Page 1 of Hellhounds Never Lie

ChapterOne

ASH

I always wondered if I was supernatural enough to live in Willow Lake.

The town was unlike anywhere else. It wasn’t a secret supernatural sanctuary—not exactly, anyway—but it was close. The ratio of supes to humans here was around three to one now, and the supe side was growing all the time. It was one of the reasons I liked it here so much. I might stick to humans for sex—back when I still had sex with people—but too many of them in a community was never a good thing.

I really shouldn’t be so judgmental; my best friend and my boss were both human, after all. But the differences between supes and humans were just so…obvious. I suspected if more humans knew about us and how they weren’t the most powerful species on the planet, their sense of peace would be shattered. Realizations like that tended to make humans stabby.

Honestly, I found it surprisinganyhumans stayed in Willow Lake long, because even a weak-assed supe like me emitted a certain amount of magical energy. Humans, so I’d been told, got uneasy when surrounded by too many of us. Eventually their feeble senses finally registered the high magic levels and their brains started shoutingDanger! Run!

Not that I was much of a predator by any definition of the word, but whatever.

Sure, I was technically a fire mage, but I couldn’t do much. Turning my bedroom lights on and off without having to get out of bed wasn’t particularly awe inspiring, not when anyone with the right gadget could clap and do the same thing.

Worse, sometimes I sensedsomethingbigger and brighter lurking under my skin, and it just felt so damn familiar and wonderful that I knew it had to be my magic, but then I’d burp or sneeze or—and I will deny this to my dying breath—fart, and the feeling passed. So, it was probably just allergies… or gas. Which was awkward, right? Like,Pardon me, but I might do something magical, or I might let out a silent and deadly one, so maybe don’t stand so close.

So, yeah… Not exactly brimming with magical oomph. Not anymore.

It sucked.

And being surrounded by werewolves like Hayden, hellhounds like Van, or mermen like Weston didn’t help my self-confidence. As shifters, those guys oozed magic. It lived within the very fabric of their bodies. If they didn’t have a healthy and strong magic, they couldn’t exist.

And, well, without much magic, I didn’t exactly excel, but at least I survived.

Oh, yeah, and I could talk to magical, non-shifter cats, so there was that. Although I hadn’t met a supe in Willow Lake who couldn’t, so it wasn’t exactly an indicator of something amazing.

The first time it’d happened, I was sitting in the middle of the pub at the Willow Lake Inn during a busy Friday night. I’d only been in town for a few weeks, and everyone said the pub was the place to go to meet people. I’d just taken my first sip of my first pint when a fluffy calico cat—its furry coat a chaotic jumble of black, orange and white, with a black patch over one eye making it look like a pirate—jumped up on my table. The cat was on the chunky side, so he landed with a loud thump. It surprised the shit out of me.

My first thought after I realized it was a cat: Weren’t animals on tables some kind of health code violation?

Then the cat had introduced itself—or rather himself, since he’d clearly given his pronouns.

I hadn’t been prepared for that. I mean who would be?

But that was my only excuse for why my full pint of beer slipped from my fingers, crashed to the worn wooden table, and spilledeverywhere. My pants and the front of my shirt were soaked through, but the most memorable part was the way the cat had yowled and jumped away like I’d stepped on its Halloween colored tail. Everyone—and I mean literally every single person in the pub—turned to stare at me like I was a monster for making the cat scream.

Pawington the Third, or Paws as the locals called him, had spent the rest of the night cleaning his fur—a bit excessively if you asked me—and scowling at me from across the room.

It’d taken two months before Paws had approached me again. Now, just over three years later, I couldn’t get rid of the creature.

"Seriously," Paws said as he whipped his tail through the air, "how much longer will it take the kid to figure this shit out? My day on the betting pool is coming up soon and he isn't showing any sign of getting his shit together."

Paws never shouted, so I had to lean over and concentrate to hear him over the loud music playing on the old school jukebox, the clack of balls on the pool table, and the raucous conversation at the next table. I suspected the loud group was made up of chipmunk shifters, but without my magic at full capacity I couldn’t be sure.

My conversation with Paws would be so much easier if I could pop a shimmering dome of silence over us like my mother did in situations like this. She had an affinity for air though, so even if my magic was full and normal, as a fire mage, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

"He's only been here a year. Give him a break." I glanced over at Jake, the new-ish owner of the Willow Lake Inn and Pub, as I adjusted my fuzzy pink sweater, tugging the collar of the shirt I wore under it, so it was between the itchy cashmere and my neck again. Cashmere was softer than the other types of wool I’d tried, but it still irritated the shit out of my skin. Being cold ninety-nine percent of the time sucked. Even during the hot spell we’d been going through, I was still cold. People looked at me like I was crazy, bundled up in long sleeved sweaters when everyone else was walking around in shorts and muscle tees. But I’d been this way since that one night several years ago—

Paws harrumphed, interrupting my thoughts, and glowered at Jake.

Ulric, Jake's grandfather, had left the place to him in his will last year. At first all the supes kept coming to the pub because it was their local and they figured any grandkid of Ulric’s must be a supe too. When it became obvious the new guy couldn't see past the magical glamor most of his patrons wore to hide their non-human appearances, Jake had become the center of a big guessing game—with money involved, obviously—for when he'd realize he was a supe and finally see the rest of us for what we were.

Someone could expose him to the supernatural world in a way he couldn't ignore, which would allow him to see around all the glamors, but they'd forfeit their money. But, let's face it, Willow Lake didn't have a lot of entertainment; no one wanted to ruin the fun. So, as much as Paws complained and acted like he was ready to end it all and reveal everything to Jake, no one took him too seriously.

Jake looked over at me then, probably sensing he was being watched, and smiled.

No doubt about it, the guy was cute in a twink-ish kind of way. It was too bad I wanted a burly giant of a man—someone who could wrap me up in a big bear hug and cuddle—because Jake was nice. He was exactly the kind of guy my mother wanted me to fall for, the kind I’d always ignored in the past, the kind who wouldn’t be dangerous. Although maybe it was premature to say he wasn’t dangerous since no one knew what his supernatural abilities might be, assuming he had any.