by Sarina Dorie
Blast it! She didn’t miss a thing.
Abigail served Felix a plate filled with a steaming cinnamon roll topped with frosting melting over the sides. Lucifer meowed, wanting a piece too.
“Does someone want a special treat?” she asked.
She served him a can of tuna fish.
Lucifer lifted his nose up at it. If she wasn’t going to give him a cinnamon roll, he wasn’t going to eat at all.
She kneeled and stroked his head. “You know you can’t have human food. It isn’t good for you.”
Lucifer slunk away, unsatisfied. Once again Abigail was playing favorites. His brother got a cinnamon roll. Lucifer was treated like a cat.
He glowered at Felix, who leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, savoring his second cinnamon roll. Probably his pig brother was going to eat the entire pan. He would be surprised if he left any for Clarissa and Abigail.
Lucifer pounced on Clarissa in her bed to wake her. He was doing her a favor. She could at least get a cinnamon roll, even if he couldn’t. She obviously didn’t see his attempt to wake her as the kindness it was. She pushed him out of the bed and went back to sleep.
Lucifer skulked under the kitchen table as Abigail and Felix talked quietly. He didn’t like his brother trying to charm Abigail. Felix’s voice was a low rumble, and Abigail leaned in closer, gazing into his steely eyes with tenderness. She should have been looking at Lucifer that way. He was supposed to be the one sitting in that chair, complimenting her cooking and acting as her companion.
Lucifer extended and retracted his claws, wanting to shred something soft. Like his brother’s face.
When Abigail rose to pour coffee, Felix tore a gooey chunk of cinnamon roll from his spiral and held it under the table near his leg as though he didn’t want Abigail to see.
Was he offering the cinnamon roll to Lucifer to be nice? Or to hurt him?
Lucifer sniffed the pastry for magic. He couldn’t sense any hexes, curses, or poisons, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there. He wasn’t able to use an actual spell to check for harmful toxins. He licked the sweet sticky bread. The manna from heaven tasted of cinnamon and spice and everything Abigail.
Still, it wasn’t a wise idea to accept food from strange men. Eventually Felix must have given up, because he shifted his hand away and lifted his arm, taking Lucifer’s mouthful of heaven with him.
Panic seized Lucifer. He didn’t want tuna fish. He wanted human food. He wanted to be human.
Lucifer pounced and sank his claws into Felix’s sleeve, careful not to make him bleed and give Abigail a reason to toss him out into the cold. Felix waited as Lucifer devoured the sticky bun. It was utter ecstasy in his mouth. He licked Felix’s fingers clean.
Afterward, Lucifer regretted his impulsiveness. Felix might have poisoned it. Lucifer had one bite of heaven, and he would probably now die. He wouldn’t doubt this was a plot to trick Abigail into using her magic to try to save him—which would fail—and then she would be snatched. Clarissa would try to use magic to save her fairy godmother, and then she would be caught and enslaved.
Then they’d all be dead except for Felix, who would think it all a jolly bunch of fun.
Abigail sniffled, and Lucifer was suddenly aware that he’d missed their conversation.
Felix took Abigail’s hand. “I’m sorry if I said something that upset you.”
Tears filled her eyes. “No. I’m fine. I just sometimes think you look like someone … I used to know.”
Lucifer butted his head up against Felix’s leg to make him stop touching her. He wanted to shout and tell Felix she didn’t like him. Abigail was probably only nice to Felix because he was Lucifer’s brother, and she must have seen a trace of similarity in them.
An abundance of nervous energy percolated inside Lucifer. He ran laps around the table.
Felix was closer to Abigail’s age than Clarissa’s. What if he realized she would be a better match for him and tried to seduce her?
Panicking and frantic, Lucifer raced out of the room, leapt onto Clarissa’s bed—who was adept at ignoring him—and ran out again. He was overwhelmed with frustration and didn’t know what to do.
Eventually Clarissa woke and joined her adoptive mother and Felix in the kitchen. Lucifer noticed how stiff and formal Felix was. He wasn’t besotted with her as far as Lucifer could tell. Felix didn’t behave affectionately toward Clarissa and greet her with a hug or a smile. She was the one who made goo-goo eyes and smiled adoringly at him.
