Page 23 of The Devil Takes

My scholarship covered most things. Room, books, and even the omega dorm I lived in currently, not that I wasn’t about to change that. What it didn’t cover was food. Surprisingly, despite having a lot of “feelings” about me going to college, my dad had, without fail, sent me a monthly allowance for food. I wasn’t sure how he came by the money.

Since Mom died, he’d never really been able to hold a job.

He was a lot of things—surly, prideful, confident, and determined. But reliable? Yeah, no.

That was why it was surprising.

Three hours of fruitless Google searches later, I still hadn’t found jack shit, even though I’d gotten pretty creative, and momentarily distracted halfway through. I’d corrected myself when I realized the librarians could probably see my search history.

Purple demon dude.

Graveyard demon.

Devil poem.

Hypothermia?

How long does a knot last?

Can you tell how old an alpha is by how long his knot lasts?

Knots.

Knots, images.

Dicks, images.

Anatomical dicks, images.

For art.

Not for anything else.

Devil purple guy?

Legends of purple guys in Madison.

Madison legends.

Horny demons.

What is an incubus?

What is the difference between an incubus and a succubus?

Are incubi purple?

Right as I was about to click out of the latest Reddit thread I’d encountered about incubus possession, I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure if I’d always been naturally aware of others, or if that had been bred out of necessity, but I always, always knew when someone was staring at me.

I whipped around, only to encounter the smiling face of Stinky. Yeah, that’s his name. No, I don’t know his real name. No, he’s not stinky. I guess maybe he used to be or something, but he’s not anymore? Or maybe that’s my suppressants. Stinky waved at me and slid into the chair beside mine as I casually clicked the little red X at the top of the search page and turned toward him.

“Sup, dude,” I nodded, giving the correct dude-bro greeting.

“Sup, dude,” he responded politely.

I waited. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say next. Social interactions with people I only kinda knew were always awkward as hell. I wasn’t really the most talkative person—and the only person I’d met recently that somehow didn’t make the words choke up inside me was Haden, and he was a purple-demon-thing-guy-who-might-or-might-not-be-an-incubus. Even Tommy had been hard to talk to at first, and he was, without a doubt, my favorite person alive.

My frat brothers only knew my surface-level personality, and I was very much okay with that. Even when I attended meetings or parties, they never asked too many questions. Always happy to look the other way so we could fundraise or raise-fun, sometimes both at the same time.