Page 20 of Monster Mate

She slow blinked. “Like, heaven or hell?”

He shook his head. “Not heaven. Angels handle that. Only hell—whatever iteration of it the soul is destined for.”

Most humans had no idea how many possible hells there were. Every damaged, tarnished soul on this planet—and any other—could be bound for any of them, based on the depth of their depravity while alive.

“So…bad people.”

“The worst.”

“And you can’t do that anymore?”

He frowned. “You mean reap souls?”

“Yes.”

“No. That ability left me when I crossed over into this dimension and decided to stay.”

“When your world dies, who will reap souls then?”

Huh. He hadn’t given that much thought. “Well, I would imagine other demons would pick up the slack. There are thousands of demon dimensions, after all.”

Well, she wasn’t running yet. That was a good sign. After the longest pause imaginable, she asked, “You’ve seen a lot of souls then, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“And…you can see my soul? Like, right now?”

“Yes.”

She bit her lip. “And it’s…good?”

He couldn’t believe she even had to ask. “It’s the purest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He wished he could keep his voice from trembling, but he couldn’t. “No one else I’ve ever met here, or in any other dimension, has a soul as bright as yours.”

Then she did something that proved him wrong. She smiled, big and bright, and that was actually the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.

He wasn’t sure what he’d done in this life or any other that brought him to her, but damn it, it must have been something incredible.

Now he just had to figure out how to not fuck it all up.

CHAPTER 13

Roxie had never given too much thought to how monsters must have felt being out in public amongst humans.

She’d gotten a glimpse of it on her first coffee date with Riordan, but it was now abundantly clear that there were intolerant assholes everywhere, even in Sanity Falls, where it wasn’t unusual to see just about any kind of monster doing all the normal stuff, like grocery shopping or catching a matinee or having dinner with family and friends.

Maybe she was just hyper-sensitive to it because she knew what a nice guy Riordan was. But the number of humans who looked at him like he was inherently evil because he wasn’t human was telling.

Normally, Roxie never gave those kinds of bigots too much thought. She never felt the need to remind them that humans had caused more trouble for themselves than monsters ever could, because it didn’t matter. Their narrow-minded opinions were trash, and she didn’t feel the need to address trash opinions.

Until today.

Riordan was one of the best men she’d ever known, and when they sat down in the diner to order lunch, the looks he was getting from the folks there…phew. Roxie was ready to throw hands at more than a few of them.

Two older women had grabbed their purses off the back of their chairs and clutched them to their chests when they caught their first glimpse of Riordan. As if he had any interest in the pocket change, old tissues, and Werther’s candies they probably hauled around everywhere.

A man who looked about her age turned his nose up when he saw Riordan put his hand on her lower back to guide her to their table. She didn’t know if he was grossed out by a monster and a human being friends, or if he was offended by monsters in general. All Roxie knew was that she wanted to slap the nasty sneer off his thin-lipped, weak-chinned, scraggly face.

Then there were the younger women. For some reason, they really pissed her off. They were tittering and giggling and flipping their hair—all while throwing come-hither glances Riordan’s way.

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