If Lucifer had been a man, he would have shown Abigail how much he loved her by waking her up with kisses every day. He would have held her hand and professed his ardent desire for her cooking—and for her. Lucifer wouldn’t have wasted a moment. He would use a human voice to confess his feelings. He would have human hands to hold her, and he would show her he cherished her.
He pitied Clarissa that she was so besotted with a man who didn’t reciprocate her feelings.
From Abigail’s sneaky smile, Lucifer supposed she thought otherwise. She was going to try to play at matchmaker. Perhaps she was trying to vicariously live through her daughter’s happiness. Lucifer wished he could be a man and make her happy.
When Abigail excused herself to go to her weekend yoga class, Lucifer followed her to her bedroom. He rubbed up against her and tried to get her attention, flicking her with his tail. She rarely went to a yoga class this early and never on Sundays. She had to be trying to give them time alone, but he didn’t want her to leave Clarissa alone with Felix.
What if his brother was an incubus like him? But one who had no moral quandary about using touch magic on unsuspecting women? That had to be why Clarissa was smitten with him.
Lucifer nudged the alphabet board out from under the bed as she dressed. She shook her head. “I don’t have time right now. We can talk when I get back.”
Lucifer sank his teeth into the cardboard and shook it in frustration.
Abigail ignored him.
Clarissa and Felix watched a movie in the living room. The moment Abigail left for yoga class, it was no surprise Felix put the moves on Clarissa, spooned up on the couch behind her. She was all too willing to fall for his incubus charms.
“How long does a yoga class last?” Thatch asked.
A mischievous smile tugged at Clarissa’s lips. “Are you asking how long do we have alone?”
“Indeed.”
“Probably an hour. Maybe an hour and a half with traffic if we’re lucky.”
Felix slipped his hand under her pajama top. Nausea roiled in Lucifer’s belly. He thought he would vomit. He ran into the kitchen where Felix had left his coat. If he was going to leave a surprise for someone to find later, it would be for his brother.
In his pocket.
The smell of cinnamon in the kitchen settled Lucifer’s stomach, and the urge to vomit left him. Someone had left the pan of cinnamon rolls on the counter. Abigail never did that with food. She always said it was because she didn’t want to tempt him. Clarissa wasn’t as careful.
Lucifer tried to distract himself from the cinnamon rolls. He ate his tuna fish like an obedient cat, trying to ignore the tantalizing torment of human food that he wished he could eat. He wanted to be good for Abby, but the pastries called to him. His nose pulled him closer to the cinnamon rolls. His instincts took over, and he stalked toward the pastries with the same intensity he reserved for mice and birds.
He knew Abigail hated it when he jumped onto the counter, but he did it anyway. She wasn’t here after all. He dipped his head into the pan and inhaled.
He tore the arm of a spiral sticking out of the pan before jumping back onto the floor. His face was going to be sticky. He would have to remedy that by turning on the faucet in the bathroom sink and cleaning all the frosting off himself. This was probably going to give him away if the evidence of cat hair didn’t.
Oh no! He’d forgotten to check for shedding.
Lucifer left
his chunk of sticky bun in his dish and jumped back onto the counter to look for remnants of hair in the cinnamon rolls.
Just his luck, he only spotted three hairs. Unsuccessfully, he tried to use his tongue to lick them out.
He froze when he heard Abigail’s voice in the other room. She wasn’t supposed to be back this soon.
“Sorry, kids,” Abigail said. “Did you see my—Oh, yes, there it is.” Her feet tapped against the floor.
Lucifer hurriedly jumped down from the counter. He hid the lump of pastry behind him and attempted to look aloof. Abigail didn’t even enter the kitchen.
The door closed a moment later. Clarissa and Felix murmured quietly in the other room. Clarissa giggled.
Lucifer wolfed down his cinnamon roll and went to the sink in the bathroom to erase the evidence of pillaging the cinnamon rolls. Probably she would be able to tell even without the evidence of cat hair. She always could tell when he’d done something he wasn’t supposed to.
