The Call of Monsters (My Beautiful Monsters #3) - J.B. Trepagnier Page 0,4
Earth when I wanted if I was just stuck.
I definitely would have given several years of my salary for a little more time to process things. Could I get five minutes to lose my shit over the possibility of being stuck as a cat woman with bat wings? I couldn’t even have a meltdown that Zeus had Hephaestus. I needed to learn every little thing I could to help bring him back. I didn’t have the time to break down.
Hades was gone most of the time. To the point, I never saw him, and I didn’t know what he was up to. I would have questioned it by now, but there was just so much to do. Hades had kept all his promises so far, so I just needed to trust he was working to bring Hephaestus home.
We were in Hades’s formal dining room eating, but both Hades and Persephone were gone like usual. Charley and Finn were with us a lot, but Solron missed Bael. She was off playing bedroom games in his dungeon until she was needed again. I wish I had time for bedroom games, but I was so exhausted that when we got to bed at night, I was out by the time my head hit the pillow.
My monsters seemed totally smitten with cat woman, and my father was so proud of me. Honestly, I think he was prouder of me for sprouting a cat head than he was for killing Demeter. I had to ask him about that because what the fuck? Barbatos just beamed at me.
“Killing Demeter was a given. You are my child, and she hurt your mates. You had the right weapon. I knew you were going to be the one to do it because we’re related.”
I was glad he had total faith I would be the one to do it because, for most of the battle, I thought I was just going to be watching until Pavlina got hurt. I took a considerable risk, and honestly, killing her was an accident. She could very well have killed me. I just had a shadow demon on my side, and I surprised her.
“I don’t think you understand what you just did, River. You’ve met some demons. It was Solron who could get you to that shadow to get your revenge. Solron’s demonic form is a shadow. It’s the same with all the shadow demons.
“All the demons who weren’t fire born like me know what they are going to get because it’s inherited from their parents. If you’re a tree demon, you turn into a tree. If you’re a flame demon, you can turn into fire and travel that way. It’s different for us, and it’s a lot more unpredictable.
“It can be anything with us and our offspring. The duke that headed up that little coup had a very unimpressive demonic form, and it went to his head. He was always acting out in Hell, trying to seem better than the other dukes. Bael eventually sent him topside, so he wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore. He should have just killed him in hindsight, but when he was in Hell, no one could prove anything, and he was more annoying than anything.
“When one of the fire born marries, and their spouse gets pregnant, we throw enormous parties. Do you know those gender reveal parties humans are so fond of? Demons have been throwing parties like that to reveal their children’s demonic forms way before it came into fashion with humans. Ours are way better than the human parties, and the child is usually around the age of five when we do it. The child announces it themselves and shows it off. I would have had one of those for you if you lived with me, and every demon in Hell would have pinched your fat cheeks and scratched you behind your cat ears because as impressive as you are as an adult, you would have been fucking adorable as a five-year-old.”
I could see how little baby me with a cat head and bat wings would have been cute, but Hell had to be the most bizarre realm ever if they paved the way for gender reveal parties that had demon children show what they could do to all of Hell at a party. Would I feel different about that if I grew up in Hell? Because the idea of doing that as an adult was a little horrifying.