My Demon Saint Read Free

take what I wanted. Story of my life.”
    Ume reached for her cousin’s hand, her heart aching at her words. “Jules, don’t say that. I’ve never known anyone braver than you. You put yourself out there every day. You wanted to write, and you succeeded. You flew to Scotland to be on camera, having no idea what you were letting yourself in for.” She smiled charmingly. “And you’re the only one who can deal with me when I get all maudlin and bitter. If you’re not brave I don’t know who is.”
    Julie squeezed her hand. “You are, Ume. If you’d been there, if you’d seen the man you wanted, you wouldn’t have hesitated. You would’ve jumped in with both feet and never looked back.”
    Ume’s smile wavered. “Yeah. Look where that got me.”
    She thought about Julie’s last abusive relationship, the controlling man who’d convinced her family he was the perfect suitor. And Ume had had her own brush with a wild, uncontrollable hellion who loved to drink more than anything. Including her. Ume may have deserved her fate for being so reckless, but Julie didn’t. She deserved to have someone love her passionately. Someone who didn’t want to change her.
    Too bad the world was full of jackasses.

    A few hours later, she leaned back against her pillows, emotionally worn out. Werewolf or not, it was obvious Julie had feelings about a man she didn’t believe she could have. Ume’s protective instincts had come out full force. If she knew where he lived she would drag him to her cousin’s house herself, and wrap him up for her in a neat little bow, shifter or not.
    It boggled Ume’s mind. Julie truly believed in all of it. In shifters and vampires, ghosts and demons.
    Oni was the name her mother used for the demons she was constantly trying to protect Ume from. But in her stories the evil spirits never looked like the one from Shifting Reality . Saint.
    When she’s seen him on camera, he’d always been looking down at some device, his dark hair swooping across his forehead, concealing his eyes. But from what she could see, he was gorgeous. Nothing like a troll or monster. Nothing that would kill you or steal your soul. The worst that beautiful creature could do was break a heart or twelve.
    She had to admit, at least to herself, that seeing him in a link from one of Julie’s emails was what initially had her looking up the online role-playing game he’d created. Demon Saint .
    Usually she preferred her entertainment to be active, out of doors, somewhere in nature. But being confined for the last few years had gotten her a little too involved in soap operas, reality shows and online games.
    When she saw how big the world of Demon Saint was, how challenging…she simply couldn’t resist. Nothing had helped her pass the time between therapy sessions, or deal with her never-ending insomnia, better than the online quests.
    Just thinking about it gave her a burst of energy. She opened her laptop and quickly typed in the password to enter the game. On the screen she could see her character statistics and the quests, or storylines, she was currently involved in.
    She also saw Plum, the name she’d given the figure that she controlled within the confines of the game. Plum was the English translation for Ume, and she had to admit, she had fun bringing her character to life.
    The creation of her avatar had taken days, and it was a masterpiece in her opinion. Just the right combination of warrior and mystic to be a sought-after player.
    Maybe she’d gotten her mother’s imagination after all. Plum was nothing if not an homage to her mother’s beliefs. A female kitsune . A fox spirit with the ability to appear human and magic enough to fight the different demons the game created to challenge its players.
    Ume had also created a talisman for her character. A necklace with a single, perfect pearl. A hoshi no tama, a star ball, believed to be the energy of the kitsune spirit, as well as protection against evil.
    Her