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- Herausgeber: Te Da Media
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
At 10:47 AM, Nava Katz is given a magic destiny. Turns out it’s non-refundable. Destiny can suck it.
Nava Katz is an expert at burying her lost dreams and wielding cynicism as her personal brand. Then she interrupts her twin brother's induction ceremony into a secret supernatural society, accidentally torches his life-long dream, and steals his destiny as a Chosen Demon Hunter.
Suddenly she’s got dangerous new powers she can’t control, a centuries-old Brotherhood rooting for her to crash and burn, and her twin’s life hanging in the balance. Her designated shadow? Rohan Mitra, a brilliant, dangerous slayer whose inner demons earn nods of respect from actual ones.
With demons on her tail, sabotage at every turn, and her own doubts trying to take the wheel, survival is only half the battle. The real challenge is believing she’s worthy of this power—and a second chance.
The Brotherhood wants her gone. The demons want her dead. First day as a Chosen One and she's already nailing it.
Ready for snark, steam, and supernatural smackdowns? Nava’s your girl.
Includes the titles:
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Sting
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Need
Binge it now!
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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THE UNLIKEABLE DEMON HUNTER COLLECTION: BOOKS 1-3
A DEVILISHLY FUNNY URBAN FANTASY ROMANCE
DEBORAH WILDE
CONTENTS
Are you buckled up for the ride?
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Sting
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Need
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Sneak Peek of The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Crave
Nava explains awesome Yiddish and Hebrew words used in this series.
Acknowledgments
About the Author
ARE YOU BUCKLED UP FOR THE RIDE?
Bestselling author Deborah Wilde presents three gloriously funny, sexy urban fantasy novels about a snarky half-demon hunter with attitude, an infuriatingly hot slayer with a mysterious past, and a secret Brotherhood battling demonic threats.
Juggling demon killing and sexy times is hard work.
The Nava Katz series is best read in order, starting with THE UNLIKEABLE DEMON HUNTER.
Deborah has a chatty newsletter where she shares what’s warming her cold, dead heart, gives sneak peeks and insider information, and holds giveaways.
Join the Wilde Ones.
1
Mornings after sucked.
Walks of shame were a necessary evil, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed shimmying back into the same trollop togs twice. I picked glitter out of my hair, then straightened my sequined top. I was officially decommissioning it. Multiple washings never quite managed to remove the lingering aura of bad decisions I made while wearing party clothes. My philosophy? Cross my fingers and hope for the most bang for the bucks spent on new outfits.
The surly cabbie evil-eyed me to hurry up.
I complied, rooting around in my clutch for some crumpled bills before handing them over and stumbling out of the taxi onto the sidewalk.
Fresh air was a godsend after the stale bitter coffee smell I’d been trapped with during the ride. I pressed a finger to my temple, a persistent dull throb stabbing me behind my eyeballs. My residual feel good haze clashed big-time with the glaring sun screaming at me to wake up, and the buzz of a neighbor’s lawnmower cutting through the Sunday morning quiet didn’t help matters. Best get inside.
Smoothing out my mini skirt, I readied myself for my tame-my-happy-slut-self-to-boring-PG-rating body check when a wave of dizziness crashed through me. Whoa. I brought my gaze back to horizon level, swallowing hard. That sea-sickness technique was doing dick-all, so I rummaged in my bag for ginger chews.
No puking in the bushes, I chided myself, letting the spicy smooth and sweet candy fight my nausea. My mother would toss my bubble ass out if I defiled her precious rhodos.
Again.
The rise and fall of my chest as I took a few deep breaths spotlit a slight problem. My spangly blouse was missing two buttons. And I was missing a bra. Hook-up Dude had been worth the loss of a pair of socks, maybe a bargain bin thong. But the latest in purple push-up technology? No. I allowed myself a second to mourn. It had been a good and loyal bra.
The sex, on the other hand? Total crap. The girls, who were normally perky, generous handfuls, seemed a bit subdued. I couldn’t blame them. What’s-his-name had started out with all the promise of a wild stallion gallop, but he’d ended up more of a gentle trot. I didn’t know if the fault lay with the jockey or the ride, but it had been a long time since I’d seen a finish line.
Since I couldn’t keep examining my tits on the front walk with Mrs. Jepson side-eyeing me from behind her living room curtains, I thrust my chin up and clacked a staccato rhythm toward my front door on those mini torture chambers that had seemed such a good idea yesterday.
Every step made our precisely manicured lawn undulate. I clamped my lips shut, willing the ginger chews to kick in while fumbling my key into the lock. Dad had screwed up the measurements on our striking cedar and stained glass front door and, being a touch too big for the frame, it needed to be shouldered open.
I crashed into the door like a linebacker. Once I’d extricated myself and my keys from the lock, I brushed myself off and stepped inside. Our house itself was comfortably upper middle class, but not huge, since my parents preferred to spend money on trips and books instead of the overpriced real estate found here in Vancouver. A quick glance to my left showed that the TV room was empty. I crossed my fingers that Mom and Dad were out at their squash game, my main reason for picking this specific time to sneak back in.
Really, a twenty-year-old shouldn’t have to sneak. But then again, a twenty-year-old probably should have kept her last menial job for longer than two weeks, so I wasn’t in a position to argue rights.
I kicked off my shoes, sighing in delight at the feel of cool tile under my bare feet as I padded through the house to our homey kitchen. No one was in there either. Someone, probably Mom, had tacked the envelope with my final–and only–pay stub from the call center that I’d left lying around onto our small “miscellaneous” cork board. The gleaming quartz counters were now free of their usual clutter of papers, books, and the latest gourmet food finds. That meant company. Come to think of it, I did hear someone in the living room.
A study in tasteful shades of white, the large formal room was off-limits unless we had special guests. Mom had set that rule when my twin brother Ari and I were little tornados running around the place and while there was no longer a baby gate barring our way, conditioning and several memorable scoldings kept us out.
Hmmm. Could Ari be entertaining an actual human boy?
I beelined for the back of the house, past the row of identically framed family photos hanging in a neat grid. I cocked my head, listening for more voices, but all was quiet. Maybe I’d been wrong? I hoped not. Both finding my brother with a crush–blackmail dirt–and helping myself to the liquor cabinet were positive prospects. What better way to lose that hangover headache than get drunk again? Oh, the joys of being Canadian with socialized health care and legal drinking age of nineteen. After a year (officially) honing that skill, I imbibed at an Olympic level.
