Page 18 of Brimstone and Broomsticks
Alberta was a troll. Her kind of rough would kill Lucien if he were really a human. Actually, her kind of rough might kill Marcus as well. Shifters were sturdy, but not troll-sturdy.
“Is a panther like a male cougar?” Lucien asked with a puzzled frown. “Like older humans who prefer sexual partners much younger than they are? I’m not particularly attracted to younger demons when it comes to sexual partners, but of course any humans are obviously much younger than me. So I guess Iama panther.”
Alberta sent him what was probably supposed to be a smoldering glance. I fought the urge to grab my amulet. Pissing the troll off would have consequences I didn’t want to contemplate but I didn’t want her injuring my client.
“Wanna get it on later?” she purred. “Got a place under the bridge I like to do my business at.”
I kicked Lucien’s ankle and shot him my best horrified look, shaking my head. His look in return was definitely smoldering.
“Going to have to pass, ma’am. There’s someone else whose bridge I’d like to be crawling under tonight.”
I choked back a retort, and tried to resist setting the man’s pants on fire. It wouldn’t be a good move in the middle of my anger management meeting. And if he were a human, I’d end up breaking my own rule and killing him.
Alberta pursed her lips. “Shame. Good looking man like you could do a lot better than a witch like Cassie. She might like the rough stuff, but witches still break easy, ya’know? I’m more sturdy. And better looking.”
Lucien’s gaze hadn’t left my face. “Like it rough, do youCassie?”
“Ms. Perkins,” I corrected, my face on fire.
“Obviously,” Alberta replied, “or she wouldn’t have been thinking about getting married to a panther. Or thinking that setting his pants on fire at work would set his heart on fire as well.”
I hadn’t been trying to get Marcus back. What kind of freak gets turned on by that sort of thing?
The freak next to me, obviously.
“Can we get started?” I asked irritably.
“Yes, let’s get started,” Lucien drawled. “I’ve got a bridge to breach. Let’s get this meeting underway.”
Martin gave us all a benevolent smile. “Who would like to start?”
John raised his hand, then adjusted the patch he used to cover his not-eye. It helped that his actual eye wasn’t exactly dead center. The patch just made it look like he had incredibly close-set eyes and wasn’t a cyclops. John hated that thing, but it gave his face a symmetry that he lacked without it and kept any newbies from staring. And as much as John hated the patch, he hated people staring at him even more.
“Went to the grocery store on Tuesday,” he announced to our little group.
Alberta, Martin, and I clapped, while Lucien seemed perplexed that a trip to the grocery store would warrant such enthusiasm.
“Excellent!” Martin told the cyclops. “How did it go? Did you achieve your goal?”
We left each weekly meeting with self-assigned goals. John’s was to make polite conversation with strangers and have an outing in public without getting into an argument with any of those strangers.
“I said ‘thank you’ to the cashier.”
We clapped.
“I didn’t yell at the man in the produce section for tasting the strawberries.”
We clapped.
“But I did get into a fight with a man who didn’t return his shopping cart to the corral.”
We collectively held our breaths.
“You scolded him?” Martin asked hopefully.
John shook his head, fingering the patch once more. “I was polite, but he gave me the finger and told me to fuck off, so I grabbed the cart and started smashing it into his car. I didn’t hit him though. And I didn’t eat him, although he looked tasty. Better than that rump roast I had in my shopping bag.”
“You should have crammed him into the shopping cart, set it on fire, and rolled it down a hill,” Lucien commented.
