The Lying, the Witch, and the Werewolf (Down & Dirty Supernatural Cleaning Services Book 4) by Kate Quinn (uplifting books for women .txt) 📗

I hesitate, unsure if she’s pulling my leg, but she seems perfectly sincere. Deciding to change the subject, I ask, “So what brings you here?”

She leans into me and lowers her voice like she’s afraid someone will overhear even though we’re in the middle of nowhere. “Well, my boyfriend refuses to marry me so I figured it was time to dump him and sow my wild oats.”

“How long have you been dating?” I ask.

“Since just before the end of the world. We met in high school but then he sacrificed his life and ended up stuck in Hades for eternity. That might seem like a dealbreaker, but we worked through it. For years now I’ve been telling him, ‘I don’t care that you’re technically dead, Greg, I just want to be with you.’ But he says it’s not fair to me, and he loves me too much to turn me into his Persephone. Is that not the dumbest thing you ever heard?”

“It is,” I say, unable to believe that I not only followed along with this convoluted tale, but can relate to it too. “I think guys just cannot deal with being undead, it messes with their ego or something. My boyfriend is mad at me for saving his life by turning him into a vampire.”

“OMQ!” Cassie exclaims. “What is wrong with him?” She places a comforting hand on my arm. “Was that the hottie who dropped you off?”

“No, that was my ex-husband. He’s a fae who was raised human. He cheated on me.”

“Oh,” Cassie frowns. “You know, I think I might’ve met him a long time ago in Faerieland... You don’t by any chance know Shauna, do you?”

“I do! Wait…” I’ve been around supes long enough to know the drill. “Let me guess—Mount Olympus Academy?”

“Yep!” Cassie says, smiling brightly. “You know about it?”

I sigh. “It keeps popping up.”

After that Cassie and I have a good chat. It turns out that while she is human, she was raised on-campus of the supernatural academy, and had no contact with the outside world while she was growing up—which explains her conversational flubs. We share names of people we both know—Nico, Hepa. She drops a few names I don’t recognize—Jordan, Edie—and I realize that if I pump this girl, there’s a chance she even knows about the mystery ex of Nico’s that took his eye.

I’m about to ask when the fuck bus finally arrives. It actually has Fuck Bus written on the side.

We gather our things, I juggle my suitcase and the broom, and Shit trots at my heels as the doors unfold for us.

“Here we go,” Cassie says. “Are you ready to twist your brains out?”

“Screw,” I correct her. “You’ll screw your brains out.”

She grins, “You bet I will.” She climbs onto the bus and I follow behind her wondering if our joining this cult means that we have any brains at all.

11

I sit next to Cassie on the bus, joining a handful of other people that must have been picked up at other stops. There’s a middle-aged white dude who is probably all-in because of a mid-life crisis, and a soccer mom who keeps checking her reflection. Her hair is perfect, her boobs are perky, and her pants are tighter than my vagina. I can’t help but look at her and wonder if anyone at this sex cult is even going to look at me twice—then I remind myself that I’m not actually here to get laid. I’m checking in on the well-being of my client’s sister, Vicky, and assuring him that everything at Together We Come is on the up and up.

Cassie catches me glancing at the soccer mom and reaching over my broom, gives my leg a reassuring pat. “Don’t worry about a thing. Boys will want to bang you. Girls will want to bang you. Mermaids will want to bang you.”

“How does that work?” I ask, honestly interested.

“Oh, I can explain in detail,” Cassie says, her eyes lighting up. “My first boyfriend was a merman. Technically, mermaids are a type of shifter,” Cassie explains, and then goes into the long tale of woe about how her first boyfriend died when monsters attacked Mount Olympus Academy during the supe equivalent of prom.

“It was horrible,” Cassie’s eyes fill with tears as if it were yesterday.

It seems almost as horrible as the time I tried to lose my virginity. Unfortunately before we could seal the deal, I got a little overzealous in my penis handling and jerked poor Benjamin Marshall’s in a direction it was not meant to go. Our date and our relationship ended that night in the emergency room. I spent the rest of my high school career a virgin because no other boy would put his dick in my hands. The reputation also came with the nickname Ballbreaker, which annoyed me no end. My senior quote in the yearbook read, “FYI, it was his penis and it wasn’t broken, just sprained.” Actually it read “peanut” rather than penis, since the school objected to printing what they deemed to be foul language.

Shit must feel my sudden uncomfortableness—both with my memories and Cassie’s bizarre, super personal story. He wiggles in my lap and whines, looking up at me.

“Oh no! Does he have a potty in his body?” Cassie asks.

“What?”

“Does he have to go to the bathroom? I’m sure the driver will stop the bus for him. They revere Dalmanthers at this place, you know.”

I glance up at a digital map that hangs above the driver’s head, tracing our progress. “It looks like we’re almost there,” I tell Cassie. “I’m sure Shit can hold it.”

She giggles at his name (again) and I watch as we turn off the main road onto a smaller one…and then a smaller one…and soon we’re on a one-lane dirt road and trees are brushing both sides of the bus. My heart speeds up in my chest, and my palms go a