Demon Hunting with a Dixie Deb Read Free

who’s this man?”
    Mama plucked the snapshot from Sassy’s fat little fingers. “Where did you get this, Sarah Elizabeth?”
    Sarah Elizabeth? Sassy quailed. She was Mama’s Sassy Bug. Mama never called her Sarah Elizabeth unless she was in trouble. She regarded her mother anxiously. Were those tears in Mama’s eyes? She was a bad girl to make her mama cry.
    â€œUpstairs in the closet.” Sassy swallowed the lump in her throat. “W-who is he?”
    â€œYour father.”
    Mama’s voice was cool and distant, and her face looked stiff and funny. Her expression frightened Sassy.
    Opening a little compartment in the desk, Mama placed the photograph inside and shut the drawer with a snap.
    â€œPlay somewhere else.” Mama returned her attention to her invitations. “Mother is busy.”
    Sassy did not ask her mother about The Man again. Talking about The Man made Mama sad. Sassy hated when Mama was sad.
    Still, Sassy had learned a few things about her father through the years. His name was William Blake Peterson Jr., and he was a concert pianist.
    Or, rather, he had been; Junior Peterson was dead. He’d died before Sassy was born.
    Which meant Sassy was talking to a ghost.

Chapter Two
    G rim materialized in the shelter of the woods and looked back. His fingers sought and found the chain he wore around his neck; all that remained of his brother Gryff. Absently, he traced the smooth edges of the medallion, his gaze on the female on the bridge. She was wet and bedraggled, a delicious little package wrapped in damp green silk. A curious longing swept over him, and he had the sudden urge to retrace his steps and peel the clinging dress from her body. Unwrap her like some long-awaited, much anticipated treat.
    The impulse unsettled him. She unsettled him, had done so from the instant he’d plucked her from the water. The compulsion had grown with each passing moment in her presence, culminating in his unwise and precipitous departure.
    She had seen him disappear. He was seldom careless. Her memory would have to be adjusted.
    Eyes wide, hair streaming across her shoulders and breasts in a sleek, wet curtain, she stared over the edge of the bridge in confusion. An uneasy sensation bloomed in Grim’s chest, an aberrant response he found puzzling.
    By the gods, what was it about the chit that affected him? She was pretty enough, he supposed, though not a true beauty. Her face was more heart shaped than oval, her jaw too square; mouth a trifle too wide. She was disheveled, her pale cheeks smeared with the substance she’d used to darken her lashes. Any number of thralls in the House of Perpetual Bliss boasted greater charms. Yet there was something about her, a lightness that seeped into the cold, dark corners of his soul, warming him.
    He had been cold for a very long time.
    The thought startled him. What strange humor was this? How long had it been since his last session with a thrall?
    Too long, judging by his maudlin descent into sentiment.
    The woman on the bridge made a sound of dismay. The sound pulled Grim closer, as though he were tethered. He halted with an effort. By the sword, the minx was a winsome snare. She tempted him from his appointed task. He should have left her at the bottom of the stream with her metal carriage.
    He turned his back on her and drew his sword. Slipping deeper into the thick stand of trees, he searched for signs of his quarry. He would capture or destroy the demon he had trailed from another world to this. He would return for the female and deliver her to safety.
    Then he would leave and seek the enemy elsewhere.
    The woods were quiet. Damp gouges marred the leaves of the forest floor. Broken branches and claw marks on tree trunks marked the beast’s passage. The demon deer had moved swiftly, leaving terror and the stench of decay in its wake.
    A trickle of unease drew his mind back to the human female. What if she left the road in