Neon Blue by E Frost (best big ereader .TXT) 📕

just going to get a glass of milk.” I haven’t thrown up, which is a bonus, but my stomach is still turning cartwheels, so some warm milk to settle it couldn’t hurt. I could also use a trip to the bathroom, because I feel decidedly sticky. I just hope none of my relatives decides to make an appearance.

I clean up a little and then return for my robe. Just as I’m sliding my feet into my moose-slippers, the doorbell rings.

I glance at the clock. It’s only five to ten. I’m betting it’s Shah, having locked himself out again. “I’ll get the door.”

“Tell whoever it is to fuck off. Come back to bed.” He puts his arms behind his head and flexes all that impressive infernal muscle. Then he reaches down and pushes the blankets down to bare his thighs. Showing off all that impressive infernal erection.

Damn, that’s an incentive.

“I’ll just be a minute.”

I shuffle downstairs, trying not to trip in my moose slippers, and peer through the stained glass lites to see who is ringing my doorbell.

I can only see the top of a dark head. Which rules out the Squire. But it could be Shah or any of a number of shifters who like to show up unannounced.

I open the door blearily. “Hello?”

A fresh-faced young man, buttoned into a long black coat that makes him look like an extra from The Matrix, smiles at me with white, white teeth and says, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”

Oh, God, a Jovie. They come around every year and I never get away without several copies of whatever pamphlet they’re pushing. Last year Shah threw a glass of beer over one of them. I’m a little surprised they’re back for more.

“Um, no, I’m not interested, thank you.”

He’s still smiling that buttoned-down, whiter-than-white smile when he claps his hand over my mouth, shoves something sharp under my chin, and pushes me back into the hallway.

I stagger, shocked. When did Jovies become so aggressive? The wall hits me hard and the young man, still smiling, shoves me again so my head smacks against the plasterboard.

“Relax, Miss Faa,” he hisses in my ear. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Somehow I have trouble believing him.

“Be gentle with her, Denys.” A precise, faintly accented voice. One I recognize. I squint into the glare of light from my porch. There are two people standing in the doorway, both robed and cowled so I can’t see their faces.  But I recognize the voice.

“Timmi?” It comes out as a squeak.

“Hello, Tsara. My apologies for the rudeness of our entrance.”

“Wha-what do you want?”

“The demon you’ve summoned, my dear. Would you be so good as to call him?  Denys, I’d rather not conduct our business on the porch. Shall we proceed into the house?”

The man holding a knife to my throat fists his free hand in my bathrobe, pulls me off the wall and shoves me down the hallway. Never does the hard edge of the knife leave my throat and when I don’t move fast enough for him, I feel its bite.

I stumble backwards down the hallway and at another shove, through the doorway into my parlor. I stop abruptly when the coffee table punches my calf.

Timmi and her robed friend follow us into the parlor. Timmi folds back her cowl and gives me a small smile. “You have a lovely home, Tsara. Very clean and tidy. Just like your magic.”

I don’t smile back at her. I flex my hands, so tempted to show her how tidy my magic really is. A bolt of lightning would tidily fry her and her asshole, knife-wielding friend.

“Don’t even think about it.” The third member of their home-invasion squad says. He pulls open a leather satchel he’s carrying and takes out a silver canister. “Denys, over there.” He gestures to the open area between the coffee table and window.

The fake Jovie, Denys, tugs on my bathrobe and shoves me into the clear space, where the cowled man pours a circle of white powder around my feet. Salt.

“That is an heirloom carpet, you asshole,” I snarl at him. Denys is crossing the circle, so even if I could be controlled with a circle of salt – which I don’t think I can – he hasn’t accomplished anything other than ruining my Dala’s prize Persian rug.

“Call the creature,” Denys says with another pointless jerk of my bathrobe. I’m beginning to really dislike him.

“I can’t,” I grit. And I really can’t. When I feel in my mind for Jou, all I find is darkness. He’s closed the connection between us, which I know for a fact was wide open less than an hour ago.

“I tasted his taint in your blood. Call him!” He gives me a pointlessly hard shake that makes me feel like my teeth are rattling in my skull.

“No one needs to call me,” Jou says.

Everyone jumps at the sound of his voice. He’s circled through the house and is standing in the open doorway into the dining room. He’s barefoot, bare-chested, wearing only a pair of leather pants which, for once, he’s buttoned up. He hasn’t manifested his horns, or that burning whip, but heat ripples off his golden skin like sunlight off asphalt. He may just look like a big, muscular man, but there’s no question what he is.

Behind him, there’s a clear exit route out the back of my house and to my hearth room, where Timmi and her friends would never get through my circles. I’m tempted to lunge and see if I could break Denys’ hold. But I can already feel sticky wetness on my throat. I don’t think he’d take much provocation to really cut me.

“Back, demon!” The cowled man drops his salt-shaker and pulls an ornate cross out of his satchel.

Jou snorts. “Holy symbols only work if you’re a true believer.” He leans forward and blows. A violent gust of air blasts through the room, scattering the salt across my carpet and knocking Cowled Man over.