Demons Are a Girl’s Best Friend Read Free Page A

half-demon is too much trouble.”
    “All males are trouble. That’s why we females were made.” Sybil peered closely at her BWFF (best witch friend forever), who was standing there pensively. “I can’t believe it. You’re blushing! He’s that cute?”
    “Am not. It’s from my hot shower. I practically had to put the water on boiling to get that cement off me.” As if she wanted a male to mess up her life. Even a hot-looking one with a face made for sin and a body obviously created for…
    Don’t go there, Mags.
    “The witch doth protest too much.” Sybil’s lyrical laughter rang in the room like silvery wind chimes. She stood up and raised her arms over her head in a lithe stretch. “Come on. We’ll do some yoga before you go to bed, and you’ll feel loads better.”
    “I just want a night out with dancing and maybe even dinner,” Maggie muttered, following her friend out of her quarters into the hall. “I want to dress up and come home with my clothing intact.”
    “I want Orlando Bloom, but that won’t be happening anytime soon,” Sybil said serenely.
    “O’Malley, why are you maiming my recruits again?” The roar echoed down the hallway and seemed to bounce off the walls.
    Maggie winced.
    “I believe you’re being paged.” Sybil’s wings fluttered faster. “I’ll be in the fitness center waiting… with bandages.”
    Maggie cursed under her breath. “Jeez, one tiny cut. Okay, more than a tiny cut, but the idiot needs to learn to move faster if he doesn’t want to get killed. I was actually very easy on him.”
    She waved her hand over her head as she about-faced and headed outside the living quarters and across the compound’s central courtyard to the administration building. She jogged down the stairs to what the team less than affectionately called the Dungeon.
    Except this dungeon looked more like a Grecian temple complete with white marble columns and the soft sounds of lyres in the background. In the middle of the ancient elegance was a desk piled high with papers that every once in a while fluttered on to the gold marble floor and then floated back up to reside once more on the desk’s surface.
    Maggie wrinkled her nose at the harsh scent of cigar smoke permeating the air. While she didn’t mind the aroma of a good cigar or pipe smoke, she did object to something that smelled like old, wet rope. Add in the haze of magick filtering through the air in purple coils, and the boss’s office needed a good aromatherapy session.
    “You shouted, old esteemed one.”
    A round face edged with a mangy white beard peered over the stacks of paperwork. “Bite me, O’Malley.”
    Maggie waved her hand in front of her face. “For Fates’ sake, Mal, can’t you buy a cigar that costs more than a penny? That smells worse than goat poo.”
    “Whaddya talkin’ about? This sucker cost me a whole buck. They don’t come cheap anymore.” He held up the offensive item. “And don’t think you can get me off the subject, either. What the fuck did you do to Arius last week? It was his first training session with you!”
    “So the wuss did come whining to you?” She pushed papers off a chair and parked her butt. “You only needed a baby-size Band-Aid for the cut. Trust me, it was way less than he’d get in battle.” If there was one thing Maggie would not allow, it was that anyone she was responsible for should go into a fight unprepared.
    “He’s threatening to file a grievance.” Mal hopped out of his chair, revealing his three-foot height, and waddled around the desk. Faint wisps of white hair floated along the tips of his ears like antennae as he looked up at the witch who kicked ass and didn’t bother taking names on a regular basis. A purple cloud of magick followed him. He made a face. “And you know how I hate paperwork.”
    Maggie’s gaze drifted over the papers that covered the desk, floated in the air, and eventually escaped out the door. “Yes, I can see that. Tell Arius if