table at everyone but Sassy.
It was so unfair. Taryn got pudding. Evan got pie. The macho demon hunter with the shoulders wider than a Cadillac got cake. Wonderful, gooey, deliciously pink strawberry cake.
Sassy the Disregarded got nada. She was Sassy the Sugarless, Sassy Sans Dessert.
The toad of resentment swelled and burst, and a rush of energy blasted through her. Something dark and scary, powerful and hungry sprang to life.
Sassy leaped out of her chair and onto the table, scattering dishes and glasses onto the floor. She rolled her shoulders. The garment she wore cramped her wings. She ripped it off. Ah, much better. Clothing was a nuisance, a human contrivance, but she wasn’t human. She was fae, a living spirit of the sentient earth. She need not cover her nakedness in shame.
Spreading her wings, Sassy took flight.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sassy sprang off the table and into the air. Pauline screamed and dropped her tray. Chaos erupted in the eatery. Customers sprang to their feet, knocking over tables, smashing dishes, and scattering cutlery in their haste to escape.
The kitchen door slammed against the wall, and Miss Vi thundered into the dining room.
“Did the mayor’s possum get loose again?” she asked, looking around wild-eyed. “I told him not to bring that varmint in here. It ain’t hygienic.”
She saw Sassy circling the ceiling like a giant bird of prey, and her jaw sagged.
“Lord a-mercy,” she said, slumping to the floor, unconscious.
Taryn got to her feet, her gaze on her upended bowl. “Sassy spilled my ’nanner pudding. I like ’nanner pudding.”
She lifted her hand and time stopped. Terrified humans halted in mid-scramble, arms and legs akimbo. Pauline checked in backward flight, her arms flung wide and one skinny leg bent and cocked. An upended table balanced beside her, unmoving, on two legs. Dinnerware and eating utensils hung suspended in flight. Geysers of frozen broken glass sprouted from the checkered floor.
Evan nudged a petrified man, and the human teetered.
Taryn reached out, steadying the calcified form. “Stop that. Humans break.”
“Cool trick, Red,” Evan said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“The paucity of your knowledge does not surprise me.”
“You’re hilarious.” Evan jerked his chin at a weaselly man and woman slinking out the front door. “If those two slimeballs aren’t Skinners, I’ll eat my hat.”
“You are not wearing a hat,” said Taryn.
“It’s an expression, Lucy Literal. My point is, your super power doesn’t work on demonoids.”
“This much I gleaned when you did not cease your prattling.”
Grim listened to their bickering with half an ear, his attention on Sassy. She circled the room and landed on the dessert case. Reaching inside, she snagged an uncut strawberry cake and crammed a fistful into her mouth.
The change in her was astonishing. Gone was the lively, vivacious damsel of the past two days. Her fair skin was dusky purple, and so were her rioting tresses. The thin leather straps of her shoes coiled around her slender ankles, up her toned calves to her thighs, like searching ivy. Glossy black claws sprouted from her toes and fingertips, and her once-blue eyes were shimmering pools of ebony.
She was not naked, but damn near it. A strip of fabric covered her sex. Some sort of flimsy undergarment lifted her plump breasts in a most enticing fashion, leaving nothing to the imagination.
She was wild and dangerous, and absolutely magnificent, Grim’s beautiful wild elemental.
Some predatory instinct made him glance to his right.
Evan was staring at Sassy, too.
A low, possessive growl rumbled from Grim’s chest before he could stop it.
His snarl startled Sassy, and she flapped her wings in alarm and shrieked. Farm implements fell off the walls at the piercing sound, and the window at the front of the store shattered. The miniature gale stirred by her wings blew the skinny waitress across the room like a discarded piece from a game of merels.
Evan thumped Grim on the arm. “For God’s sake, reel in your dick, man. Scary Sassy ain’t playing.”
“I do not fear her.”
“Then you’re a dumbass. She’s the freaking dark angel of death.”
“Sassy did not turn from your monster. Would you abandon her now?”
“I’m not abandoning shit. I’m saying be careful. Those claws look frigging sharp.”
Satisfied that her treasure was unthreatened, Sassy went back to eating and polished off the cake in three large bites.
Grim watched Sassy grab another sweet from the case. She scooped a handful of goody from the dish and dribbled it into her mouth.
“I do not understand,” he said. “She was fine but a moment ago.”
Evan shrugged. “I’m guessing Sassy really