The red wine on the modular coffee table gleamed in a shaft of sunlight like its position had been ordained by the gods. I snatched up the crystal decanter, sloshing the liquid into the glass conveniently placed next to it. Once in a while, a girl could actually catch a break.
I fanned myself with one hand. The myriad of lit candles seemed a bit much for Ari’s romantic encounter, but wine drinking trumped curiosity, so I chugged the booze back. My entire body cheered as the cloyingly sweet alcohol hit my system, though I hoped it wasn’t Manischewitz because hangovers on that were a bitch. I’d slugged back half the contents when I saw my mom on the far side of the room clutch her throat, eyes wide with horror. Not her usual, “you need an intervention” horror. No, her expression indicated I’d reached a whole new level of fuck-up.
“Nava Liron Katz,” she gasped in full name outrage.
My cheeks still bulging with wine, I properly scoped out the room. Mom? Check. Dad? Check. Ari? Check. Rabbi Abrams, here to perform the ceremony to induct my brother as the latest member in the Brotherhood of David, the chosen demon hunters?
Check.
I spit the wine back into what I now realized was a silver chalice and handed it to the elderly bearded rabbi. “Carry on,” I told him. Then I threw up on his shoes.
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, I huddled on top of the closed toilet seat in my ensuite bathroom sucking the cheesy coating off Doritos while replaying my actions in grisly Technicolor. Even with all the lights off, the room was as bright and insistent as Martha Stewart’s smile. A dusty Costco-sized sanitary pad box lay open on the counter–the hiding place for my secret stash of arterial clogging happiness.
Now, though, the chips were less illicit joy and more bite-sized snacks of self-loathing.
I stuck my hand into the bag for another nacho, careful not to crinkle it and give myself away. Hard to say what had been the highlight of that little disaster: drinking the ceremonial wine, vomiting, or the wardrobe malfunction that had released my left boob into the world and caused my dad to strain his back jumping in front of me to block the view.
Go me.
Someone rapped on the door. Chip in my mouth like a pacifier, I froze, listening to the raised voices from downstairs–the rabbi yelling, my mother cajoling, and my father reasoning. That left Ari, and right now I was too chickenshit to face him. How could saying sorry cover wrecking the most important moment of his life?
“I know you’re eating Doritos,” he called from outside the door. “Let me in.”
“Nope.” I swallowed down the now-mushy chip and gave a lusty groan. “I’m making a hate crime.”
“If that were true, you’d be running the water because you’re paranoid people will learn you have an anus.” He jiggled the knob. “Let me in.”
I glared at the tap, assigning blame to the inanimate object for failing to carry out its part of my brilliant plan. Dumping the bag down on the counter with a sigh, I washed orange nacho residue off my hands before I tightened the belt on the fuzzy housecoat now wrapped around me, and unlocked the door.
“I’m so, so sorry, Ari,” I said, hanging my head. My fraternal twin deserved all the success and more. Ari never treated me like I was “less than” in any way, not even once. “I know you have no reason to believe me but–”
“Shut up,” he said, brushing past me in his navy-fitted suit. Very bespoke, except for the tired slump of his shoulders.
He lowered himself down onto the edge of the bathtub, knocking one of the many bottles of citrusy shampoo into the tub. With one hand braced on the mosaic shower tiles for support, he removed his kippah, tossing it onto the counter where its gold-embroidered Star of David winked among the chaos of makeup and hair pins.
“Damn, that itches.” He scratched his blond head with a relieved sigh, then jerked his chin at the Doritos bag still in my hand. “You gonna share?”
I locked the door, returned to my throne seat, and held the chips out between us.
We sat there in companionable silence, munching through the party-sized bag.
“These are so disgusting,” Ari said, stuffing about ten of them in his mouth.
I reached over and brushed orange crumbs off his suit. “Careful, bubeleh. Wouldn’t want you to get dirty. Oh, if the elders knew that their healthy-eating chosen one was up here taking years off his life.”
“Eh,” he said, spraying chips. “I’d just blame you, o defiler of innocents.”
“Useful having an evil twin, isn’t it?” My tone was light; my stomach twisted.
He wiped his mouth. “Don’t give yourself that much credit. You’re not evil. Just misguided.”
I drew myself up to my full height. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
We finished the bag, then elbowed each other for first rights of tap water. A quick sip later and I slid onto the brown cork floor, bloated and happy. Well, as happy as I could be.
“I don’t know how you’re not puking given you were still drunk an hour ago,” Ari said.
“These chips have magic properties. Plus, I got it all out of my system on the carpet.”
He shuddered. “Don’t remind me. I think Mom is angrier about that than your spectacular entrance. She was a fairly impressive mottled red when I left her.”
“Merlot or tomato?”
“Nava Red,” my brother replied. “A special shade named in honor of you.”
“Why were you doing the ritual anyway?” I snapped. “The induction is tomorrow. The sixth.”
“Or, today, the sixth.”
Shit! I hugged my knees into my chest. “Ari–”
He stood up, one hand raised to cut me off. “No. You really want to apologize? Take a shower and get dressed so that I have one person who wants to be at this ceremony for me. Not for status or whatever the hell I am to those people down there.”
“Ace,” I gasped, “isn’t this what you want?”
He affixed the kippah back on his head, staring at his reflection in the mirror above the sink for a long moment. “I’ve never had a chance to decide whether I wanted it or not. We were five days old when they determined I was an initiate. I didn’t get a vote.”
We’d both seen the photo of our parents’ stunned faces when a somewhat younger, yet still astonishingly ancient Rabbi Abrams had visited my mother–a descendent of King David–to check Ari out. Since the Brotherhood is top secret, my parents weren’t clued in to the true nature of the rabbi’s visit until after he’d determined Ari as an initiate: a chosen demon hunter. The photo in question had been taken after a lot of explanations and convincing that yes, this was all real, and yes, their son had a hell of an important destiny.
I went into my bedroom to grab some clean clothes to put on after my shower.
