by Cate Lawley
“Maybe.” Because he did. And vice versa, hence the development of my never-ending lust-crush.
The guy was hard to be around without noticing all the good bits—and I wasn’t just talking about his mighty fine ass that actually filled out a pair of jeans, or his broad chest that filled out a T-shirt, or his broad shoulders that filled out a jacket, or his sexy smile…or any of those other deliciously sexy physical attributes. Michael was good people, and Livy’s favorite brother. Not that she’d ever admit it.
“So, since we’re both agreed that I know you reasonably well and you’re not usually anything less than audaciously brave—what gives?”
“I have a temper.”
Michael shrugged. “Okay.”
The urge to punch him in the arm returned. “Easy for you to say. Your dad isn’t the guy with an epic level of anger issues.”
“That sounds like an exaggeration, but let’s say it is true: you don’t have anger issues. What does this have to do with you being unintentionally engaged?”
“Everything.” Although it wasn’t everything. There was also that little problem of not knowing where in my father’s affections I fell. “I set a few fires when I was younger. Magically and accidentally, but always when my temper got the better of me.” I shot a longing look at the coffee.
“I still don’t see the connection.” Michael poured us both a cup, mine light.
As he handed me the cup, I couldn’t help a little tug of squishy, warm feelings. I adored that he remembered how I liked my coffee.
“Your temper and your engagement are connected how?” Michael nudged me back towards the unpleasant truth.
“Right. I avoid confrontation.”
Michael laughed. “Uh, no you don’t.”
Fair point. “I avoid confrontation that would cause me to lose control of my temper. And anything that involves my dad basically falls into that category.” I sipped my coffee and sighed. I needed that. Especially after confessing to something so completely idiotic.
“Family does that, they make you a little crazy.” He sipped at his coffee and seemed to mull it over. After a minute or two, he said, “And why no email or phone call? Add a little distance to the equation.”
“Why? Up until recently, Don didn’t seem any more inclined to marriage than I was. It was easy to let it ride.”
“Here’s the thing, Annabeth. You can’t let it ride any longer. Not unless you want to be running until you can’t run anymore.” His raised an eyebrow. “And we both know that running isn’t exactly your best skill.”
I scowled back at him. “I was in heels. Give a girl a break.” And not really into cardio, but no need to dwell on that. But Michael was right. I needed to find some way to confront my father and tell him the truth: I didn’t want to marry his hand-picked demon-boy. I groaned. “Talking to my dad is hard.”
“Yeah, talking about things like emotions can be rough.” He didn’t look very sympathetic as he said it though. Maybe it was my whiney tone.
He gave me a little push in the direction of the bathroom. “I’ve already showered, so go do whatever it is that you do in the morning so we can get going.”
I didn’t want to ask. I had to ask. With another groan, I said, “And where are we going?”
“The county clerk’s office to pick up a marriage license.”
“What? How is that the plan?” Didn’t we just agree that I needed to confront my dad and tell him I wasn’t going through with the marriage to Don? No fake wedding required. “That would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
“Exactly.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re on board with the plan.”
CHAPTER FIVE
I was not on board with the plan.
I tell Michael my dad has anger issues, that I used to set stuff on fire when I got angry, that my dad pushes all of my buttons…and he wants to throw us in a room with a bunch of matches and kindling.
As I lathered and scrubbed in the shower, I had to concede that Michael Kelly was right about one thing: it was time to confront my past so that I didn’t screw up my present or my future.
While it might be a little bit easier with someone I trusted standing at my back, I didn’t see how having that someone stand right next to me saying, “I do,” would help at all.
Why poke the bear? One whiff of an engagement to another man, and my dad would lose it. And I couldn’t really blame the guy. Sure, he didn’t ever ask me if I wanted to marry Don. Sure, he just announced that he’d picked someone suitable and made the arrangements. Sure, he made it really hard to have a civil conversation unless I was agreeing with him. Sure…
I was rethinking that blame issue. In fact, I was feeling downright contrary. Maybe I’d been waving a white flag where my dad was concerned for too long. Maybe making the motions as if I was going to marry Michael was exactly what I needed to do.
