’s flippant curse of eliminating the Pirithous line from the face of the earth. He’d tracked and killed dozens of males across the globe with the help of his brothers, his body count meticulously tattooed on his skin.

The isolation.

The anonymity.

The illusion of freedom.

Prior to that, his normal had been patrolling the riverbanks on Hades’s command, heeling to his master’s side on nothing more than a look and guarding his mistress on her whim.

It was that normal he simultaneously craved and feared. To be welcomed back into the underworld where he would once again sit alongside one of the most powerful deities in Olympus was an honor he gratefully accepted.

But to be tethered to his mistress again, to sit at her heel waiting for her to toss scraps of attention his way…

With a final look around the spot Mike had occupied mere hours ago, he bolted across the bridge to his motel room with an unfamiliar lack of urgency to complete his assignment.

Chapter Five

Logan snapped hisfingers in front of Mike’s face, and she flinched back, swatting him away. “Right. Pass me the oils, please. And the round brushes.”

He eyed her briefly before digging into her bag and setting her supplies on the table. “You sure you’re okay? We have another three events this summer. If you’re not well—”

“I’m fine,” she grumbled, blinking repeatedly to clear her vision. “Just had a hard time sleeping last night.” Selecting a deep red, she began slathering the canvas. “Remind me to put in another order for charcoal.”

Keeping his back to their growing audience, he rifled through the case. “How the hell are you out?” he demanded. “I swear I packed them up yesterday.”

While he continued to search for the supplies she knew weren’t there, she dipped her brush into the black paint, pushing aside the memory of the nightmare that had kept her awake half the night. In its place a vision came to her in a flash of clarity. The need to paint it bordered on painful, as though the image was desperate to break free and be acknowledged, her first strokes shaky despite the surety with which she made them.

Logan fielded a few sales and squatted by her side, rinsing off her used brushes. “On an animal kick again,” he mused, gently laying her favorite brushes in reach. “Good. They sell well, and that depressing shit always gets top dollar.”

Tearing her eyes away from the canvas and subtly scanning the crowd for a tall blond, she elbowed him in the ribs gently. “Art is for art’s sake, money is just a bonus,” she reminded him, squinting at her choices of brown. “You sure this pup doesn’t look too beaten down?”

He leaned back, balancing himself with the back of her chair. “No, Mike. The rabid bear-dog doesn’t look too beaten down.”

“He’s not rabid,” she muttered, second-guessing the hint of red she was about to add before doing it. “And there’s no such thing as a bear-dog.”

The audience grew larger while she worked, applause breaking out when she finally sat back to check out the final product. She’d managed to grasp onto the perfect, still frame in her mind, the vision of the black dog sitting in the shadows of a doorway and staring into the darkness, the flash of rejection in its eyes trumping the image of renewed determination that sat patiently in her head for another canvas.

“Starting bid, fifty!” Logan called out, turning the canvas to the onlookers.

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