Back in the day, and by day I’m talking Old Testament, this shepherd called David took out the giant Goliath for King Saul. While that landed David his place in history, there was more to him than his crazy rock-slinging skills.
I don’t know if David was an adrenaline junkie or a major do-gooder, but when King Saul was later possessed by a demon, David was all “leave it to me,” and cast the hell spawn out. Guess David figured demon removal was a good public service to keep up, because once he became king around 1010 B.C.E., he gathered up his buddies to continue the work. Kick-ass Jews. Awesome.
Though it had never made sense why he called his hunters Rasha–the Hebrew word for “wicked.”
I tossed my clothes over the hook affixed to the back of the bathroom door. “Talk to me.”
My brother had spent his entire life studying and training in preparation for the day he was formally inducted into the Brotherhood. I cocked an eyebrow at Ari, annoyed when he shrugged off my question. “Don’t pretend you aren’t excited to see what magic power you’ll end up with.”
His eyes lit up for a second. “Telekinesis or light bender. Those would be cool.” He jerked a thumb at the shower and I obediently ran the tap, waiting for the water to hit blistering temperature.
“Slime generator or asphyxiation via lethal ass gas, more like.”
“Ha. Ha.” Ari gnawed on his bottom lip.
“You want out?” I cracked my knuckles. “You could totally take all three of them downstairs. I’ll help.”
He shrugged, the motion bunching the dark fabric around his muscles. “I don’t know what else I’d do. What else I’m good for.”
I poked his bicep. “Kill the pity party, Mr. Perfect GPA. I’m sure between your chem major and biology minor some giant pharmaceutical company somewhere will have a small fortune and loads of interesting problems for you to solve.” I wasn’t jealous. He and I didn’t roll that way. He may have been chosen and wicked smart, but the only thing that bugged me about him was that he had prettier lashes than me. It was always the boys with those camel eyes. So unfair.
I tested the water temperature, shaking droplets off my hand until satisfied with its magma level of hot, and pulled the knob up to send the water cascading full blast through the shower head.
Ari mussed my hair. “You’re gonna do something great some day, too,” he said. I smacked his hand off of my head. “You just need to find your thing.” He rushed that second sentence as if hoping I wouldn’t remember that I’d found my thing a long time ago and the chances of finding something else I loved as much were pretty slim.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” I pushed him toward the door. “Go keep them from cutting me out of the will. I’ll be there in ten. The picture of respectability.”
Ari snorted. “Don’t strain yourself. I’ll settle for clean.” He sniffed me, fanning in front of his face with a grimace. “Were you screwing in a dumpster again?”
“Frat house. Same, same.” I reached for the belt of my housecoat.
He unlocked the door, half-twisting back to me. “Would you care? If I didn’t do it?”
I paused, belt still tied. “God, no. The few Rasha I ever met were dick-swinging balls of testosterone. Though I’d hoped for your sake some of them were also dick-sucking. Like that smexy Brazilian they brought in last year to train you in Capoeira.”
He failed to appreciate my eyebrow waggle. “Why do I bother?”
King David had realized pretty early on that even if he rid Israel of demons, there was a reason they were part of every culture’s mythology. Demons were an international problem. Since Jerusalem was close to this trade route called the King’s Highway, David sent his band far and wide to find all the best specimens of manhood from various races and religions including Muslims, Egyptians, Zoroastrians, Phoenicians, Celts, and Thracians to fight the good fight. The Brotherhood was formed.
It was kind of cool to see how far-ranging those original bloodlines had traveled into present day. What wasn’t cool was how serious and stressed my brother was, so I smacked my lips, hell-bent on getting a smile. “Mmm. High quality Brazilian meat.”
Ari made a sound of disgust and whipped my loofah glove at me. I ducked, laughing, and it sailed into my shower. “What? You don’t want a boyfriend? It’s an all-male Brotherhood.” I eyed him up and down and shrugged. “Statistically speaking, someone in that crew would find you attractive. ”
His lips quirked, despite his best efforts to look stern. “I have no time for dating.”
“Me neither. But I have a whole bunch of sex instead. Something you, my dear older brother, could use. Regular doing of the nasty might loosen you up.”
“I’m loose,” he said, tightening his tie.
“Yeah.” I shoved him out the door. “A regular whore of Babylon. Now get outta here. I’ve got to pretty up.”
One thing I’d say in my favor, I was not one of those girls who took forever to get ready. I was showered and dressed in something practically Amish in the allotted ten minutes. I twisted my hair into a bun at the nape of my neck, and fresh faced, headed downstairs.
Time for my close up, Mr. Demille. Bowing my head, I shuffled into the living room.
“Forgive me, Rabbi.” I prostrated myself like a wedding guest begging the Godfather for a favor. “I was involved in a car accident on my way home,” I lied. I stood up again. “It’s why I needed a drink. I was so rattled.” I infused as much pathos into my voice as possible while blinking up at him. Tricky, since I was four inches taller, but not impossible. “I’m sure you’ve never had that problem.”
Men, whether straight, gay, holy, or otherwise, could be such suckers. The rabbi patted my hand in forgiveness, his touch papery dry. “You need to show more respect, Navela,” he said, using the Yiddish diminutive of my name.
I nodded, side-stepping around the wet-yet-once-more-spotlessly-clean former puke site on the white, short-velvet-pile carpet. “You’re so right. I should come to schul. Isn’t your son the Cantor at Park West Synagogue? Such a beautiful voice when he prays.”
A look of abject horror contorted the rabbi’s features at the terrifying prospect of me getting my hands on his precious son. Trust me, the guy was a middle-aged balding chub. I had zero designs on his person.
“Start small,” Rabbi Abrams said.
While the rabbi had mentored Ari his entire life, having served as a head demon-hunter coach, my contact with him had been limited. In addition to coordinating training and fight instructors, he also taught my brother everything from demon types to creating wards and learning the various aspects of the Brotherhood itself. Ari tended to get pretty vague on those details.
“Shana,” the rabbi called out to my mother. “Now that the entire family is here, we can start the ceremony again.”
My mother handed him the newly washed chalice. “Of course, Rabbi.” Mom watched him shuffle off to prepare something, trailing a faint smell of mothballs in his wake, then, patting her sleek honey-colored bob, stepped past me with a murmured, “Carnage and lies? A busy morning.”
