Page 12 of Blood

“Ma’am,” she begins slowly, “I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

“So, no peepee friction pleasure?” I say softly.

She opens her mouth to respond, but before she can get a word out, a rough hand ensnares my upper arm and yanks me backward.

I just barely have time to squeal before a second hand moves to my mouth. Practically going cross-eyed, I peer at the tattooed hand holding me hostage.

Alex.

“What in the ever-loving fuck are you doing?” he hisses in my ear, his hot breath eliciting a round of fresh goose pimples. He releases my mouth only when we’re far enough away not to be overheard.

“Ummm...asking about an orgy to find the super-secret monster council?” I can’t help it when my voice rises in pitch, turning the words into a question.

I can practically hear Alex praying for patience.

Through gritted teeth, he hisses out, “I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh.” Abruptly, fury fills me, inflating me like a balloon. I ram my fist into Alex’s shoulder with a growl. “You asshole! Are you telling me I just asked a random woman about an orgy when I didn’t even need to?!”

Alex ignores my outburst and continues leading me toward an elevator marked “employees only.” He swipes an employee badge he must’ve stolen and then pushes the down button repeatedly as his gaze flicks from side to side. A few of the security guards are whispering amongst themselves and pointing.

Honestly, it says a lot about my maturity level that I don’t wink and then pantomime putting my finger through a hole.

The elevator doors open with a happy beep, and Alex hauls me inside. A few of the guards make a beeline toward us, but the metal doors slide shut before they can take more than a few steps. Surprisingly chipper elevator music blares from the speakers as we begin to descend.

“So...where exactly are we going?” I ask, though I already know the answer.

Alex’s smile is grim when he answers. “I hope you prepared a speech, Violet baby. Because we’re about to have a meeting with some of the most feared monsters in all of existence and beg them to join our side in the war to come.”

CHAPTER 6

VIOLET

One of the most feared monsters in all of existence is a goat.

An actual, honest-to-fuck goat.

Well, his face is that of a goat, as is his chest, but his lower body is all...man. As in, he has a thing. A hard thing. A hard, erect thing. A hard, erect, swaying thing. A hard, erect, swaying, pierced thing. A hard, erect, swaying, pierced, tattooed thing.

I can’t look away.

“Stop staring,” Alex whispers tersely under his breath, elbowing me in the stomach.

I blink at the goat-man-creature, noting the coarse fur that covers the entirety of his upper body and the...ahem...appendage dangling—

“Violet!” Alex gives me a look.

“I thought satyrs were supposed to have the upper body of a man and the lower body of a goat,” I whisper back. Why can’t I stop staring? Have I been cock-notized?

The necromancer scoffs. “That’s just a myth. Those stupid Narnia movies and books didn’t help matters. And don’t get me started on the Greeks...”

The satyr, who goes by the name of Pan, isn’t the only monster in the room.

As soon as we exited the elevator a half hour earlier, we were led through a twining hallway of storage rooms and labs. We eventually stopped at one labeled “Egyptian.” My confusion only grew when the guide—who introduced himself as Furry Hairball, with rainbow-colored horns, bright red fur, and cloven feet—opened a huge sarcophagus that was lying in the center of the room.

“Umm...” I turned toward Alex with an arched eyebrow. “If you’re planning on murdering me and hiding my body here, let me tell you that I’ll be a horrible victim. I claw. And I bite.”

Alex rolled his russet-black eyes, stepped into the sarcophagus, and abruptly disappeared.

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