Satan's Kitty, page 1
Satan's Kitty
A PAWSITIVELY PURRFECT MATCH MADE IN HELL
PEPPER MCGRAW
Contents
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Excerpt
Thank you for reading
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Satan's Kitty Copyright © 2023 Pepper McGraw
Digital Edition
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover and Inside Images from Dreamstime:
Woman in Jeans © Volha Hlinskaya
Devil Cat © Ania1992
Snowflakes © Anna Velichkovsky
Fire background © Hugolacasse
Paw Prints and Heart © Zsuskaa
Pawprints © Fourleaflover
Edited by J.L. Troughton
PMG Publishing
Description
When a slightly scorched letter to Santa lands in Satan’s lap, the matchmaking cats of the goddesses find their latest match heating up in Hell.
Starlight may be human, but she lives in Zero, Kansas, which means she knows quite a bit about the paranormal world. So she's not even fazed when Christmas morning dawns bright and hot in Hell or when her daughter's Christmas kittens display some very demon-like qualities.
Talon's been unsuccessfully courting his human mate for the past six months. When she disappears and all evidence points to her being in the Underworld, he doesn't hesitate to follow her. He's prepared to go head-to-head with Satan himself to win back his mate.
Unfortunately, Starlight's not exactly in a hurry to leave. Turns out, Hell isn't that bad, at least not when you're living in its Bed & Breakfast. Sure, it's a little hot, but for once, someone else is doing the cooking and the cleaning and Starlight is loving it. In fact, life is pretty damn good down south.
The matchmaking cats of the goddesses have their work cut out for them when it comes to ensuring this match made in Hell is pawsitively purrfect.
One
THAT BYGUL’S LATEST matchmaking efforts resulted in Christmas morning dawning at the Bed & Breakfast in Hell wasn’t his fault.
He was the top matchmaking cat at Pawsitively Purrfect Matches, for goddess’ sake. He was a professional and he didn’t make mistakes like that.
He blamed Soraya.
Ever since she saw Jasmine playing with the kittens at the witches’ coven house in Zero, Kansas, all Soraya could talk about was matching that little girl with one of the kittens on their caseload and matching a mate for her mother, who was both human and single.
Bygul kept reminding Soraya that neither Starlight nor her daughter, Jasmine, were on their caseload, but this didn’t matter to Soraya.
“Witches first,” Bygul kept saying, “especially after we lost weeks in Jamesville, matching Tempest’s sister.”
But then, catastrophe struck, no pun intended.
Jasmine wrote a letter to Santa, but before anyone could read it, the letter disappeared and Starlight went into a tizzy, begging her daughter to tell her what she’d asked Santa for.
Jasmine, being the stubborn sort, refused to share. “It’s magic, Mom. Magic took the letter to Santa and Santa’s gonna take care of everything, so don’t worry.”
The problem was that Bygul assumed Soraya had stolen the letter, so that she could get details that might help her choose the purrfect kitten for Jasmine.
Soraya assumed Tivali stole the letter for the same reason.
None of them suspected the demon hell-cat, Kyrie.
Unfortunately, being a hell-cat, Kyrie had a lot of magic herself and could pretty much zip around Zero however she pleased.
And apparently, she pleased to steal that letter.
Luc was bored.
He hated to admit it, but now that both his daughters were living in the Earth realm, there just wasn’t as much excitement in Hell anymore.
Merry wasn’t picking fights with demons on a daily basis.
Tempest wasn’t causing cyclones of fire.
Merry wasn’t riling up the pixies and causing wars.
Tempest wasn’t raging at him to stop sending demons to court her.
It really was too quiet and too calm around Hell now that they were gone.
“Mrawr.” One of the hell-kitties bumped her head against his leg.
“Yes, thank you, darling. I’m okay, just missing my girls. Who knew after all those years tearing out my hair, attempting to stop Tempest from chasing the flames of hell with her tornadoes and storms, that I would actually miss the chaos she wrought?
“That little girl was a menace from the very beginning, tormenting the flames of hell from her toddler days. I’d be racing to the borders of Hell, barely making it in time to yank the flames back into one of our realms, and you know what she’d be doing while I was busy chasing chaos?”
