My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon Read Free Page A

slide. Not that she isn't damned sweet right now, but with a little extra effort, she'd be hot."
    I shook my head.
    "What?" he said. "You've never tried?"
    "Why would I?"
    "Why
wouldn't you
?"
    I opened my mouth, then shut it. Another waste of time. He wouldn't understand my point of view, no more than I understood his. "So you think if you kill me, you get Elena?"
    "Sure, why not?"
    "If it didn't require my death, I'd be tempted to go along with it, just to watch you tell her that."
    "Whatever." He rolled on his heels. "Let's get this over with. I'm hoping you brought your chain saw, 'cause otherwise, this fight isn't going to be nearly as much fun as I was hoping, with your fucked-up arm and all."
    I stopped, then slowly looked up, meeting his gaze. "My arm?"
    "Yeah, Brian McKay said you busted his balls last year for having some sport with a whore. He said something was wrong with your arm. You kept using your other one. Tyler Lake says he did it, as payback for what you did to his brother."
    "Yeah? Did he mention which arm it was? This one?"
    I grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to the wall, hand tightening until his face purpled and his eyes bulged.
    "Or was it this one?"
    I slammed my fist into his jaw. Teeth and bone crackled. He tried to scream, but my hand against his windpipe stifled it to a whimper.
    I dragged him down the wall until his face was level with mine, and leaned in, nose to nose. "I'd say that will teach you not to listen to rumors, but you're a bit thick, aren't you? I'm going to have to—"
    A thump to my left stopped me short. I glanced over as the restaurant rear door swung open. We were behind it, a dozen feet away, out of sight. I held Cain still as I watched and listened, ready to drag him into the alley if a foot appeared under that door.
    Garbage can lids clattered. They were right next to the door. No need to step outside. Just dump the trash—
    Cain let out a high-pitched squeal—the loudest noise he could manage. Then he started banging at the boarded-up window beside him. I tightened my grip, my glower warning him to stop. A foot appeared under that door, someone stepping out. I dropped the mutt and dove around the corner.
    "Hey! Hey, you there!"
    I pressed up against the wall. Footsteps sounded. A man yelled at Cain, mistaking him for a drunk. The mutt mumbled something about being jumped, struggling to talk with a broken jaw.
    I gritted my teeth. Ending a fight by alerting humans was bad enough. Trying to set them on my trail? That toppled into fullblown cowardice.
    I shook it off and retreated before someone came looking for the "mugger."
     
    BACK IN THE RESTAURANT, I LONGED TO VISIT the washroom and scrub Cain's stink off me. But I'd been gone too long already. So I grabbed a linen napkin from a wait station, wiped the blood from my hands as I strode through the dining room, and tossed the cloth onto an uncleared table.
    Elena looked up from the last bites of her meal.
    "Hey, there," she said, smiling. "Thought you'd made a fast food run on me."
    "Nah." I took my suit coat from the chair and slipped it on, blocking the mutt's smell and covering the blood splatter. "Something didn't agree with me."
    "Lunch, I bet. That's the thing about buffets—lots of food, none of it very good. So, is dessert out of the question?"
    I shook my head. "Just give me a second to finish dinner."
     
    OUR HOTEL WAS A FEW BLOCKS FROM THE restaurant, so we'd walked. Heading back, I had to switch sides every time we turned a corner, staying downwind from Elena and keeping a foot's gap between us. She didn't notice the extra distance. Neither of us was much for public displays of affection, so walking hand-in-hand wasn't expected.
    That worked only until we got to our room. She leaned against me as she pulled off her heels, then ran her hand up the back of my leg, grinning upside down, hair fanning the floor. She swept it back as she stood, her hand sliding up my leg and into my back pocket.
    "Pizza