A light knock on the bathroom door interrupted my absurd, borderline delusional thoughts. “Yes?” I was hardly shy, but the shower curtain was also completely opaque. I ducked my sudsy head out.
Michael cracked the door and his hand slipped inside the bathroom holding a towel. “Sorry, I used the one in here earlier.”
“Thanks. Hey!” The door cracked open again. “Any chance leprechauns don’t die if they’re decapitated?”
The door opened wider and the disputed head popped through the crack. “Not to be a downer, since you seem to be enjoying your shower, but I need my head.”
“Got it.”
He disappeared and closed the door.
It figured that leprechauns weren’t one of the mysterious peoples who could regrow their heads. Darn it.
Ten minutes later—his hot water tank must be pretty big—I emerged from the shower. My coffee was a little cool, so I zapped it. Heat was easy magic for me. Being the daughter of the devil had a few perks.
I debated trying to tame the blonde mess atop my head but in the end just ran some extra conditioner through it so it wouldn’t getter bigger as the day wore on. Texas heat and humidity was not an easy environment for sophisticated, sleek hair.
A quick brush of my teeth, a few seconds of peering in the mirror and wishing for more than the lip gloss I’d grabbed at Target, and I was good to go. I threw on the dress I’d picked up and opted to be a little daring in the underwear department, because no way I was wearing unwashed underwear from a packet. They used chemicals and stuff on the fabric, and I liked my lady bits just as they were: chemical-free.
“Please tell me you have a washing machine in this love shack,” I said as I emerged in a cloud of shampoo-scented steam.
“Not a love shack, and yes.” He opened a door that I’d thought was a pantry to reveal a stacked washer-dryer unit.
I dumped my dirty clothes and the rest of the clothes I’d picked up at Target into the wash, including the underwear. I turned to ask if he had any laundry detergent and caught him eyeing my rear. I swallowed a smirk and asked, “You have anything to add?”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, let me just grab a few things.”
Served him right. He could stew over what I was—or wasn’t—wearing under my dress while I freaked out about my dad. Oh yeah, and Don.
My stomach started to knot. Was I really considering going through with this fake engagement plan?
“Yes, you are.”
“I have got to stop doing that.” I frowned at him, as if my lack of filter was his fault. Oh, right, it was—sort of. It was unnerving and really annoying. “Explain to me again why I should.”
“Because it’s a step you can’t take back, and it doesn’t require you to stand up to your dad in person.”
Wow. That made me sound like a cringing little coward. I gritted my teeth. Sometimes the truth hurts. “So is a text. Or email. Email sounds good about now.”
Michael herded me out the door. “This has more flair. Besides, you know you want to be engaged to me. I’m hot, remember?”
I planted my heels on his
porch. “This is a bad idea.”
“It’s a great idea.”
“Said every leprechaun ever before something terrible happened.”
Was that a twinkle of mischief in my leprechaun’s eye? And here I was thinking that he was considering retirement. Silly me. I grinned at him. That twinkle was pretty cute.
“Okay,” I grumbled. “Let’s do this.”
Forty-five minutes later, I found out exactly how one acquired a marriage license, and it was shockingly easy. The most difficult part had been finding the county clerk’s office, and that hadn’t been all that hard. It was so easy, in fact, that the State of Texas required a seventy-two hour waiting period before one could actually use that easily obtained license.
Not that we were going to actually use it.
Of course not. The point was to make a statement. Send a message. Yell a challenge. Oh, snotty minions, what had I done?
As we emerged from the building, I was temporarily blinded by the sun. Thankfully, Michael hadn’t been. Before I could register the looming presence of the second biggest ass in my life, Michael put his hand on my elbow and said, “I believe that your jilted fiancé has joined us.”
