Though considerably shorter than his full demonic height, he was still taller than most humans, standing several inches over six feet. His skin was bronze, and the brands hidden on his gray skin now looked like bold tattoos.
It was the thing he disliked most about this form. As a demon, it was easy to pretend the markings weren’t there. As a human, he had no choice but to be reminded of their existence every time he caught his reflection.
“Take one of my reusable bags from the basket by the door,” Eva said as he readied to depart. “And my keys so I don’t have to buzz you in. You can’t do your mist trick to get in since you’re supposed to be practicing being human, and that’s cheating.”
Agreeing to play mortal, Mist rode the lift down and stepped onto the sidewalk. There he paused, taking a deep inhalation of the humid summer air and double-checking that he still held onto his human form.
He ran his tongue over his teeth.Still flat.He checked the skin of his arm.Still light brown.
The darkness was illuminated by overhead lamps and light from the storefronts. Across the street, people were spilling out of a restaurant and lounging on theterrasseof a pub. Somewhere down the block, the sound of live music wafted on the hot breeze.
Someone walked past Mist, and their eyes traveled over him. They saw him. They were looking right at him and seeing nothing but a regular man. He headed down the street in the direction Eva had told him to go, confidence building with every step.
At the end of the block, right where she’d said it would be, there was a small convenience store with faded cardboard adverts in the windows for beer and ice cream. Steel bars intersected over the panes of glass, and an array of cigarette butts littered the ground outside. Overhead, a neon sign read ‘Dépanneur Au Coin,’ though the lower half of all the letters had burnt out.
It was beautiful. A shining example of current human consciousness. Paradise, compared to anything in Hell.
Taking a breath, he entered the store, all his hunter instincts fixed on locating the ice cream freezer.
* * *
Lily Donovan staredat the row of dreadful, delicious chocolate bars and questioned her life choices.
How the hell had she come to be standing in a dep at ten thirty on a Thursday night, debating which sugary monstrosity to consume alone in her apartment?
Well, she wasn’t quite alone. She was babysitting her sister’s grumpy cat, and she had his charming company to look forward to.Grand. Just grand.
After finishing university last year, Lily had searched high and low for a job in her field of environmental engineering, but it seemed like there wasn’t anyone in this city who gave a damn about designing things that were environmentally friendly. Or maybe she was just terrible at job interviews.
Whatever the case, a year later, she was still making all her income selling her clothing designs online, and she was beginning to wonder why she’d bothered torturing herself with four years of university and student debt in the first place.
Stop complaining.She usually tried never to fall into the mire of self-pity, but on nights like tonight, it was hard not to. She had friends, but she’d refused all offers of socializing in favor of staying home with Grimalkin and her sewing machine.
She’d accidentally-on-purpose missed her yoga class today, only to end up at this dep perusing the chocolate bar selection. It was only going to make her feel worse later, especially when she looked in the mirror and saw the overweight woman looking back at her and knew she hadn’t been making enough of an effort to change herself.
Her sister said she was ‘curvy’ or ‘thick.’ Lily didn’t give a damn what she called it. At the end of the day, she still had to sew all her own clothes because the ones she liked in stores never came in her size. The girls in her favorite novels and movies never looked like her, and any product designed for a woman of her build was for the purpose of weight loss.
Annoyed with her spiraling thoughts, she snatched a chocolate bar off the shelf, going for the only fair-trade option this depanneur sold. She may have been sabotaging her dieting efforts, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make ethical purchases whenever possible.
She grabbed two for good measure.
And then decided to get a bottle of wine while she was at it.
Heading down the aisle to the alcohol section, Lily stopped in her tracks when she saw a man at the end staring determinedly at the Ben & Jerry’s freezer.
He was tall. Very tall. Taller than tall people, and she definitely wasn’t one of those. And he was broad, his muscular back and shoulders stretching his black t-shirt in all the right places.
As she watched, he dragged a hand through his mop of messy black hair, the ends brushing his shoulders.
In another life, she might have been attracted to a man like that, but in this one, she was just intimidated. It was a healthy response for a woman of her size, especially one who hated exercise and had no badass self-defense skills.
Unfortunately, the wine selection was right beside him.
It was either brave proximity to the muscled giant or forgo the wine. And, okay, she was a bit of a chickenshit, but she wasn’tthatbad.
Or maybe she just really wanted wine.
Taking a deep breath, she headed down the aisle, stopping beside him. She tried to study the selection but couldn’t focus on anything except the looming presence beside her. All she felt was this burning intensity that made her heart pound and her palms sweat.