At least Lucifer had the satisfaction of wiping his wet face against Felix’s pants leg as he made out on the couch with Clarissa. Felix shoved Lucifer off the couch with his foot. He continued to kiss Clarissa.
The sharp odor of ozone drowned out the warm welcoming fragrance of cinnamon and baked bread. Electricity crackled in the air. Lucifer was more certain than ever his brother’s affinity was like his own. He had long ago suspected Clarissa wasn’t an ordinary Witchkin with fire or water as her affinity either. He’d known she wasn’t an Amni Plandai like Abigail since she had no affinity with plants. Few were Celestor like Vega Bloodmire, able to use the power of stars for wards and divination—though Felix claimed that was his supposed superpower.
The more Clarissa and Felix kissed, the stronger the magic became. Lucifer ran circles around the room, anxious energy building inside him. Their magic radiated from them like a beacon, washing over Lucifer in waves. Their electricity generated enough power to fuel the entire block. Static made Lucifer’s hair stand on end and prickled under his skin.
He collapsed onto the floor, relaxation caressing over him. This didn’t feel so different from the aftereffects of catnip.
He’d never been close to so much magic, especially not something so similar to his own. He thought about what Vega had said about storing his magic. If he could tap into theirs and use it, perhaps he could cure himself. The only problem was that meant he had to stay in the same room with his brother while he seduced Abigail’s daughter.
If that hadn’t been a factor, he might have sunk into the bliss of magic wrapping around him. The ick factor kept him alert. He resisted the pull of the Red affinity. He forced himself to saunter away from them.
And it was a good thing he did.
The air in the room shimmered. Lucifer could feel the shift in the wards. He’d made it to the other side of the room when he felt the pressure of someone’s gaze on him.
A raven sat in the barren limbs of a tree outside. Not just one, but three. Another landed on a telephone pole across the street. The nearest birds peered into the window with rapt interest.
It was dangerous for Fae to approach a house like this with all the electricity inside, not to mention the electrical magic these two were emitting. But Felix and Clarissa had inadvertently weakened the wards that Vega had repaired.
How could his brother be so thoughtless? Unless he wasn’t being careless, and he intended to weaken the wards for the Raven Court on purpose. Lucifer couldn’t tell what Felix’s intentions were, whether he was friend or foe.
It annoyed Lucifer that Clarissa was so clueless and wasn’t paying attention. Lucifer jumped onto the end table, even though Abigail didn’t like it when he did that. Batting Clarissa on the head didn’t get her attention, neither did yowling. He pushed the cup of water toward the edge of the table. They still didn’t look. Their attention was focused on consuming each other’s faces. He batted the water off the table, the cup clattering to the floor.
He was satisfied that the water splashed them both, but mostly Felix.
His brother swore. Clarissa hurriedly ran to the kitchen to retrieve towels. Lucifer swiped a claw at Felix’s face, then leapt back toward the window. He pointed to the ravens perched in the tree watching. Felix didn’t even look his way. He was too busy mopping up the spilled water with the towel Clarissa handed him.
How could Lucifer be related to anyone so impossibly clueless? He had to be ignoring Lucifer on purpose.
Warning his brother had proved futile. Lucifer unleashed his energies on Clarissa, swiping at her ankle as she crouched to wipe up the spill. She fell onto her backside in her clumsy attempt to flee.
“Ow! What was that for?” She shoved him away with a foot.
He had arrested her attention at least. He ran to the window. Her eyes tracked his movement. He leapt onto the windowsill and batted a paw at the raven in the tree. Only one raven remained in the tree now. When he turned back to her, he noticed she was gazing out the window just as he had hoped she would.
“Felix?” Clarissa beckoned to him as she approached the glass. “Is that Priscilla, or is that a different raven?”
Before he could join her at the window, the raven flew off.
Felix turned to Lucifer, one eyebrow arched in condemnation. He lifted his hand, silver and violet sparks crackling in his palm. Lucifer hissed and darted back. Whatever Felix was about to do, it was going to be far worse than being put outside.
