Page 29 of Demon Daddy

“What—hey. Where are you—?”

Going.

Chapter 13

Iwait on the landing a long time.

Then I go looking, and I don’t find him, and by the time my stomach starts growling, there’s nobody around to make me eat.

Something changed. I saw it in his eyes. Felt it in the vibrations between us.

I’ve done the math.

The curse is broken.

He doesn’t need a bride anymore.

He needed a mouth that could say his name, and I said it, and now I’m just a girl in a robe in a very big temple, and he’s probably top-side eating souls like an all-night Vegas buffet.

I push my glasses up my nose, pull the robe tight over everything Tanner Pruitt ever had an opinion about, sit down on the edge of the bath, and get small.

Kenny drops off a red glowing vine above my head.

He flaps down in lazy loops, lands on my knee, light as a leaf, spreads his wings, and looks up at me.

“Don’t,” I tell him. “I am not in the mood to be judged by a bat.”

I reach out to tap his head. I mean, he is sort of a pet, and I need some oxytocin, and aren’t pets supposed to help your nervous system reset?

I get my hand just above his head, and he stretches his tiny body up and bites me.

“Ow! Kenny! Not cool, man.”

It’s barely anything, a pinch on the side of my palm, two dots of red.

“You gonna apologize?” I snap, inspecting the tiny bite, but when I look back down, he’s already gone, a black scrap zigzagging off down the east corridor faster than I knew bats could go.

A second later, from somewhere deep in the temple, a demon older than Vermont yells, “OW.”

Then I’m up off the edge of the bath, following the sound down the corridor, around the corner. Ahead of me, getting louder, heavy hoof steps are coming the other way, and a voice is growling, “No. No, I said no—“

We meet in the middle of the east stairs.

He’s got one hand braced on the wall like he’s been fighting it the whole way, two fresh little holes in the meat of his thumb. I’ve got mine on the back of my hand.

We both stop, three steps apart, breathing hard.

Then something like an invisible hook yanks at my center, the three steps become zero, and I’m plastered against his stomach with my face in his fur.

“Kenny,” he snarls at the ceiling.

Somewhere above us, something small and leathery sounds extremely pleased with itself.

“What did he do?” I mutter into a mouthful of fur because I’m literally stuck to him.

An invisible force presses on my back, holding me in place. Demon Daddy’s heart is racing under where my ear is plastered against him.

“He is old magic. Older than me.” He sounds furious and mortified in equal parts. “He is a Cupid Bat. They are very rare. I know of no others in my time.”