Mongrel

"Hey."

The gorgeous woman gazed at him sleepily over the pillows, white fabric aglow in the morning sun. "Hey," she murmured. Her hair was a sunlit halo of messy brown about her perfect little face. "Didn't think you'd be awake yet."

"Why not?" Mongrel asked.

"'Cause you're an old geezer, and I really put you through your paces last night. I was betting you'd be out cold 'til noon."

Mongrel cracked a winning smile. "Sorry to disappoint you sweetheart, but I've been fucked worse."

Annie smushed her face into the pillow, inhaling deeply, then lifted herself onto one elbow to face him again. "You really did, you know." She gave him a wicked grin of her own, full brown lips parting to show pretty white teeth. "I was hoping I'd have time to cook you breakfast."

"Tell some servants to make it, you mean."

"Are you accusing me of being a liar?"

"Oh, I'm stating it for a fact. You're a liar of the most wicked sort."

"How dare you, Master Caldwell! Give me one shred of proof!"

"I don't know about proof, but I can give you an ironclad law of nature. I've never known a working girl who could cook worth a damn, and I wager I never will. Too career-oriented, the lot of you—bless your hearts. Homemaking just isn't in your bones."

"Well, you can't hold it against a girl to try and make a good impression. After all, I've got to pump my ugly horndog of a sugar daddy for all he's worth."

"That's it, now you've gone too far!" Mongrel shouted, and she squealed with laughter as he wrestled on top of her. She flopped onto her back, staring up at him, and her generously sized tits pooled on her chest, her dark stiff nipples brushing against him when she breathed.

He fucked her. Then she went and got him that breakfast. Then they ate. Then they fucked again. Then they lay in bed for a while, looking up at the ceiling of the room generously provided by his good friend Buck. Annie dozed. Mongrel was happy for the brief interlude. He was hurting all over, and his cock was rubbed raw and wrung out so thoroughly he knew he'd be pissing weird for a week, and his lungs burned something terrible from all the exercise.

Not that he'd ever let it show—not around a specimen like Annie, leastways. Will might be an assassin of men; striking at them from the shadows, all steel edge and brooding darkness. Mongrel was a killer too, only of a different sort. A lady killer. His targets never saw him coming either. They saw a funny little man and thought he'd be an easy night's work—just some old stiff to pound the swimmers out of for ten minutes, then leave as soon as he inevitably passed out from the exertion.

And right then, the moment they wrote him off as nothing much, was the moment he'd strike. He always made sure he left an impression with the girls he frequented.

Annie flinched awake, tears crowding the corners of her eyes. She'd been dreaming about her husband. Ex-husband. Apparently she'd really loved him. Mongrel held her while she sobbed pitifully, latched to his side like a koala to a tree branch.

"I'm sorry," she burbled. "I'm really sorry. This isn't sexy at all, is it?"

"I dunno," Mongrel replied softly, looking up at the blank gray ceiling, "some guys like it when a girl cries during sex. To some guys, it's even better if the thing she's crying over is another man."

"You're not like that."

"How would you know?"

"I know."

"Fine. Ya got me. I like my girls sparkling with life's joy, it's true."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"Even though you're ugly and old and creepy and weird, you've always been good to me."

"I pay you. Dunno if that qualifies as 'being good'."

"I'm not talking about that." Annie pressed herself more closely up against him, sucked in a ragged breath. "You're… nice."

Mongrel hissed playfully. "Ouch. 'Nice' is just about the worst compliment a guy can get from someone of the opposite sex."

She laughed, a fragile edge to it like she was a breath away from weeping again. "It was the one that came to mind. Sorry, old man."

"I—"

Annie clamped a hand over his mouth, dragged herself up onto his chest to look him in the eye. Hers were deep and brown and precious, and the weepy redness didn't take away from their beauty at all. "Don't say what you're about to say," she warned. "Please."

Mongrel pulled her hand away by force, grinned his winsome grin that had broken the hearts of so many girls. "I love you," he said.

"Bastard!" she hissed, and smacked his chest—hard enough that it took an effort not to wince. "Take it back."

Mongrel shrugged. "It's out there now, isn't it?"

"I said take it back."

