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

“Oh, yeah, you said you liked givin’ but not gettin’.”

I cover my eyes with my hand. “Anything else.”

“Sure. Let’s talk about that.” He nods at the shards of bowl sitting on the kitchen counter.

I glance at what’s left of the Squire’s bowl. I have some vague hope of fixing it, although I’m not really sure what to use as magical super-glue. “What about it?”

“Why’s a fairy giving you presents?”

I blink at him in disbelief. “What possible business is it of yours?”

“You’re my business now. Or did you think we were just gonna fuck and be done with it?”

“I really didn’t think about it at all,” I say. He makes a low sound in his throat. An oh-I-thought-so sort of sound. It makes me want to smack him. “But if I had thought this far ahead,” I continue. “I still would have said that it’s none of your business. The Squire’s been part of my life for . . . well, almost two years now. If he wants to give me something, that’s nothing to do with you.”

“Think so? Here’s how I see it. Whatever’s been going on between you and the airy-fairy for the last two years—”

“Nothing has been going on between me and the Squire.”

“Maybe that’s what they want you to think, but the twittering throng don’t go handing out scrying bowls to every pretty human that comes along. He wants somethin’ from you, and I got a good idea of what it is, and I’m tellin’ you that I don’t share.”

A possessive demon. Great.

“And I’m telling you that you’re wrong,” I retort. “Nothing’s been going on between me and the Squire. He protects me when I go gathering, and I’m sworn to help the fae if they ever call on me. Which they haven’t. So keep your dirty mind out of it.”

“Dirty?” The leer re-surfaces. “You ain’t seen dirty yet, sweet meat.”

“I don’t want to, thank you very much. And while we’re on the subject, it’s okay for you to screw anything that offers you a drink, but I get a gift from a friend and you’re jumping down my throat?”

“We haven’t done that yet, either.” The leer widens. “Think you could deep-throat me?”

I roll my eyes. “No.” Particularly not given how big he can get.

“How ‘bout we see if I can teach you to like oral sex an’ you repay me by swallowin’ me all the way down?” He drawls the last words, his voice dropping to a black-furred whisper.

No one should be able to make four words sound so filthy. “How about we talk about something other than sex?”

He chews a mouthful of stolen pancake meditatively, eyes glinting. “Why?” he asks finally.

“Why what?”

“Why don’t you want to talk about sex?”

I stab the pancakes. I can’t help it. It’s that or stab him.

“C’mon, sweet meat. Why so shy?”

“I’m not shy. I’m . . . private.”

He snorts. “You’re wound up tighter than a clock spring.”

“Screw you,” I mutter.

“It got anything to do with bein’ raised by that old woman?”

“Look!” I throw my fork down. “You leave my Dala out of this. I’ve put up with you invading my house and my life, but I did not sign up for demon psychoanalysis. So back off.”

He shrugs. “Okay.”

I eye him warily. “Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Somethin’ I’ve learned over the last millennium? Almost nothin’ has to happen right now. You need some time to adjust? Take your time.”

I’m so shocked that I simply sit and stare at him open-mouthed.

“What’s wrong, sweet meat?”

“You-you’ve been so pushy—”

He chuckles. “Yeah, well, the one thing that couldn’t wait was gettin’ in your pants. Now that we got that outta the way, everythin’ else’ll come in its own time.”

I shake my head. “Do you even know how smug you sound?”

He steals a final forkful of pancake. “Not nearly as smug as I feel.” He puts his fork down and stretches, flexing the huge muscles of his chest and shoulders. “Let’s go sight-seein’.”

My house is so heavily warded that I could leave all the doors open, as well as all the windows broken, and be confident that my TV and DVD-player would still be there when I got back. My new salamander-cum-guard-dog is an added deterrent to any would-be burglar. But without any glass in the windows, the house is damn cold, and seeing Izzy shivering decides me.

I hold my hands out to the lizard, who jumps down from the top of the fridge and promptly rolls onto his back so I can scratch his tummy. “You are such a slut,” I tell him. He wiggles his legs ecstatically.

“Bet you want me to fix the windows before I go.” After some belly-scratching, I drape him around my shoulders while I dig out my great-grandmother’s handbooks and look up the mending charm. It’s not a hard charm, but fire’s one of the ingredients and since I can’t summon fire myself, the salamander can help me with that, so I keep him around my shoulders as I head outside.

I pick up a pouch of fairy dust on the way and blow a glamor over the salamander so that all anyone watching will see is a jacket with a crimson fake-fur collar. Then I hunt around in the grass until I find a large piece of broken glass.

You thinkin’ about slitting your wrists?

The demon’s thought makes me jump. No, I’m thinking about repairing my windows. If I wanted to kill myself, I’ve got plenty of poisons that would be faster and far less painful.

I’ll remember that. Before I can worry about what uses he might put my stock of poisons to, he sighs into my mind. Of all the things you humans have come up with in the last thousand years, I think I like indoor plumbing the best.

And ice cream?

Yeah. That stuff last night was amazing. Fuckin’ Ben and Jerry. I’m gonna look them up before I go. They definitely need a franchise down below. Speakin’ of which, we gotta make a detour today.

What sort of detour? I glance up at