For a moment, I thought he’d lost his mind, because he didn’t seem the least bit concerned. Also, we had just gotten that license. No one was that wired into the big bureaucratic machine that was the State of Texas. Not my dad and surely not Don.
Except there he was, big and burly and mad.
Michael wrapped an arm around my stiff shoulders and pointed me in the direction of the clerk’s parking lot. “What is that saying about unwanted guests?”
I choked on a laugh. Those cliffs of sanity I’d imagined shoving Michael off? There weren’t even in sight. Why not join along and we could both lose our heads together, because that’s about how pissed off Don looked. “If you mean houseguests, it’s three days and something about smelly fish.”
“Ah. Perhaps there’s a hint of cod in the air?” And in a completely normal, not even a tiny bit rattled tone of voice, he continued, “But then, maybe not. I do think overly persistent jilted fiancés might be an unfilled niche in the idioms department.” His voice hardened slightly. “No, how silly of me. There’s a name for it. Stalking, I believe is the right word.”
Oh. My. God. Michael had just told the Prince of Darkness and Destruction to stop stalking his fiancé. While fondling said prince’s fiancé.
Not exactly fondling—maybe that was more wishful thinking—but still, very ballsy. I ducked out from under Michael’s arm when I caught Don approaching us in my peripheral vision. A girl who taunted angry ex-fiancés had to be ready to run. Don must have been so startled by our unexpected response (not peeing our pants and begging for mercy) that his reaction time had slowed.
I realized as I walked down the sidewalk bumping shoulders with Michael and ready to run at the first sign of trouble, that I just might be having a little fun. Hm. Maybe there was something to this idea of poking the beast. Don had caused me a lot of grief over the last few weeks.
Why not poke a bit more? So I said, “Stalking sounds so bourgeois.”
A gasp followed my comment, and Don stopped his forward march. He drew himself up to his full height. “I’m a prince. Nothing I do could possibly be bourgeois. Everything I do is princely…by definition!”
“And, you know, Michael? I agree. There’s no fishiness here. Just a great big bunch of bull.” Take that, you jerk.
I happened to know the Prince of Darkness and Destruction was a little sensitive about his build. He thought royalty should be elegant, not buff. Silly man. He did have more of a bulky, wrestler meets bear physique—but the guy should learn to own his own assets. Some women went for that.
Catching on, Michael said, “He does resemble a bull, doesn’t he?”
“I can hear you. And I do not. I am the epitome of all that is masculine and handsome.”
“Do real people talk like that?” Michael asked.
“I guess demons do?” I shrugged.
A loud roar cut us off. We’d clearly pushed all of Don’s buttons. I had no idea what had grabbed hold of me, but I hoped it didn’t let go.
Except now we were being charged by a bull of a demon who was pissed off and then some.
“How about that binding spell?” Michael broke into an easy jog and tugged me along with him.
“What? Don’t you have a plan?” I looked down my nine ninety-nine flip flops, and swore I was investing in some running shoes pronto. His hand pulled more firmly as Don closed in on the ten foot mark. “Hey, I’m gonna lose a shoe.”
“Binding spell,” he reminded me.
“Right.” So I took all that excitement—of being chased, of poking the bear, of shacking up (sort of) with Michael, of getting married to someone not the Prince of Darkness and Destruction (though I wasn’t, not really)—and I balled it up. Then I chucked it over my shoulder and willed it to land right on top of the ass chasing us.
A massive crack of thunder split the sky.
Uh-oh.
I stumbled to a stop with a light-headed sway. I was seeing a depressing amount of cardio in my future. It was that or be so out of shape I couldn’t jog down the block without passing out.
Michael screeched to halt and steadied me.
“Uh, is that normal?” He gently pivoted me in the direction of a bronze that was situated next to a bench on the sidewalk.
“Is what—” Uh-oh. That was not a bronze. I inched closer. Then a bit closer. When I got about a foot away, I couldn’t help but realize that, nope, that wasn’t a bronze.