"Why?"

"Because if you say you love me, that means I have to give you a reply."

"That's usually how that works, yeah."

"So I'll have to tell you I don't love you back."

"Of course you don't."

"Obviously. But I'm supposed to string you along. I'm supposed to let you think there's a chance."

"Just lie to me, then."

"I don't want to."

But Mongrel already knew that. It was precisely the reason why he favored Annie over all the other girls he'd slept with. She was something rarer than a unicorn—and more magical, besides.

An honest whore.

Imagine that.

Mongrel found himself smiling at her little dilemmas, put a hand into her thick dark mane and rubbed at her scalp with his fingertips. "Don't you worry about all that, darling. I'm in love, but that doesn't mean I'm all wrapped up in it. I could never buy your heart, but at least I can buy a few hours of your time here and there, and I'm happy enough with that."

"Are you sure?"

"Can't you see me smiling?"

Annie searched his face for a good while. Slowly, she softened again; produced a small, shy smile of her own.

It was a real smile. Not one put on for the customer's benefit. Mongrel had sampled enough working girls in his many years that he could always tell the difference.

It was rare, getting any fragment of true joy out of a girl whose job it was to sell her soul for money, and most likely hated every second of it.

But it sure was worth the trouble. Seeing a real smile on the lips of a woman who didn't know she still had those in her was better than a hundred orgasms. Probably. Definitely better than fifty, anyway.

"Well," Mongrel groaned, squinting at the sun-bright windows on their right, "I reckon my time's just about up, isn't it?"

"Guess so," Annie murmured into his chest.

"Thanks for making me breakfast. It was delicious."

The beautiful Entertainer snorted out an equally beautiful laugh.

She didn't move, though.

Mongrel let her be for a minute. Then once that minute had passed, and five more, and his ribcage was starting to hurt from her weight on top of him, he said: "So."

Annie didn't say anything. Didn't move.

He sighed. "I see what this is. You don't want to leave."

Nothing.

"Now, I'm not quite enough of a sucker to believe that the pleasure of my company is enough to keep you around, so that means one of three things. One: you're in trouble. Two: you need money. Or three…"

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"Can I crash with you for a while?" Annie asked.

"...you need a place to stay," Mongrel concluded. He sucked on his teeth. "Eh, why not? Place is too big for me anyway." The apartments inside the keep's residential wing were all quite spacious.

Annie let out a low, slow sigh against him, breath hot on his skin. "It's just, since the Red House burned down and everything, and the madam died, and whatever happened to the Headmistress, everything's been so fucking turned around. There's no work 'cause all my old johns are either too dead, too broke, or too depressed for a fuck. There's no houses to move into, and the ones you do get are so damn expensive. I thought I'd saved up loads, but I've already gone through more than half of it. Right now I'm sharing one room with five old ladies. In another two weeks I'll be on the street."

"Save the sob story for someone with working tear ducts," Mongrel grumbled. "I already said yes, didn't I?"

Annie dug her nails into him, then relaxed. "I'm sorry."

"I told you not to be."

"I'm taking advantage of you."

Mongrel snorted. "Of course you are. You'd have to be pretty stupid not to."

"But—"

"Ahem."

Mongrel flinched at the sound of the new voice. He made a point of not looking toward the doorway, where he caught the vague outline of a slim, gray silhouette in the corner of his eye.

"What is it?" he asked flatly.

Annie went stiff in his arms, tried to move, but he held her in place.

"Leave us, whore," Nyx intoned in a voice dripping with cool menace. "Matthew, there are matters we must discuss."

"Hey now," Mongrel warned. "Keep those claws tucked, kitten."

Annie tore herself free and scrambled to her feet, shrugging off the covers despite the fact that it left her entirely naked. "Most calamitous," she said, bowing low. "Forgive me, I'll—"

"Stay," Mongrel said. "Don't worry about her. She's just grumpy in the morning."

"Leave," Nyx repeated. "And take your money with you. Wouldn't want to forget that, would we?"

Annie pretty much dove into yesterday's rumpled clothes, snatched the wad of paper bills Mongrel had left out for her, and rushed to leave. Nyx was still blocking the doorway, though, gazing imperiously at the working girl over her nose even though she was at least a couple inches shorter.

