Page 2 of Hellhounds Never Lie

I sighed and rubbed my chest to ground my thoughts, tracing one of the thick corded scars marking my chest through my layers of clothes. The scars occasionally itched, but they didn’t hurt anymore. Touching the thick scar tissue, however, had become a habit, although probably not a healthy one.

When Jake’s attention turned away from me, I let my gaze drift over the rest of the locals in the pub. There were a couple of guys who I wouldn't mind dragging home for the night, but… I frowned. I couldn’t quite muster the nerve to actually approach them for a date. At this point, I wondered if I ever would.

A phantom ache shot through my scars.

Paws swatted my cheek. "Are you listening to me?"

The creature narrowed his yellow eyes as he tracked where my fingers were still moving over my scar. The weight of his curiosity had me yanking my hand away.

Nope. I didn’t want to talk about my failed attempts at love with a cat, even a magical one. I didn't even want to think about my disastrous love life right now.

"Yeah, yeah. You didn’t have to hit me." I rubbed where his claws had struck me, then pulled my hand away to look at it. Luckily, Paws hadn't drawn blood. It still stung though. "You want to win the bet. I get it."

Paws lifted his head and sniffed dismissively at me.

Some people got annoyed with the supernatural creature when he did arrogant things like that, but I was just thankful he wasn’t pressing for answers about my scars. He was a nosy bastard, which he blamed on his feline nature, but I didn’t buy that excuse. Paws was just a regular old snoop. He liked to know everything about everyone. Which meant he had to have made a few deductions about my past and he was biding his time before asking pointed questions to confirm his suspicions.

But, to my relief, he seemed happy enough to talk about Jake today.

My phone pinged. I glanced at it and grinned. Jeremy, my best friend—yes, the human one—had sent me a meme with a calico cat being snotty. Jer was a cat lover and had a seemingly endless supply of cat memes. Still, the timing on this particular one was perfect. I showed it to Paws, who hissed at the screen. I laughed and fired back a meme to Jer that I’d found earlier when I was on a break at the restaurant. He replied immediately.

MyBestestBFF4ever: Do you think a skilled barber could groom a sasquatch well enough that people would just think he was a really hairy man?

Me: Yep. Your last BF Steve was one.

MyBestestBFF4ever: Shut up. He was never my boyfriend. We went for coffee twice.

Me: He was very, very hairy and had that weirdly big forehead. And you said he grunted the whole time. Ergo, sasquatch.

MyBestestBFF4ever: Hmm… Now that you say that. *thinking face emoji* Maybe I should give him a call.

I knew for a fact Steve wasn’t a supe, so I wasn’t doing anything that’d jeopardize his identity. Still, for someone who didn’t know supes existed, Jeremy spent a lot of time speculating about supernatural creatures. I usually answered with the truth, even if he’d never know, but sometimes I pretended I was just as ignorant of supes as he was. After all, he wasn’t asking because he wanted to out the supernatural community. No, he was just a guy with a vivid imagination who enjoyed thinking about what if scenarios.

And, for the record, he is the one who changed his name in my phone to MyBestestBFF4ever. At the time, I’d pointed out he didn’t need the second F if he had the 4ever, but he was adamant. It was just so Jeremy. It made me smile whenever it popped up on my phone.

When he didn’t text anything more, I put my phone down. Paws immediately lifted his head and started complaining again.

"Have you been listening to me?” Paws prodded. “Do you know how ridiculous it is to talk to a guy every day and have him meow back at you? But the fucking baby talk is the worst. Do I look like a damn baby? I'm telling you, I'm going to stuff a dead mouse in his mouth in the middle of the night if he keeps up with this bullshit."

"It's weird though, isn't it? That he doesn't have a clue about supes or his own power, whatever it is." I studied Jake again. "Maybe he isn't part of Ulric’s blood line."

"Nah. That's Ulric’s grandkid alright. Spitting image of him when he was the same age. And Hayden said he smells like Ulric’s kin."

"I bet a better mage than me would be able to tell if he's been cursed or something."

"Stop that.” Paws hit my face again.

“Would you quit doing that?” I glared at him.

“You've got power. I know you do. You just need to learn to use it."

And not have anyone steal it from me.

But I didn't say that part out loud.

I hadn't told anyone about what had happened to me before I moved here. It was too personal. Too humiliating. All the supes in town probably knew I was a little fucked up—most of them had intensely sensitive senses of one kind or another. You couldn’t hide much from this many supernatural beings. But no one asked and I hadn’t volunteered anything.

Knowing I could keep my secrets, and no one would bother me about them was one of the reasons I’d stayed. Although, with everyone so willing to happily ignore my secrets, they must have had a lot of practice. It made a person wonder what other skeletons were buried in people’s closets… Still, if I wanted to keep mine, I couldn’t expect everyone else to blab about theirs.