Clarissa closed in on him as Felix cornered him against the wall. Lucifer dodged one way and then the other before racing between Clarissa’s legs and dashing out of the room. He ran to Abigail’s bedroom. The door to her closet was open just enough that he could squeeze through and leap into the basket of laundry. He burrowed under her dirty clothes and stared out through the crack in the closet doorway.
They didn’t follow him into the room, though he heard footsteps down the hall.
A moment later he heard the door to Abigail’s room slam. They’d closed him in there.
He was surprised that was all they’d done. Then again, Clarissa might not have liked him after all the times he’d clawed her, but she wouldn’t have done anything malicious to anyone. She wouldn’t have permitted Felix to do anything cruel. At least he didn’t think so.
He heard them outside the room, their feet in the hallway. He only knew what they were up to after that because the air turned soupy with ozone. Electricity throbbed through the walls, bombarding Lucifer with waves of molten pleasure. The air smelled of rainbows and art supplies. He tasted piano music and felt the caress of Impressionist paintings against his fur. His stomach flip-flopped.
He clawed his way out of the laundry, feeling like he was drowning. His internal organs spasmed, first pleasantly and then with sharp pangs. The cinnamon rolls he shouldn’t have eaten earlier roiled in his belly. Abigail was always saying he shouldn’t eat human food, and that probably was why he suddenly felt sick.
Then again, Felix might have hexed him.
Dizziness and nausea crashed over him. Lucifer choked on vomit, trying not to get sick in Abigail’s basket of clothes, but he couldn’t help himself. The food came out of him anyway. The combination of tuna fish and cinnamon roll were far less pleasant coming out than going in. His bones lanced with pain, and his belly churned. Pleasure and pain stabbed against his flesh, confusing his senses. Jolt after jolt of electric shock rushed through him. He was too senseless to even guess what was happening or why.
All he knew was that it was Red affinity magic at work.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cinderfella
Lucifer’s head swam in a muddled haze. He wandered out of the closet and darted out the door when Clarissa went outside. He was sick again, and his bowels turned to liquid, but he was hardly lucid enough to remember much more. He thought he recalled something about a flock of ravens circling overhead, but it might have been a dream. He felt woozy and strange, unable to focus as the pains coursed thr
ough him.
Eventually he found himself in the sanctuary of the closet again.
He had no idea how much time had passed. Several times he heard Abigail say his name as she came looking for him. He wanted to respond, to meow and tell her he was near and that he wasn’t well, but he couldn’t make his vocal cords work. At some point, he was aware of Abigail opening the closet door and throwing laundry in the basket, but the room was dim, and she didn’t notice him.
He lay on his side resting as the effects of the magic slowly faded. It was dark by the time he became fully aware of his surroundings and in control of himself. He listened to the sound of Abigail’s shallow breathing coming from the bed.
The air in the closet was stuffy and smelled foul. Earlier he must have smashed the laundry basket because it now had flattened sides, clothes spilling out onto Abigail’s tidy rows of shoes. He’d gotten his whiskers caught in a purse’s zipper, and he held the leather down to wrench his face free. The pain was enough to make him roar, but his throat was raw, and the only sound that came out was a hoarse cough.
His limbs shook as he rose on all four limbs. His body felt clumsy and wrong. He hit his head against the wall, cushioned only slightly by a fluffy dress zipped in a garment bag. Lucifer felt sticky, vomit clinging to him and assaulting his nostrils. He slid the closet door aside with his face and climbed out.
The room seemed darker than usual, but he was able to make out the shape of Abigail in bed. His belly cramped with hunger, and dizziness washed over him. He still didn’t feel like himself. He crawled over to her bed, wanting to snuggle up against her and feel the comfort of her arms around him. Only, he didn’t want to soil her bed after he’d been sick and taint her blankets with his filth.
He also knew he wasn’t going to be able to give himself a bath on his own or get himself more food. The door to her room was open, and he considered venturing to the kitchen for a drink of water to slake his parched throat, but he didn’t want to track his mess over her carpet. He hated being so dependent on someone else to care for him.