Mom was a lot harder to fool. A whip-smart, tenured history professor at the University of British Columbia with an annoying tendency to recall events best forgotten, she was also a best-selling author of, big surprise, a tome on King David.
My dad, Dov, dark-haired like me, was a prof, too. Law. Oy vey. Everything was fact-gathering to build a case with him. Case in point, he walked stiffly into the room, courtesy of his recent back injury, all pleated pants and sweater vest, the usual mug of coffee welded to his hand.
I gagged at the smell.
“What’s this about a car accident? Was this in the taxi? Did you get the information from him and the other driver?” His questions were gunfire fast. “You’ll need it for the claim.”
Shit. I hadn’t prepared for questioning.
Ace to the rescue. My brother tugged on Dad’s sleeve, leading him to his recliner. “Sit. Rabbi wants to start the ceremony.” Out of the corner of his mouth he muttered, “You owe me big time.”
I gave him a sheepish grin and sat in the brushed twill armchair at the far end like a good little girl, stuffing my hands under my butt.
Rabbi Abrams motioned for Ari to come stand beside him. While the rabbi was the picture of reverence as he lit the first candle, my brother’s hand jiggled madly in his pocket.
I threw him a thumbs up. Ari was going to be great.
The rabbi lit the last of the dozen or so large pillar candles on thick glass bases placed in a circle around the living room. The soulless space with its white carpet, white furniture and, wait for it, black and white brocade wallpaper was softened by their glow.
The ceremony involved a lot of singing prayer or chanting or something in Hebrew. I’d pretty much spent my Hebrew school classes reading Sweet Valley High so I didn’t understand it, but I’d been to synagogue enough that the singing and ritualistic gestures were familiar. The rhythms and cadence of the language lulled me, even soothing my grating headache a bit.
The old guy didn’t have a bad voice, probably where his son got his talent, and the ceremony itself was kind of lovely. Even my cold, dead heart couldn’t fail to be moved by the reverence and history of this ceremony.
All male descendants of King David–or of any hunter–were tracked as potentials. The first ritual, performed when they were a baby, determined if they could be bumped up to initiate–one who carried the Rasha make-up, versus the regular Muggle descendants. It weeded out about 98% of the potentials. If level two status was unlocked, they were labeled initiates and slated for training. Their second and final ceremony, the official induction to the Brotherhood where they became Rasha, happened at age twenty.
There were a couple of reasons for the wait. First off, it took initiates their entire childhood and adolescence to master the training and studying necessary to take on the gig. And, for more practical reasons, they needed to be inducted once they’d physically stopped growing and were in the prime of health for their body to accept the magic powers that this final ceremony would confer on them. After much trial, error, and loss of life, twenty had been hit on as the magic age.
Rabbi Abrams blessed the wine then handed the chalice to Ari. Once my brother had taken a sip, he dipped his finger in the wine and dripped three fat red drops back into the chalice. A reminder of the precious human blood that would be spilled if they lost their fight against evil.
I discreetly waved off some smudgy smoke, suppressing a tiny smile at my mom doing the exact same thing. If it had been up to my parents, they’d have rented a ballroom and invited every person they’d ever known to watch their little boy become a badass mensch. Let’s face it, a demon hunter induction had way more bragging rights than a Bar Mitzvah. Alas, the general populace was not to know the Brotherhood existed, so my parents had to keep quiet about Ari’s abilities and his big day today.
I’d always wished Ari’s induction would happen in a stone cavern with chanting, hooded members, but old David had mandated humility into Demon Club’s mission statement. The chosen one was supposed to selflessly devote his life to demon hunting for the greater good, not personal glory. Thus, it was always just a small ceremony with immediate family, if that, performed in the home.
The rabbi wrapped a small handkerchief around Ari’s wrist–white to symbolize piety. Yeah, right. Based on the very few Rasha I’d met, it would take more than a hankie to tamp down their enormous arrogance. Try a textile factory’s yearly output.
Rabbi Abrams held fast to the other end of the cloth as he lay his free hand on my brother’s head. More Hebrew.
I snuck a look at my parents. To their credit, they didn’t look disappointed. In fact, seated there, watching the ceremony with rapt looks, they pretty much glowed with delight.
My own chest warmed in tight mushiness and a tear leaked from my eye, streaking its way down my cheek.
Ouch.
I blinked against the sudden stinging. Everything took on a drugged, underwater quality as the room swam around me. I clasped my hands together, pressing them between my knees. Breathing through my nose. Determined not to mess up the ceremony.
Again.
Ari repeated some Hebrew phrases the rabbi gave him. Aww, look at that twin of mine, embracing his destiny. I focused on my excitement to be here with him as he stepped into his future.
Better him than me.
The edges of my vision flickered. The rabbi’s voice, harsh and far too loud, scraped over my skin. Clapping my hands over my ears didn’t help. My flesh broke out in goosebumps as whispers sounded around me. A million voices, a million Rasha spirits brought together to welcome the newly chosen.
Carpet fibers pricked the soles of my feet as I stood up. The room spun. Sweat dotted my brow, slid between my shoulder blades.
The rabbi had his back to me, but Ari glanced over, a flash of concern rippling through his serious expression.
Did I have delayed alcohol poisoning? I pulled at the neck of my shirt, fighting for air. Was that even a thing?
Rabbi Abrams opened a small, intricately carved box, revealing the fat gold ring that would mark Ari as one of the chosen. Gold from the ancient Judaic symbol for divine or celestial light, a holy blessing sought since David’s time.
Propelled by a force beyond my control, I opened my hand, reaching for the ring. Every atom inside me screamed out for that band.
“Sheli.” Huh? How did I suddenly know the Hebrew word for “mine?”
The ring floated free to hover in mid-air.
Every head in the room whipped my way. Mom tensed, her body straining forward to look at me. Dad’s eyes widened, his coffee mug falling to the floor, brown liquid pooling in a sludge.
Ari and Rabbi Abrams gaped, slack-jawed at me.
“Sheli,” I repeated, trance-like. My voice was a deep, rich, resonating command. Even though I was freaking out at my total lack of ability to control my actions, I also felt a deep sense of rightness in my gut as I spoke.
