Page 44 of Lust

“You’re still here, aren’t you?” She glowered at the traitorous hounds. They’d hurled her under the bus, backed it up, and ridden over her again.

Shade moved so quickly she didn’t have a chance to evade him. He grabbed her sore arm and made her yelp. Then he sniffed it. “When did you get bitten by a rakshasa?” His expression turned thoughtful. “And how the fuck are you still alive?”

Chapter

Twelve

“What the hell does that mean?” Eddie yelled. “What do you mean why am I still alive?” Yesterday had told her to put fucking salt on her bite. Her bite that apparently should have killed her.

“You were bitten by a rakshasa demon.” Shade rearranged pillows behind his back and leaned back, as if he hadn’t announced her narrow brush with death. She might be dying right now.

Had her heart just missed a beat? Was her breathing becoming labored? Yes and yes, but that was outrage not imminent death. “Yesterday!” she bellowed.

Shade studied her like a culture on a slide. “It bit you yesterday?” He looked thoughtful. “I’ve never heard of a human surviving a rakshasa demon that long.”

“It bit me days ago.” She shoved her injured arm closer to him. “And it’s getting worse. Yesterday is a little yellow scum sucker who has some explaining to do.”

“Scum sucker?” He tilted his head. “Is that an actual description or colorful human invective?”

“You know what?” She was done with these assholes from hell. “I’m over the way you say human like it’s a bad thing.” And more importantly. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“I’m not sure I take your meaning.” A smirk tilted his sultry mouth. “I have a couple of ideas, but now might not be the best time to suggest them.”

“Rakshasa bite.” She shoved her arm right under his nose. “That should have killed me. Am I dying?”

“Ugh.” He recoiled from her arm. “You stink.”

“And you suck,” she snapped. “But answer my question.”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “As I said, I have never known a human to last more than an hour after a rakshasa bite. The fact that you are still standing is unprecedented.

She was getting nowhere with this one, so she yelled again, “Yesterday!”

“You’re calling the little yellow scum sucker?” He glanced at the hounds, and they both stood.

Eddie eyed the traitors with misgiving. “What are they doing?”

“They’re going hunting.”

The hounds slunk out the door.

Eddie was suddenly nervous for Yesterday. She wouldn’t really have set the hounds on him. Shade had no such compunction. “Will they hurt him?”

Shade chuckled. “They’re hell hounds.”

Not reassuring. Not even a teeny bit. She rushed after the hounds. “Don’t hurt him.”

Both hounds turned to stare at her.

“Please?”

One of them sighed and raised his head and sniffed. It sounded like the suction on a vacuum hose. Then both hounds shot off together.

“Eddie?” Shade called from the bedroom. “There is something else we need to address.”

Never mind address, one of them had to get dressed. Still, she found herself heading back into the bedroom and saying with as much grace as she could muster. “What?”

“The hounds.” Shade jerked his head in the direction they’d disappeared. “You speak to them.”

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