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The bell dinged signaling the elevator opening. As he entered Castian didn’t answer until the doors shut. “Either way, it doesn’t concern them. My identity, and my goals have nothing to do with them. And you especially shouldn’t blame me, or accuse me of anything Demon.”
“Which of us is more demon, I wonder.”
MINOTAUR
OYE
The loud blaring of Oye’s cell phone clued her in that it was time to wake up. Groaning, she rubbed her face back and forth on her pillow. She released a sigh and lifted her head. Her hair hidden under the large silky bonnet she’d been given by Sabina. The orange snooze button flashed at her, luring her to press it but if she did she’d never make it to the local bakery on time.
Clicking her tongue in annoyance, she didn’t react at all when her blanket was jerked from her body with no visible help. Pushing herself up, she stretched and released a satisfied groan when her back cracked. She licked her teeth, and grimaced when she tasted her morning breath.
“Ew.”
Getting up, she walked in her underwear and a cropped t-shirt to the bathroom. “Morning Moana," she said, to the little dragon bird that released a shrill whistle at her entrance. The morning light played along its blue and green scales, casting a reflection that bounced off the mirror. Before it leapt off her window ledge and took off.
Oye wasn’t sure why the dragon bird had taken such a liking to her, especially with the plethora of magic people in the human world, but she had accepted it as a perk to her apartment. When she’d first told Lanias and Sabina she was going to live in the human world, Lanias had accused her of being a follower. Since her little cousin had already moved to the human world and gotten married to her first husband.
And while Oye didn’t feel like she had to explain her reasons for wanting to live in Nashville, she’d reluctantly told Lanias about her desire to live close to Mama D and the various kids who lived at the orphanage.
Lanias had been left with nothing more to say than a sarcastic, “Good luck.”
Finished with brushing her teeth and washing her face, she waved her shower on and hopped in. The hot water hit her skin, and Oye immediately felt her tight muscles relax under the deluge. She wanted to live like this every day, a peaceful morning filled with taking warm showers and grumbling only about work. Releasing a sigh, she let her head drop, though that wasn’t meant to be.
She lifted a hand, moving it back and forth. Her skin sparkled slightly from the pieces of iron that came to the surface when she didn’t move.
“My Greatest Project.”
The glow of the screens was the only thing she could see, her eyesight having dimmed from the mercury poisoning that had resulted in their constant injection of metal into her body. Her body felt heavy; she could barely curl her toes or her fingers in the cuffs that held her down.
The sour smell of breath tickled her nose, cracked lips appeared in her view, limited though it was—“Come my dear, one more injection and you’ll be the only metal witch who will have no need to use outside metal. Come love. Take it, for me.”
The water wrenched off; the sharp sound jerked her from the painful memories. Her skin shifted as the metal moved from her disrupted emotions, she gritted her teeth forcing it to slow and rescind, quickly getting out of the shower she grabbed her towel and quickly finished getting ready for work.
After a few minutes, she left her apartment tapping the handle so that it locked. She long ago gave up using keys.
“Becca, open the fucking door.” A masculine shout immediately drew her attention.
“No. I told you if you laid another hand on me again it was over.” Becca, Oye assumed; hollered back.
Walking past the man as he continued to slam his fist into the door. Oye didn’t stop, she was used to this couple’s shenanigans in the morning. That’s why she lived by a fuck-em, leave-em policy. Relationships were messy and usually the person who was left holding nothing, but pieces were the females.
She’d learned to expect only disappointment from men. It didn’t take a lifetime to learn such lessons, it only took having your heart broken twice by two males who had promised her happiness to figure it out. That didn’t mean she hated men; she just wasn’t interested in prolonging any sort of relationship with them.
Jogging down the steps, she shoved the exit door open and headed for her bike that was locked to the tall lamp on the corner. The neighborhood she lived in wasn’t exactly the roughest, but it also wasn’t a place people usually left their cars unlocked.
“Hey, sweet thing where you headed so early in the morning?” someone shouted out behind her.
She rolled her eyes, “Edgar, didn’t we talk about this?”
Oye turned around to face a homeless veteran who’d taken a shine to her ever since she’d run off some thugs trying to hassle him. “Sexual harassment still won’t steal my heart.”
He groaned, giving her a sullen look from where he sat on the steps of the abandoned building. “Now, why you gotta be like that? I just want to offer my condolences.”
She frowned. “Condolences for what?”
“For all the hearts you’re about to break strutting around in them pants.” He smartly retorted, giving her a broad grin.
Unable to stop the grin that came to her lips, Oye shook her head walking up to the steps she pulled a few dollars out of her back pocket and slapped it down.
