The Call of Monsters (My Beautiful Monsters #3) - J.B. Trepagnier Page 0,10

He was away from Zeus. Sure, he was still in Olympus, but he changed the plans for the better. I knew the old plan involved a lot of talking and possibly a hostile takeover, but were we any better than Demeter if we showed up there and started killing people just to get him back? Unlike Persephone, he wanted to leave, but we couldn’t destroy an entire realm just because one man pissed us off, even if from everything I knew, there were a lot of bad people there.

I was holding Demos’s hand as we walked out to the courtyard of the castle. I knew he wanted to be alone with me, but everyone followed, including my father. I guess sprouting bat wings and flying for the first time was a big deal. I mean, it totally was, and I was about to piss my pants from fear. I’d flown in planes before, but never with my own wings. I also never would have uttered that sentence until recently. It didn’t sound any less insane now that everything else had happened to me.

I leaned into Demos’s arm and took in his smell. He always smelled like burning embers and sandalwood.

“Sorry, but this is kind of a big deal. I guess they want to watch.”

He just squeezed my hand. I expected an insult or something about how they were infringing on his time, but I didn’t get it.

“When this is over, we’ll go flying as our monsters, just you and me.”

“It’s bizarre I even have a monster.”

“But pretty damned sexy.”

“I take it you want me to bring her out during bedroom play too?”

“Temptress. We all do. I’m imagining those claws down my back.”

“They looked pretty sharp, Demos. I’d probably rip you to shreds.”

“Tease. Okay, things are pretty clear for a takeoff here. Why don’t you bring out that lovely cat?”

Now that I knew what it felt like, I could access that feeling again, but it still wasn’t an instantaneous change, and I had a feeling it was supposed to be if I wanted it to. Baby steps. I wasn’t going to master being a demon overnight, no matter how much I wanted to, so I could get Hephaestus back.

It seemed like it took forever for me to change but shorter than my first time, where I had no idea what I was doing. There was something about that red cloud that surrounded me when I did it, because my father told everyone to stay away from me until it went out, and he mentioned something about being able to kill with it. I definitely needed to learn that, but I needed to be able to fly too. If we were going to Olympus, I required every demon trick in my arsenal working.

I don’t know why I thought I could speak when I had a cat’s head. I was clearly looking at it in the mirror, and I’d spent enough time around cats and monsters to know what would come out of my mouth if I attempted it instead of using my demonic gift to speak. I guess I was just in a total state of shock and forgot.

This was still wholly strange, but the only thing I was afraid of now were these wings not being functional and falling from the sky. We weren’t at some great height. We were at ground level in the courtyard. Hopefully, that meant teaching me this didn’t involve shoving me off a roof and telling me to swim. Would Demos do that? He’d been a lot sweeter lately.

Demos stroked my wings, and I broke into goosebumps. These bat appendages on my back were highly sensitive to touch, and this felt hugely erotic. I was a little mortified when I started purring. I had to get the purr. I was okay with the teeth and the claws, but that purr came out of nowhere, and I couldn’t control it. I had a feeling it was going to betray my tiny trust a lot.

“Oh, kitty likes that?” Demos grinned.

“Oh, shut up, Demos. I can’t turn it off, so can we focus on flying?”

“Your wings feel strong and capable of flight. You haven’t used them yet, so I don’t know if you need to build up to this like the baby bird Kimon likes to call you, or this is more like a phoenix situation where magic is involved so you can always fly.”

Kimon had called me baby bird from the start, and none of us had any