"You will wait in the great hall," the demoness said, amber eyes piercing, stabbing, burning with hatred. "I may call on you later. If I am forced to search for you, the punishment will be severe."

"Yes, most calamitous," Annie murmured; shoulders sunken, face downturned. "As you command."

"Hey now, let's—" Mongrel said, rising from the bed and gathering a bit of the sheets around his crotch, but the demoness had already stepped aside, and Annie had already disappeared out the door before he got through his thought.

Nyx shut the door behind her, and Mongrel suddenly felt like a fox cornered by a coursing hound. The demoness turned her smoldering eyes on him. Though her pallid gray features were perfectly neutral, her displeasure could not have been more obvious.

"What crawled up your ass and died?" Mongrel muttered.

"Nothing at all," Nyx replied with what could only very charitably be interpreted as a smile. If he didn't know she was immortal, he would have assumed that grimace meant she was about to suffer a fatal stroke.

"Then why are you mad?"

"I'm not mad."

Mongrel's blood froze at the sound of those words. The three words all men feared.

Aw, shit. I'm really screwed now, aren't I? Except he had no idea what he'd actually done to deserve it.

For a demon, Nyx sure had a lot of woman in her.

"You know, I was having a perfectly fine morning until you showed up," Mongrel said, climbing out of bed and walking around the room naked to scoop his old clothes off the floor one rumpled article at a time. "You were very rude to my new roommate, by the way."

"Disgusting parasite," Nyx snarled.

"Hey! The fuck did I do to you?"

"Not you, Matthew. Her."

"Okay, what the fuck did she do, then?"

"Did you not hear me call her a parasite?"

"Uh-huh. I take it this is about her coming to stay with me?"

"Not at all. I don't care one bit who you choose to share your bed."

"It kinda—unh—sounds like you do," Mongrel grunted, hopping up and down to get his trousers on. Pulling them over his hips, he left them unlaced and motioned accusingly at the demon with a dirty sock. "Hey, you're the one who set me up with her in the first place, aren't you?"

Nyx strode through the apartment with all the bearing of a queen, her lithe body covered only by some carefully arranged tassels and pasties over the naughty bits. "Of course I did. Don't I do everything for you?"

"You sure do everything to piss me off, I'll say that."

Mongrel washed his face and finished getting dressed. He combed his hair in the beauty mirror above the water basin, wetting the comb so his hair would lie flat. Turning, he found the demon's face barely a foot from his, her burning eyes wide and fixed unblinkingly on him. He yelped and staggered against the dresser, nearly upsetting both the basin and the mirror in the process and barely managing to fling an arm back to hold them in place.

"How could you let her manipulate you so easily?" Nyx hissed in his face. "Are you that stupid?"

"What?" Mongrel asked, defiantly sticking out his chin as he straightened. "I thought you didn't care who I fuck."

"Yes, fuck! Not love!"

Mongrel laughed in the demon's face. "That's what this is about? I get to fuck whoever I want, but the L-word is off-limits?" He held up a finger between them. "By the way, I don't appreciate you eavesdropping on me. It's really fucking weird."

"I wouldn't have to listen in on your conversations if you didn't have the survival instincts of a rock. Someone has to be around to clean up your messes."

"Why do you hate me loving Annie so much? She's a good girl."

"She's a whore, Matthew! You've been around them long enough to know that the one thing you shouldn't do with a whore is fall in love. She'll rip your heart out and sell it for pocket change and not lose a minute of sleep."

"Then why'd you track her down for me?"

Nyx's hands curled into claws before his face like she wanted to crush his head between them. With a serpentine hiss, she stood away, walking herself back on long, slender legs. "I thought you were being hyperbolic. I never would have thought you were actually infatuated with her."

Mongrel scoffed, putting his hands on the dresser behind him and resting his butt against its front. "You know what? I think you're jealous."

"Jealous!" The demoness let out a bright, sparkling laugh. "Good one, dearest. Very good. One of the True Blood, jealous of some common gutter trash. That would be something, wouldn't it?"

"You know, if you hate me seeing her so much, your problem does have a very simple solution."