That freaked me out more.
The ring launched across the room to fit itself on my right index finger with the mother of all electric shocks. My hair blew back off my face. I snapped out of the trance, once more in full control of my faculties.
“Fucking hell!” I cursed, shaking out my hand while jumping up and down.
The candles snuffed out, leaving everyone in stunned silence.
Ari was the first to move. He reached over and snapped the ring box in Rabbi Abrams’s hand shut with a thud that cracked like gunfire. “It appears you had the wrong twin,” he said. He hefted the silver chalice. “L’chaim,” he toasted and slugged the whole thing back.
2
“I don’t want it,” I protested for about the hundredth time, yanking on the ring.
“It won’t come off.” Rabbi Abrams’ face was so wrinkled up in horrified anxiety that he resembled a Shar Pei with a Dumbledore beard.
“It’s water weight. Bloating.” I ran for the kitchen, dumping half a bottle of dish soap over both my finger and the stainless steel sink. “Move, you motherfucker,” I muttered, pulling on it with all my might.
The ring spun round and round in the thick yellow goo, but wouldn’t move even a millimeter closer to my knuckle. A hamsa, a palm-shaped design with two symmetrical thumbs meant to ward off the evil eye, was engraved in the center of the band. The single open eye etched into the middle of the palm stared up at me with its tiny blue sapphire iris.
I swear it smirked.
Ari swaggered in. He’d abandoned the chalice and was now swigging directly from the bottle.
“Take it,” I hissed, grabbing his wrist.
“Finders keepers.” He flicked my hand away with a painful snap. Soap splattered on to my shirt.
“That is enough of that.” My mother marched into the kitchen and snatched the bottle out of his hand, slamming it down on the counter with such force that a chip of white quartz flew off. “You, stop drinking. And you,” she whirled on me, finger wagging, “take that ring off right now.”
“Have at it.” I thrust out my hand at her.
Mom couldn’t get the ring off either. “Dov.” She smacked her hand on the dented countertop to get Dad’s attention. He hovered in the doorway with his mouth half open, in full brain short-circuit mode. Even my boob flying free hadn’t upset him this much.
Her second smack shook him out of his Medusa-victim impression.
“Right.” Dad hurried over and reached for the ring, but hesitated, his hand hovering just over mine.
I shoved my hand into his. “Get it off me, Daddy,” I said in a voice two-octaves too high.
He tried. God knows he tried.
As did Rabbi Abrams, who insisted on running the ceremony again. Of course, he had to do it with Ari sprawled in the recliner because he was now hammered. My brother, the light-weight.
I spent the ceremony holding my breath, my gut knotted into a pretzel as I awaited the outcome.
The rabbi got to the end and tugged on the ring. Nada.
“How could you?” Mom asked, back in the kitchen where we’d reconvened in a glum silence. She twisted her hands together so forcefully, I worried she might break something.
“What part of ‘chosen’ implies I had any say in the matter?” I bit down on the band, trying to budge it with my teeth.
It was cold and tasted of metal and imprisonment.
Ari belched. “Told you, you’d find your thing.” Having reclaimed the wine bottle, he now shook the last few drops into his mouth. “’Course, I didn’t expect it to be my thing.”
That hurt. I hadn’t done this deliberately and I certainly didn’t want to be part of a Brotherhood. I scrubbed a hand over my face, way too sober to handle taking the blame for this. “You didn’t even know if you wanted it, asshole.”
My brother wasn’t fazed. “Too true. But,” he said, looking off thoughtfully, “I think that was pre-wedding jitters.” He met my eyes; those distinct blue-gray twins of my own that always let me know what he was thinking. Right now the sorrow in them broke my heart. “I think that in fact, I did. Want it.”
I dropped my head on the counter.
“Fix this,” Mom demanded of the rabbi. “Nava isn’t a boy. She can’t be Rasha.”
My head jerked up. Ari’s sorrow and my parents’ incredulity were understandable. It just would have been nice if, for one second, any of them had stopped to ask me how I was doing with all this. Because I wanted to run. Hide away until Demon Club proclaimed that this terrible joke had gone on long enough and we could all return to our regularly scheduled programming, where Ari was the bright shiny twin with a destiny and I most decidedly was not.
“Way to set women’s rights back two hundred years, Mom,” I snapped. For once, I was innocent of any wrong-doing, but no one could see that. No one cared.
“She didn’t mean all women. Just you, honey,” Dad said to me in his infuriating, even-handed way. He extended an arm to the rabbi, leading him to the heavily-nicked kitchen table. Twins were a bitch on furniture.
“Let’s be logical here,” my father said. “Does it matter if some ritual picked Nava? Ari is the one who is trained and competent. He’s devoted his life toward this goal. What if we simply ignored this as an odd blip and proceeded with the plan as is?”
Most of me cheered this sentiment. Was completely on-board. A tiny part of me desperately wished that one person had my back.
“Nava is the chosen,” Rabbi Abrams said. “She can do this.” Wow. Of all the people to champion me. The rabbi stroked his beard. “If Ari takes on demons without a Rasha’s power, he will die. Better to let Nava handle them, trained or not.”
That sounded suspiciously like “send out the expendable.” I snatched the dish towel off its hook and savagely dried my saliva off of my hand.
The rabbi was right. It was the magic that killed demons. Pumping one full of lead might slow it down, but then again, it might simply piss it off enough to rip your head off faster.
Obviously, Ari couldn’t go after a demon without having magic power. That was tantamount to a suicide mission, but I refused to believe that he was definitively out of the picture. This destiny fit him with a snug certainty.
“There has to be a loophole,” I said.
Dad touched his index finger to his nose then pointed at me like I’d brought up a valid idea. “You can’t expect the fate of the world to be in my daughter’s hands,” he said. “Might as well invite Satan to move on in and throw him a housewarming party.”
“Really?” I asked, tossing the towel on the counter.
Dad shrugged. “Do you think you’re capable of battling demons?”
I refused to confirm or deny, leaning forward to address Rabbi Abrams directly. “Do I have a say in this?”
