Page 24 of Hellhound AU

“I get that,” I growled. “But, once again, I’ll explain that it isn’t plastic inside. It’s organic materials that need to be dry cleaned.”

“We. Do. Not. Dry. Clean. Weighted. Blankets.” He spoke slowly and loudly, and it was pissing me off.

“Look at the fucking tag—it says to dry clean it!” I growled.

The man crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me, which just pissed me off even more.

“I swear to god, I’m gonna climb over this fucking counter and strangle you if you don’t dry clean that fucking blanket by the end of the day and then deliver it to the owner, because it’s been TWO WEEKS and this poor woman cannot sleep and you people TOLD HER you could do it when she dropped it off!”

I might have been yelling a bit, and I might have advanced threateningly toward the desk, but Rowan pulled me back. The asshole running the dry cleaners looked unmoved by my threats.

Rowan was still holding onto my arm. “Or,” he commented, “we can just blast the story all over social media. I think my sister has twenty thousand followers? Maybe it’s up to thirty thousand? So hard to keep track of, you know. And of course that’s not counting the instagram followers. Or the reviews we’ll leave everywhere. Businesses have ended over less. But,you’ve made your choice, so we’ll just take the blanket and find someone whocando the job.”

The man blanched at the mention of twenty thousand followers, and I swear he looked like a ghost by the end of Rowan’s little speech.

“Fine,” he eventually spat out. “It’ll be ready in a week.”

“No, you said that a week ago,” I snarled. “You’ll deliver it TODAY after you clean it. Are we clear?”

The dry cleaner looked unsure, but Rowan advanced on him. I don’t know what look was on his face, but the dry cleaner suddenly looked afraid.

“Yes. Okay. Today,” he said, backing up a bit.

Rowan gave a little growl, the guy backed up even more, and then Rowan turned around, grabbed my arm, and led me out the door.

“You okay, boo?” I asked.

Rowan growled as he led me to the car. Despite his obvious anger, he was gentle with me, and it made me fall for him a little more.

We climbed into the car and sat for a minute. I let my strawberry milkshake chill out, and he took a few deep breaths next to me. I looked over and he looked calmer, so I asked, “Where to?”

“I had my brother-in-law do some research, and he thinks there’s going to be a dog fighting event this evening. We can scope it out and see. It’s at an abandoned warehouse, and I’m guessing whoever is running this will be there getting shit ready.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I answered.

Rowan gave me the address, I plugged it into Maps, and off we went. We were out of town in a few moments, and we were taking a road through a wooded area. It was pretty deserted, and usually this stretch of road freaked me out, especially atnight. There were no streetlights at all, and there was no cell phone service for a couple miles, too. I’d always joked with Aunt Anabelle that if I ever went missing, she should check route 529 because someone probably killed me and hauled me off into the woods.

Yes, I read too many horror books when I was younger.

I felt fine, now, though, and that was definitely partly due to Rowan. What did I need to worry about when I had a sexy, strong protector with me?

We were talking about the research his brother-in-law did, and I looked over at him for a second—I swear that’s all it was.

It was time enough to have something fucking HUGE hit the car, though.

“Holy fucking shitballs!” I cried, stomping on the brakes. The whole front hood was dented in, but there was nothing in front of the car.

I looked in the rearview mirror, and that’s when I saw it. It looked like a woman, because there were boobs that were fit into a cute little crop top along with long hair and a feminine face. After that, though, I didn’t know what the fuck it was. It had dark wings, and its stomach led down from skin to feathers, where it had legs covered in feathers that ended in… Were those fucking talons?

“Did we hit a deer?” Rowan asked, looking around at the front of the car. He went to open his door, but I grabbed his arm, my eyes still on the rearview mirror, watching the thing. It was just sort of standing there, and it didn’t look any worse for being hit. Or for landing on our car. I wasn’t even sure what the fuck had happened.

“Milo?” he asked.

“Rowan, I don’t want you to panic, but there’s some kind of creature behind the car,” I said carefully.

He turned around and looked, then he breathed out a sigh that sounded almost exasperated. “Fuck,” he murmured quietly.

“Do you know what it is?” I asked, fighting off panic. We would be fine. We had weapons. Maybe it wasn’t even unfriendly, although I sure as fuck wasn’t getting out of the car to find out.