"What's that?" Nyx asked; arms crossed, hip cocked, managing to look glamorous and menacing and sensual all at once. Mongrel hated how toe-curlingly sexy she was.

"You could start putting out, for one. You're supposed to be my slave or something, aren't you? But whenever I ask for one little crumb of pussy, all I hear is no, no, no. How the fuck does that work?"

A strange flicker passed over Nyx's face, like her skull was falling in on itself for a fraction of a second before reasserting its shape. "My body is the one thing I can't give you, Matthew." For once, her unnerving gaze flicked down to the floor. She looked suddenly very vulnerable—the virgin maiden; the defenseless damsel.

Mongrel wasn't about to fall for that one. Snorting, he said: "Sure. Got to string me along as far as possible, right? Isn't that how it works?"

"Of course not! I signed an unbreakable contract. I am yours, always. You know this."

"Yeah? That's funny, because you seem to do whatever the hell you want regardless. You never listen to a word I say."

"Because I have to act according to what you want, not what you think you want. Stop being such a child, Matthew."

"Why should I trust you over Annie, huh? You're using me too," he held up two fingers when she opened her mouth, "no, don't you dare deny it. You're using me too, so give me one good reason."

"I—"

"She doesn't love me, but you do, is that it?"

The demoness turned her fiery gaze on him with a toothy snarl. "You're being impossible."

"Do you love me? Yes or no."

"I…" Nyx's mouth opened and closed, then opened again. "I…"

Mongrel scoffed. "Yeah. Didn't think so. Face it, demon. You're exactly the same as that 'whore' you seem to hate so much. Only difference is, I actually know what she wants out of me, and I'm happy to give it to her. You…" He shook his head and blew a wet raspberry. "...I have no clue. So forgive my skepticism."

Her shape started shifting again; spiking in random directions like an image seen through a staticky TV screen. "Do you have any idea of the things I've done for you? The lengths I've gone to? Do you know how much effort it took to pry that disgusting wench away from her mate? To lure her back to this side of the Frontier? Of course you don't. And why would I go through such trouble? Because she was your favorite whore. She was your favorite, and I want only the best for you."

Mongrel blinked. "You did what?"

"I have saved your pitiful life on more than one occasion," Nyx continued, undeterred. "I have made you a rich man. I keep all the world's misfortunes from reaching you. ME! Is it so much to ask for a sliver of gratitude? A tiny shred of respect?"

"You're the reason why things didn't work out with her husband? You split them up?"

Nyx threw her hands up petulantly. "Of course I did. Weren't you listening? I do everything for you."

"Get out," Mongrel said, motioning to the door.

"Don't be—"

"Leave, demon!"

Nyx flinched as though struck. She reached a hand out toward him, and her arm buzzed fitfully while her face contorted with pain. "Matthew, don't hurt me like this. I'm sorry for angering you, I…"

"Leave," Mongrel repeated, finger quivering in the air, and sucked a bit of stray spittle off his bottom lip. "I don't want to see your face for a while."

For once, the demoness did as she was told. Her usual grace was completely gone as she staggered drunkenly toward the apartment's exit, looking dazed.

She held herself back at the door and turned her head—shakily and with obvious difficulty—to look back at him. "What I originally came to tell you is that William is hosting some sort of event at the farm in a few days. I would have liked to attend it with you, but unfortunately I have other business to take care of. I will have the invitation brought to your room, and I will arrange for the… For your lady companion to accompany you." Her yellow eyes flitted down. "I apologize for any pain I caused."

Mongrel stared. He slowly let his arm drop, all the anger whooshed out of him like the air from a balloon, leaving him deflated and exhausted. "Whatever," he muttered.

"Matthew, this business… I may not return."

"That's my decision to make, isn't it? I said I didn't want to see your face for a while, not piss off forever."

Nyx smiled sadly. "Then I will do my very best to return to your side. Now, farewell. Have fun at the party."

The demoness puffed into stringy smoke and slipped through the gaps in the door without ever opening it. Mongrel was left staring after her inside the empty apartment, and wondered with a growing weight in his gut why there had been such an air of finality to that conversation.

He wondered, just for a moment, if he might have been too hard on her.

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