The rabbi struggled up out of the chair, came over to me, and laid a gnarled arthritic hand on my shoulder. His knuckles were old-people-XL sized. I tried not to flinch–or think of demon claws. Good luck. A mélange of weirdo animal parts and other unholy bits fused into demony shape assaulted me in image form, courtesy of every nightmare bedtime story Ari had ever foisted on me. I shuddered.
“This situation is…” Rabbi Abrams frowned.
“Unfortunate? Unfair?” I supplied.
“A tragedy,” he said.
“Excuse me?!”
He dropped his hand, giving a sharp tug to his black suit jacket. “I need to inform the Executive. We must figure out how best to proceed.” He sounded like I’d murdered his favorite puppy and was asking him to shake my blood-drenched hand. Symbolically, that may have been true.
My hands tightened on the hem of my shirt. “Again, I ask if I have a say in the matter?”
Rabbi Abrams frowned, his expression stern. “You cannot ignore your power. Your destiny.”
I threw him a grim smile. Challenge accepted.
* * *
My first order of business was sneaking out of the house. Mom and Dad rehashing the impossibility of it, the tragedy of it, was bad enough. But Ari refusing to speak to me? He’d sent me a final look of absolute betrayal, staggered into his room, and locked the door.
He’d never locked his door against me before. Our twin connection was as necessary as oxygen. Ari had been my shoulder to cry on when my life had fallen apart, supporting me against the folks when I’d taken a time-out from university. I’d spent my childhood making my brother laugh whenever I saw that his Rasha studies were getting to him. He protected and anchored me, while I lightened up his world. There was no place for locked doors between us.
The fact that there was now cracked my chest open for the black pain to slither in. If anything could turn me even more firmly against being a demon hunter than I already was, it was that damn door. I’d knocked until my knuckles bled. Begged and pleaded, but I was met with silence. I was dead to him.
It was worse than actually being dead.
Taking shallow breaths, I ran through one of my old exercises to get through pre-show performance jitters. Who knew being on stage and learning how to act happy would come in handy so many times in my almost-adult life?
I rummaged among the clean laundry piled on my desk chair for jeans and my favorite hoodie and got changed. Knocking aside the box in my closet filled with my most prized tap dance competition medals, I pulled my worn leather backpack out, haphazardly throwing in clothes and toiletries.
I allowed myself one last look around my raspberry bedroom: from the random photos of fun times hanging by now-limp tape, to the collage of speeding tickets spelling out vroom, to my unmade bed with exactly three pillows–two to sleep on and one to cuddle–and the clothes and books exploding over every surface.
My lucky sunglasses, a pair that I’d “liberated” from Ari, lay on my dresser, under my black and white poster of Gregory Hines. He wore an expression of sheer delight as the camera caught him mid-tap step. Somewhere deep inside me still lived the ghost of a memory, where no matter what was wrong in my life, I could dance my troubles away. A one, a two, you know what to do. My mantra for dance and life.
Yeah, well. That was then.
I grabbed the glasses, stuffing them on my head. Then I hefted my backpack over one shoulder, and pushed up the window. Tap had been the one place I’d shone. My realm. Yeah, I’d readjusted my life around the void when the dream was taken from me, but why should Ari have to experience crushing disappointment and heartache? At my hands? Fuck that.
Maybe if I ran away, did something selfish, or acted unworthy of the power, the ring would decide I wasn’t the right twin after all and Ari could resume his path to destiny. The Brotherhood had invested twenty years in him, after all. Hopefully they’d work a little harder to bring him back into the fold.
Taking a deep breath, I swung my leg over the sill and reached for the gnarled tree branch outside my window. My stomach surged in that split second before my fingers connected with the rough bark, but once they did, it was an easy climb down. I dropped the final few feet to the ground in a hard crouch, then commenced running away from home, trotting past well-kept family homes toward the main street.
Much as I hated to admit it, my dad was right. Demon Club and I were a terrible fit. First off, it had always been kept secret through the centuries, both to preserve its existence under the official “no demons here” stance of organized Judaism, and, since very few knew that demons existed, to keep mass panic from breaking out.
Sure, I’d kept mum about all of it, but let’s be serious. If magic powers could score me free clothes or booze, #MoveOverBuffy would be trending by dinner.
I slowed down when I hit the corner house two blocks over, just long enough to stop inches from the fence and do a little dance for the old Golden Retriever, sending her into a yappy frenzy of joy. Still barking, she jumped onto her hind legs, resting her front paws on the fence so I could scratch her between the ears.
The uptight couple that owned her twitched their curtain aside to move me along with a dismissive point of their fingers. I wiggled my ass one last time, snickering at their twin expressions of thin-lipped displeasure. Knowing Goldie would keep barking for another twenty minutes was just an added bonus.
Then I took off.
It might seem amazing that in this age of CCTV and camera phones, where every little transgression was posted to social media, that the Brotherhood and demons managed to remain a secret from both the Jewish community and wider world. As Ari had taught me, the explanation was simple: never underestimate humans’ desire to stay within our comfort zones.
Case in point, the yoga-clad mommy mafia clogging up the tree-lined sidewalk, venti lattes in hand. I swerved to avoid their race car pricey strollers and the judgmental stank wafting off them as they eyed me. We all sought affirmation. That’s why, as a species, we were such hypercritical assholes. We wanted proof we’d picked the right career or married the right person, even if said proof was of the at least we’re not them variety. We wanted our lives to tally in the positives column.
Only the whackjob paranormal bloggers and influencers sometimes got closer to the truth than everyone gave them credit for. Ari and I had spent a bunch of late nights being highly entertained by their theories.
While membership had grown since David’s time, the formal structure of the Brotherhood wasn’t put into place until October 10, 1871 with the Great Chicago Fire. With the city destroyed, hundreds dead, and the entire thing being blamed on a cow, the Brotherhood had stepped up and gotten globally organized to make, well, order of the chaos. No more pockets of hunters fighting demons under a loosely affiliated umbrella. They were now ruthlessly efficient in the war on evil with chapters all over the world.
Which was the second reason I wanted no part of this. “Ruthless” and “efficient” were not words to describe me. If humanity was depending on me to be part of some protector squad, they were screwed. I’d be dead within minutes of my first demon encounter, destiny notwithstanding.
A horn blared at me, jarring me out of my reverie.
