Page 31 of Fiends and Familiars
I rolled my eyes. Such drama. There’s no way he’d been looking for a lost squirrel forcenturies. The guy was a jerk and a liar.
“Well, finders keepers, losers weepers. You’ve got yourself a dozen dog-things, you don’t need this squirrel, especially if you’ve lived just fine without it forcenturies. What do you want with him anyway?”
“He’s mine for all of eternity. I have to torture him, and I’m way behind on his punishment,” Ty shouted.
Oh, he was so not getting this squirrel—or any squirrel for that matter. In fact, I might not even let him take the hellhounds back with him. Did he torture them as well? Poor puppers, no wonder they were so on edge. They just needed some love, a nice comfy pillow, and a whole lot of liver treats and they’d be fine. I’d bet I could quickly find nice families to adopt them.
“If anyone is going to be punishing anybody, it’s me,” I shouted back. Hearing an alarmed squeak I turned to Rhoid. “Don’t worry. I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about him. Ooo, just wait until I get my hands on him.”
Sadly that statement was followed by all sorts of lurid fantasies that had very little to do with punishment. Damn him for being so sexy! And what was with me still wanting this guy after he’d shown himself to be a total douche-canoe?
Ty threw his hands up in the air, then took a step toward me. “Addy listen, you’re being completely irrational here. Just give me the squirrel. If I don’t take him, someone else will—and they might not be as nice about it.”
My entire body tingled at the way he said my name, and now I was mad again. “I’mbeing irrational? You pretend to like me, then the moment I invite you into my house you have sex with me, then bring out your attack hounds and try to steal my squirrel. Go back to hell. Go, and don’t come back. And leave these sweet puppies. You don’t deserve them.”
He ground his teeth. “Addy, he’s not a squirrel, he’s a soul that escaped from hell. And I didn’t tell my hounds to attack you. I’d never let them do that. They’re here to grab the squirrel, Faust. They were going to secure him and bring him to hell.”
There he was, that sexy guy again, but I couldn’t forget coming out of my bedroom to find him strangling a squirrel, even if he was telling the truth and Rhoidwasa soul that had escaped from hell. And I couldn’t forgive the fact that he’d set this all up just to get a soul back.
He didn’t really like me. He didn’t really want me. Yeah, he’d obviously enjoyed sex with me, but it was all done with an ulterior motive. I didn’t matter to him.
It made me want to cry, and I’d be damned if I cried in front of this asshole.
“Get out.” For a brief second I thought about turning his hounds on him, but I’d already crossed the line with them and done something I swore I’d never do. I wouldn’t make it worse by forcing them to attack their own master.
Ty looked at me, then at the squirrel, then back at me. “Okay. I’m sorry, Addy.”
He wasn’t sorry. He wasn’t sorry at all. Picking up the nearest thing at hand, which happened to be a scented candle, I threw it at him. “Get. Out.”
He vanished, leaving an expensive BMW in my driveway, a dozen hounds on my living room floor, and me with tears stinging my eyes. Without another word, I left everyone behind, went into my bedroom, closed the door and cried.