The thick neck, the broad shoulders, the scowl. That was definitely Abaddon, the Prince of Darkness and Destruction.
I leaned forward and poked him on the nose. I couldn’t resist and had apparently completely lost my mind. “Do you think he can do magic like this?” But then it hit me. “Oh. I did that.”
“I think it’s safe to say that you did.” Michael joined me, and we both stared.
Finally, I said the only thing I could. “Holy hell. I’m in so much trouble.”
CHAPTER SIX
Michael gave the bronze a little magical poke. Then a harder one. “It appears magic is out. Which means he can’t free himself—at least not anytime soon.” He looked at me with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Who knew you had it in you? You’ve gone and bronzed a demon. Dad’ll be tickled.”
“You cannot tell your father about this. What will he think?” Then I lifted my palm to my forehead and thumped myself. First, I was not actually marrying Michael, so what did I care about impressing Mr. Kelly? And second, Patrick Kelly would love it. The man would buy me a whiskey. Hell, a distillery.
“I think you know exactly what he’d think. Come on. I’ve been in a bit of a slump, so this will really cheer him up.”
“You guys and the mayhem-making. You do know that stuff gives your sister conniptions, right?” Poor Livy. I was surprised she didn’t have an ulcer what with everything the Kellys put her through. Then I groaned. “Your father can’t tell Livy. She’ll just die when she finds out who I am. I have to be the one to tell her.” My gaze drifted to the bronzed Prince of Darkness and Destruction. “And she really can’t know about that. I mean him.”
“The bronzing? Or that you were engaged to the biggest douche in hell?”
I pinned him with a nasty look, but he was too busy taking pictures and texting to notice. “Either, Michael, and I’m serious.”
Michael snapped a picture, then started to type a text. “Neither will be devastating. She should have told you about her situation.” He looked up, met my gaze, and said, “That she and her horribly incorrigible family are leprechauns.”
I grinned. He really was cute—and trainable. Aw. Just like a puppy. “Except I already knew about you guys.”
“Yeah, maybe keep that to yourself until some of this blows over. But generally speaking, Jackson has really mellowed her out. Not so much that she wants to participate, and
we still need to make sure the wedding goes down without a hitch, but she doesn’t seem nearly so touchy these days.”
“Touchy?”
Michael looked up from his phone with a guilty expression. “Ah, I didn’t mean it that way. I actually kind of get where she’s coming from. But you have to admit, some of the things that stress her out really aren’t that big of a deal.”
I gave him a disapproving look. “The Marfa lights?”
He held up his hands. “Not me. Besides, that turned out okay, right?” His phone pinged with a text. Once he read it, he grinned at her. “Dad wants to buy you a drink.”
Suddenly my head felt like it might explode. “If only my dad felt the same way.”
“How could he not?” Michael took another picture. “This is great. This is pretty sophisticated magic.”
“If you say so, but I didn’t actually mean to do it.”
Michael shrugged. “Either way, this took talent. I also suspect you have more control than you realize.” He pocketed his phone, focusing all his attention on me. “Look at the result. You didn’t hurt him. Not really. You protected yourself, and you protected him from who knows what foolishness was on his mind. I guarantee that if he’d laid a hand on you, there’d be a line of people ready to castrate him.”
From the expression on his face, Michael would be in that line. Which was also cute.
I patted bronzed Don on the cheek and sent him a silent thank you for the opportunity to stretch my magical wings.
Then I left him there.
Served him right if he collected a little bird poop while we tried to sort this mess on a more permanent basis.
I turned to Michael, who was keeping pace with me. “And what about you? Didn’t I save you, too, Mr. I have no plan, quick use a binding spell.”
“I had a plan.” With his hands tucked into his cargo shorts pockets, he looked adorably relaxed—but there was just the hint of an edge. “You wouldn’t have liked the backup plan. It involved a small interdimensional rift and me stuffing him through it.”
“Oh.” I looked at him with a little awe. “That’s scary.”