I scrambled across the busy retail street, narrowly avoiding getting pancaked, and stepped onto the far curb in front of the dry cleaners, my heart pounding. “A little respect for the jay-walker here!”
Where was this magic I was supposed to have received? Had there been a glitch because I was female? Because I was a glitch? If I really had some cool new superpower, wouldn’t I have sped after the Mazda and flipped it on its side, mashing it to a pulp with angry pounds of my fists instead of standing here shaking? And if my magic did show up, would I have some stupid or embarrassing power like I’d teased Ari about?
I made my way to the bank machine, opening my wallet to sort through my credit cards. The Visa was bunk. I was scared to even stick it in an ATM for fear some collection agency bruiser would appear to hustle me off. The Amex, however? I tapped it against my chin. This baby was my emergency card, paid in full each month by Daddy Dearest.
Sliding the card into the cash machine, I punched in the ten thousand dollar limit. It made a beeping noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter, informing me in neat print that my cash advance limit was $500. Bah.
The money got tucked deep in an inside pocket in the backpack. Then I boarded the downtown bus, unsure of my destination. What I needed right now was a best friend I could crash with. What I had were tons of fellow partygoers and acquaintances.
The bus driver slammed on his brakes. I stumbled forward, whacking my head on the guitar case of the dude next to me. I’d had an awesome best friend in high school. Leonie Hendricks. It wasn’t as if we’d had a fight or anything after grad. We still hung out. However, Leo had jumped headlong into university while I’d bounced around for a few semesters before withdrawing.
My hand went for my phone. Maybe I could call Leo. I snorted. Yeah, right. We could catch up. Leo could tell me about her criminology classes and I could tell her that in an impossible twist, I was the first lady Rasha and newest member of Demon Club. Oh yeah, and that demons existed. Then she’d roll her eyes sadly at me making a joke of everything, finish our social call with polite small talk, and that would be that.
Well, that decided where I should go. A drink was in order. I headed over to my favorite business district pub for their pint and burger lunch special. A girl had to have a decent last meal, and the football-sized patties this place served would keep me full for a good twenty-four hours. Plus, the barkeep was adorable and amenable to flirting for free refills.
I sailed into the dimly lit interior with its multiple screens offering various sports replays set to classic rock blasting from the speakers, and seated myself at the scarred wood bar.
Josh, my barboy, grinned his hello. “Hey, beautiful,” he said, all white teeth, platinum hair, and that unnatural level of pretty typically only attained by certain actors. It was enough to give a girl an inferiority complex. “Haven’t seen you around in a while. What can I get you and whatcha been up to?”
“Burger special and becoming the chosen one,” I replied with a breezy flip of my curls.
“Sweet.”
His attention reaffirmed my determination to stay far away from all things demon and huntery. I was young. I had my looks. Why would I want to mess that up fighting nasty creatures from the bowels of Hell? Or wherever they came from, since they didn’t exactly leave a home address and weren’t just a Christian concept.
I know Buffy looked good killing vamps, but come on. Even I could separate fiction from fact enough to know that a team of hair, makeup, and wardrobe experts were not going to be a perk of my gig. Besides, hunting would cut into my important to-dos like “be adored” and “get free refills”.
I waggled my pint glass at Josh as he placed my burger in front of me, noticing he hadn’t skimped on the fries. Salt and grease good. “Thanks, barkeep. What’s new with you?”
Turns out he’d landed a small but pivotal role in Hard Knock Strife, some big-budget picture shooting here in Vancouver. Something about childhood buddies caught up in the lure of easy money. “That’s worth celebrating,” I said, raising my new full glass in cheers.
“Stick around till I get off?” He nodded at my backpack, stuffed on the seat beside me, which was ringing for the umpteenth time. “Or do you have plans?”
“Nope.” I pulled out my phone and turned it off. But not before glancing at the screen. Seventeen messages all from my home number. My parents, not Ari. With a sigh, I shoved it into my hoodie pocket and threw him a coy look from under my lashes. “I’m all yours.”
“I’m counting on it,” he replied with a wicked grin.
Ladytown flooded like it was time to start collecting two of every animal. Whoa, baby. Praying that Josh was my golden O ticket, I found myself back at his place hours later, half-drunk, partially naked, and totally giving him the hand job of his life. Doing it for him, in hopes that he’d be able to do it for me. Honestly though, my thoughts pre-occupied me more than his cock. That I could work on autopilot.
“Maybe they chose me because of my attitude issues.” I lay on my side facing Josh, my head propped in my free hand. “Though technically, the choosing happened when I was born so they didn’t have any way of knowing how I’d turn out.” I kept the details vague since there was no knowing if Demon Club would kill Josh for hearing top secret intel.
“Mmmm, yeah,” Josh moaned, kicking his jeans off. His movement made the thin mattress bounce. His sculpted abs jiggled not at all.
“But what if that’s why I’m such a dick? Such an epic failure. Because I was destined for something amazing and denied it.” You talking dance or demon hunting, Nava? “You think I could sue them for existential pain and suffering?”
“Full-on.” Josh thrust his hips in a rhythmic motion.
I rolled onto my back, my hand still working away. I’d always been a good multitasker. “I didn’t ask for it. It’s not fair for my brother to be so pissed off.”
“Uh, babe?” Josh poked me in my side. “Discussions of brothers while your hand’s on my junk? Kinda killing the buzz.”
“Sorry.”
He leaned over me, his eyes glazed with lust. “Think you could…?” He motioned for me to go down on him.
“Yeah, sure.” My hand was getting tired anyway. I slid down his body. “Thing is,” I began. With my mouth full, the words came out garbled and I guess I caught some skin because Josh flinched.
“Go back to the hand job,” he sighed.
Geez, make up your mind. I shimmied back to my starting position. “I don’t even want this. It isn’t some lady-doth-protest-too-much shit either. The pressure would be insane. Everyone would be watching me, waiting for me to screw up. Plus the possible death of it all. I’m not big on that either.”
A niggle of guilt prodded at me for dumping my problems on Josh, so I gave him a flirty smile. He shot me a heated look in response. Lust tumbled hot and furious down from my now-dry throat to much, much lower. I crossed my legs, squirming, as I stole another glance at him.
