Page 29 of Plaidypus
“I think he might be a god of chocolate.”
The gaggle of vampire women giggled.
I sighed. “It’s true. He makes hot chocolate better than I do. That must mean he’s a divine in disguise.”
“Please forgive my sister. She really likes hot chocolate. She’ll only drink coffee if it has chocolate in it unless the world might end if she doesn’t have some coffee to get her through the day.”
I shrugged. “Eh. It’s the truth, so why bother arguing? I don’t hear any of you providing any evidence he’s not a god of chocolate.”
“The scanner says I’m a single male wolf lycanthrope without any active divinity. It can detect the divine,” Leonard called from the top of the stairs. “I make good hot chocolate because I know how to follow instructions.”
I gasped, and I turned to Mina, questioning why the succubus hadn’t claimed male perfection for herself. I prodded her with my foot until she stirred. “What sorcery is this? He makes hot chocolateandknows how to follow instructions?” I knew what my mother would suggest I do, and it involved a chapel, wedding rings, and grandchildren. Most days, Matthieu could follow instructions, read directions, and generally behave as an adult.
The rest of the time, he existed to drive me insane.
Mina’s smirk promised trouble. She got up off the floor and strode over with an exaggerated sway of her hips, placed her finger under my chin, and tilted my head up. She grinned, leaned down, and dropped a kiss on my nose. “You’readorable.”
I crossed my eyes trying to get a better look at the tip of my nose. “You’re supposed to kiss the cheeks, not the nose. It’s basic French-Canadian 101. Cheeks are normal. Noses are weird.” As Mina needed a great deal of education on how to be properly Canadian, I stood on my toes and kissed the air beside her cheek, switched to the other side and repeated the process before returning to my starting point and issuing one final air kiss, making sure to make the appropriate kissy sounds when I did it. “Like that. If you’re close to the person, you actually kiss their cheeks. If not, you air kiss. You’ll get the hang of it with practice. If in doubt, air kiss.”
“I prefer kissing on the mouth,” the succubus replied.
Of course she did. “Kissing on the mouth is not typically a tolerated form of greeting unless you’re kissing your partner, in which case, do what you want within the realm of decency.”
“Decency is so overrated,” the succubus complained. “Without those prudish decency rules, I could enjoy the man I wanted without having to dance around it. I’d just take off my shirt and issue a come-hither, and everyone would leave the relationship satisfied.”
Well, if society’s rules on decency vanished, I understood my fate: I’d have an even harder time finding an interested man. “Please don’t eradicate decency laws. I’d likesomechance with a man in my lifetime. Without those decency laws, the only winners here are the sex demons, who would inevitably rule the roost.”
“Ah, but you would be able to find an interested incubi without much trouble. You’d use the same tactic. Remove your shirt and issue a come-hither. You might even snare several incubi using that trick.”
“You don’t need several incubi,” my brother informed me.
I glared at the traitor, as did every other woman in the room. “And why not?” I demanded.
“Do the math,” my brother suggested, smirking before heading upstairs to dodge my wrath.
Narrowing my eyes, I considered my brother’s demand I consider the math. When I realized what he meant, my eyes widened. “Matthieu Lavigne, you areawful!”
“I’m not the one who failed to think about what you were asking for,” he called back.
Mina giggled. “He does present a very good point, though. Incubi do not like to be left waiting, and they get creative when in groups. You really don’t want to engage with multiple incubi unless you want to be very sore and unable to walk straight for a few weeks. I recommend limiting your kink to one incubus or lycanthrope. The lycanthrope would be a better choice for you, but be careful about your choice of lycanthrope, because the virus overdoes it on the loyalty bit at times, and it would be a shame to have to kill Leonard because he’s a bad lay.”
According to the snort upstairs, Leonard had heard the succubus.
“Are you trying to help or completely destroy any hope he might be an eligible lycanthrope?” I didn’t bother to whisper, as I suspected the wolf upstairs would hear me anyway.
“That’s for me to know, and you to find out soon enough. Let the games begin.”
I ranout of excuses to put off leaving, and as the sun set, I herded my brother into the loaner from the CDC, wished the other vampires, the sex demons, and the CDC’s lycanthrope well, and escaped my small home town and its hotspots—and murderous townsfolk.
Had the townsfolk been a little less murderous, I would have loved to stay. I’d miss everything about the place, from the rocks peeking out from beneath the thick blankets of snow to the way the moonlight gleamed off the ice clinging to the trees. While the roads had been cleared and salted, I took care driving.
The last thing either one of us needed was another close encounter with a moose.
I’d miss Icy and would seek out vengeance if the CDC didn’t take exceptionally good care of her.
“Well, it’s been an interesting few days,” my brother said, once we made it beyond the town.
Thanks to the weather, we’d dodged seeing anyone, although the tinted windows of the CDC’s SUV might have spared us from being recognized. The sensible stayed home, and as everybody in town stopped selling liquor after dark, few bothered with going out once the sun set.
