Demon Hunting with a Dixie Deb - Lexi George Page 0,47

luminous skin was aglow. The thin garment molded to her high, round breasts. The blushing tips puckered beneath the damp silk’s caress.

Something bright shone through the tunic. An undergarment of some sort, Grim’s dazed brain realized, if you could call it that. A child’s hair ribbon had more substance.

The nymph skipped to the end of the wharf, and Grim caught a tantalizing glimpse of slim, muscled thighs and firm calves.

“One, two, three, here I come,” the siren called.

She dove off the pier in a graceful arc and flashed through the water in a blur of motion, popping up in the middle of the river like a playful otter. A huge fish rose from the depths to meet her. Scaleless and dark with dull yellow markings, small, wide-set eyes, and a spiny dorsal fin, the thing was the size of a barge.

The creature opened its vast maw to swallow the siren. Raw terror catapulted Grim to his feet. To his astonishment, the fish puckered its bewhiskered mouth and squirted water in Sassy’s face.

She sputtered and giggled. “Good one. You got me that time, boy.”

’Twould seem Sassy has made friends with a fish. The Provider’s tone was musing. And a prodigious big one, at that.

Sassy did nothing in small measure.

I sense your apprehension on Sassy’s behalf. Do not worry. The mammoth seems tame enough.

Indeed, but Grim had to be sure. He merged his mind with the giant’s. The tastes and smells of the river flooded his senses: muddy water ripe with decay; algae; rotting logs; insects, alive and dead; snails and fish. Primarily a bottom feeder, the fish preferred deep hollows beneath fallen logs and quiet, sandy depressions. It fed mostly at night and just before sunrise, and lived off plants, bugs, other fish, and birds. The fish had poor vision. It sensed Sassy through its whiskers more than it saw her.

In Grim’s experience, fish were not deep thinkers. They were ruled primarily by basic urges like feeding, spawning, and avoiding being eaten. This, however, was not your average fish. In addition to its gargantuan size, this fish was old and aware.

Isolated, childless, and mateless, the fish was thoroughly captivated by Sassy.

The fish nudged Sassy like an overgrown puppy. It wanted to play.

“Again?” Sassy laughed. “Okay, if you’re not too tired.”

Sassy grabbed a streaming whisker and held on. The fish swam away from Grim, towing Sassy behind.

Grim watched Sassy disappear in growing alarm. “Where are they going?”

To explore the far side of the river, I assume, the Provider said.

Never assume anything where Sassy was concerned. That much Grim had learned in their brief acquaintance.

With a curse, he dissolved in a shower of particles and reformed at the end of the pier.

Bring her back, he ordered the fish. You go too far.

Grim felt the fish’s shock at the mental nudge. Who?

I am Grim. He struggled for a concept the fish would understand. Her . . . mate.

The lie was a small one. It was not in his nature to fabricate, but that was not what disquieted him. He wanted it to be true. He wanted to find Sassy’s betrothed and dispatch him. He wanted to do the same with Evan.

He wanted Sassy for himself.

Sweet Kehv, if he felt like this after one day, he would be utterly besotted in a week. As for when he left . . .

Grim’s heart thudded and his palms went clammy. There was a vast difference between being alone and lonely.

He could request assignment here. Torture with Sassy handfasted to another. Much as he would enjoy rending Wesley limb from limb, he would not do so. He would do nothing to hurt Sassy.

Wesley. Bah, Grim felt sure the man was not worthy of Sassy.

Grim squelched the hot, ugly burning in his gut. He was not worthy of Sassy, either. She was joy and laughter and light. He was darkness and death, a warrior; a hunter and a loner, separated by guilt and grief, his hands and soul bloodied by eons of violence.

She deserved better.

No mate, the fish said, as though reading his thoughts. Fry play.

Grim winced. It was one thing to judge oneself unworthy, another thing altogether to be deemed lacking by a fish.

Bring her to me. Grim added a push of power to the command.

The fish turned and the odd pair of playmates headed back to the wharf. Arms crossed, Grim waited, seething with impatience. This escapade was the last straw. Take the blasted fish out of the equation. What if Sassy had been swept downriver? The