His face seemed to… flicker?–for a second. The line of his jaw blurring, his skin suddenly much furrier than his five o’clock shadow warranted.
I blinked and the room snapped into a sharp clarity. Just me, and a gorgeous guy. His serious sex appeal had me so lightheaded that all the color in the room bleached out briefly. In fact, I felt like I’d bleached out briefly.
“As I was saying… ouch!” My hand seized up. I shook it out and switched to my right.
My fingertips tingled. I amped up the speed, hoping he’d finish already. More than ready for my turn. I’d give up a kidney for an orgasm after the day I’d had.
Josh’s eyes were closed, his breathing ragged. All positive signs for his happy ending.
Thank God, because my hand hurt. Had I pinched a nerve? I grit my teeth. Cramp or no cramp, I wasn’t about to break my personal record of every man left satisfied. A girl had to have some skill she could be proud of, even if she couldn’t put it on a résumé.
Josh let out a guttural moan.
Being well-versed in the nuances of guttural, I translated this one as “gold star, Nava.” Though my smugness fell away at the tugging pull starting low in my gut. Not a virulent food poisoning, all-out cramping, more like my soul was being manhandled. I slowed down my strokes, rubbing my belly with my free hand.
Josh’s eyes sparked like he was getting off more on my discomfort than on my expert dexterity. A prickle of unease danced across the back of my neck.
“Let yourself go, baby,” he growled.
Please. He was hot, but coming by osmosis wasn’t a thing. I was overreacting. Josh wasn’t a threat, just a douche.
Sweat trickled down my scalp and a sharp pressure rose through the fingers of my right hand, now cramped tight around his knob. I hadn’t been jerking him off long enough to be this tired. Pain pulsed outward from the middle of my palm as if my synapses had started shooting electric bullets.
“Almost there,” he mumbled. His hips were practically levitating they were lifting off the bed so high.
My belly twisted and I drew my knees into my chest for some relief, yet I couldn’t stop touching Josh. The more I tugged, the more he moaned lustily, and the more I grit my teeth. My abdomen felt like it was a leaking tire, but I wasn’t injured. More like with each stroke I was losing something essential, growing wearier, and I wasn’t able to explain why.
Sparks flew off my hand.
Holy. Shit.
Josh’s body flickered like a stuttering screen, revealing a ram’s head.
Oh, hell no!
I spasmed, engulfed by a snapping blue electrical arc that traveled through my hand to envelop Josh’s dick, momentarily gluing us together with a disturbing sizzle and a whiff of burning flesh.
His eyes snapped open in alarm.
Given how every blink caused sparks to dance in front of me, I figured I was lit up from head to foot, but before I could check, Josh convulsed with a hot spurt. Then his body exploded into gold dust.
Both the pain in my hand and the pyrotechnics immediately ceased.
I wiped my fingers off on the rumpled sheet with a grimace. The downside was that I’d just met my first demon. The upside? Not only was he not naturally better-looking than me, my record was intact. Another satisfied guy. Dispatched to oblivion, but not every date was a winner.
3
The shock kicked in about thirty seconds later. I clutched Josh’s pillow, rocking back and forth emitting weird “guh” noises until I got my throat working again. Sure, I could step on a very small spider like the manliest of men, but that smattering of gold powder on the sheets had been Josh. My intermittent flirt buddy for the past six months.
An icy slither ran up my core as I stared at my right hand, its tremors Richter scale violent. Was this my demon-killing ability? Destined to be some supernatural whore luring hell spawn into back alleys for deadly rub and tugs?
Leaping from the bed, a hand clapped over my mouth, I sprinted over the cheap beige carpet to the bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet, throwing up all the contents of my stomach until the dry heaves kicked in. Beer and grease did not taste better coming back up.
I cleaned up as best I could, blowing my nose and using an entire travel bottle of mouthwash that I found in Josh’s cluttered medicine cabinet to rinse out my mouth. I considered using his toothbrush, but that seemed too intimate for a guy I hardly knew.
I hiccuped in a half-sob, half-laugh. Orgasming to death okay, shared oral hygiene a line too far.
I gripped the sink so hard my fingertips turned white, forcing myself to take deep, calming breaths. Getting myself down to the functioning side of hysterical. I ran my fingers through my sweat-matted hair, taking in my reflection in the mirror of his bathroom cabinet. Pale, crazed, I couldn’t stare too long at myself, so I yanked on the tap, washing my hands vigorously enough to rub them raw.
Taking a layer or six of epidermis off myself helped. The color had returned to my cheeks. Somewhat. With my adrenaline high wearing off, however, came the painful realization that my boobs burned like crazy.
With the utmost care, I peeled my shirt and bra off to find a scorched, puckered burn line matching the now-melted underwire. As a natural disaster show connoisseur, I knew that metal conducts electricity but, come on! My girls demanded underwire.
I pressed a fingertip to the red angry skin with a hiss. Seems right now they demanded burn lotion. I rummaged through Josh’s cupboard, but he was light on first aid products, so I tossed the bra in the trash and eased back into my shirt, flinching as the soft material made contact.
It was too much.
Wobbly from a cocktail of exhaustion and pain, I pressed my head to the cool glass of the mirror. Giving myself a moment to get my jumpy pulse under control and let the throbbing in my tits subside enough to be able to walk because that basic motor function seemed an impossible dream.
I had no idea how much time passed before I was able to move, though moonlight now streamed in through Josh’s bedroom window as I dressed. No drunken ramblings were heard from homeward-bound revelers, the city deep in slumber.
I shrugged on my jeans, unable to shake my sense of unease. Sidling over to the window, I peered outside through the slats of the bent plastic blinds.
Some guy stood in the alley framed in a pool of light cast by a poster-plastered streetlamp. Hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, he seemed every bit a relaxed bystander, but I wasn’t deceived.
The question was, was he here hunting Josh? Or me?
I widened the blinds a touch.
Startlingly gold eyes bored straight into my soul, rooting me to the spot. His hair, several shades darker than his light brown skin, was kind of shaggy, curling thick and sexy around his ear lobes. He had to be a demon. My hand didn’t tingle or anything in recognition, but ordinary mortals were not created this ridiculously gorgeous. I’d know. I trolled the internet plenty looking at hot dude Pinterest boards.
