Rise of the Retics Read Free Page A

insult. Jaxon was the mutt.
    He could feel himself starting to get angry, but he decided he wasn’t going to let some old prickly bottomed moron ruin his breakfast, so he took a deep breath, turned, and continued on his way. He would just remember his face for later. Revenge would be just as sweet as the orange.
    “Bah! Not even a challenge anymore, Rigs,” Jaxon said to his partner in crime as they turned the corner. He could hear the sounds of Elmira profusely apologizing to either her customer or her fruit fading into the background. Rigby trotted alongside with a panting smile plastered to her face.
    There was nothing Jaxon loved more than the reaction the townsfolk gave him as he went for his little strolls through the city. As several sets of eyes showed their silent disdain for him, he casually ran his bright, red-skinned fingers through his hair. Jaxon adored his hair, which was a striking combination of deep ebony and ash colored streaks. To the casual observer he looked like a small boy who had just been pulled from the fires of an active volcano—his skin seared a fiery molten red. However, a more careful examination revealed two triangular ivory horns protruding like sharpened spikes from his forehead, a constant reminder to all around him of the blood he carried within him . Blood of the Underworld , thought Jaxon with pride. His long red tail darted up behind his head, its sharp spade tip glinting in the morning sunshine.
    Jaxon had lived in Rosehaven since he was little more than a year old. He knew very little of his background from before then. What he could piece together mostly came from stories his various foster guardians had told him.
    He knew that his father was a pureblood demon, and his mother a human, and that somehow he had survived birth and infancy in the Underworld, a feat no other mixed-blooded child had ever managed to do. Most non-pure children born in the Underworld were immediately cast into a volcanic river. At least, this was what one of his foster mothers said should have happened to him, right after he “accidentally” put three live snakes in her bed. He didn’t understand what she was so upset about, not a single one of them was poisonous.
    He knew little else of his background, neither how his parents had met, nor where they were now. In truth, he had no memory of either of them, and they had never visited or written in the years since he had arrived on the island.
    Jaxon assumed his father had far more important things to do, what with being a powerful demon and all. He didn’t care what his mother’s reasons were—he certainly didn’t want to meet the filthy human anyway. If he ever did have the opportunity, he figured he would have to kill her just to get back at her for trying to sabotage his genes.
    Most other retics mistrusted his demonic features, knowing that the evil nature of beings from the Underworld was difficult to overcome. That didn’t bother Jaxon so much, though. A little bit of mistrust and fear was definitely something he could work with.
    What truly made life irritating for Jaxon, however, were his human traits.  Most creatures from the Underworld had bright, flame-wreathed eyes, yet his were a brilliant blue, more akin to the calm sky above the island than the fiery pits below it. His skin was also a big give away that Jaxon was half-human. Demonic creatures’ skin had a tough leathery feel, much like a snake, with bony plates throughout their body for maximum protection. Jaxon’s skin was far softer, more likely to be confused with a newborn elf’s bottom than with any type of reptile. These were the traits that really betrayed him, as no species was more hated in Rosehaven than the humans. In most of the city, the word human was right up there with the most vulgar profanity any species had ever developed. [5]
    Due to his looks, Jaxon realized at a very young age that he would never completely fit in while living on the island of Rosehaven, or