“Mrawr.” Another hell-cat leapt onto the arm of his chair and bonked his cheek with his nose.
“That’s right. She’d laugh! She’d just plop down wherever we were, surrounded by flames, and laugh and laugh while I ran around like an idiot, chasing those flames she’d fanned to epic heights.
“Me! Satan, the Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Nine Realms of Hell, and The Beast, chasing after a bunch of renegade flames from Hell. She did it on purpose. Riling them up. And as bad as she was, when Merry came along, oh, that little girl turned me old before my time.”
A third cat leapt onto the back of his chair and stretched out along the top of it, settling her head on his left shoulder. “I’m telling you, I discovered my first gray hair two days after Merry’s arrival here. I was spending every moment of my day desperately trying to keep all those demons from attacking my baby girl.
“I mean, can you imagine? Two years old and she was riling up thousand-year-old demons, with just one look. Just one look.”
Luc fell silent as he remembered that mischievous look on her face.
She’d taken total, unequivocal delight in sending the calmest of demons stark, raving mad.
He chuckled. “She owned my heart from that very first moment.” He sighed. “I really thought things would be better without them here, knowing they were safer in another realm, but now? Now I’d give anything to have them both back, causing mayhem and turning my hair gray.”
All Starlight ever wanted was a normal life.
It was really quite unfortunate that normal just wasn’t in the cards for her.
First, she was born to vagabonds.
They liked to claim they were hippies, but that was just ridiculous.
Vagabonds who traveled everywhere was what they truly were.
She wasn’t sure how they did it, given they seemed as human as humans could get, but her dad, in particular, had a talent for finding portals and other crossings between the realms and would just lead the way through, sauntering from one realm to the next.
“We’re off on another adventure, Starlight!” He would exclaim, right before dragging them into a realm ruled entirely by fire-breathing dragons.
Yeah. Thanks, Dad.
Under normal circumstances—again, if she’d had a normal life—when Starlight turned eighteen, she would have struck out on her own.
The only problem was, her eighteenth birthday dawned in the troll realm, where they were trapped.
Not because the trolls were evil or anything.
No.
It was just that her dad got them thoroughly lost and refused to ask for directions.
Five years later, right around her twenty-third birthday, they finally found another realm crossing, but at that point, they were about thirty realms away from the entrance to Earth.
Starlight was actually starting to believe her parents were doing it on purpose, just to keep her with them a little longer, when finally, finally, they made it back to the earth realm.
Twenty-one years later.
She’d left earth as a toddler, with occasional visits back, every couple years, then nothing for almost thirty.
Forty-four years old and still traveling with her parents.
That was more than enough information to explain all of the events that followed.
Their last realm-move involved traversing between Shenanigans.
Starlight was always thrilled when a crossing involved one Shenanigans, let alone two or more.
Sometimes, it was a hotel, sometimes a bed and breakfast, sometimes it was just a raggedy-looking bar, but if there was a Shenanigans anywhere in sight, it signified safety.
It was years before Starlight understood that it was unusual for humans to be able to access a Shenanigans. They were all built as safe zones for paranormals, which meant that humans weren’t supposed to be able to even see them.
Except Starlight and her parents could.
Of course, whenever she pointed out that they must not be human and asked what type of paranormal they were, her parents just shrugged and said, “But we are humans, darling. That’s all we’ve ever been.”
Whatever.
So they didn’t want to tell her, that was fine. Besides, pretending to be human meant Starlight could also pretend to be normal.
That never lasted long, of course, but at least she tried.
In any case, when they finally arrived back on earth and Starlight realized a Hotel Shenanigans was waiting for them there, even though it was the most run-down Shenanigans hotel she’d ever seen, she immediately insisted they stay the night.
Her parents tried to convince her to stay on the fairy side of the hotel, but Starlight wasn’t falling for that. Oh, no.
She’d been realm-walking her entire life and now that she was back in the earth realm, she planned to stay.
For a long while.
“But no one’s really running this side of the hotel, darling,” her mother protested.
“The bar is open,” Starlight said, “and the leprechaun bartender told me he’d rent me a room if I wanted one. So I’m staying here. In the earth realm.”
“You can’t trust leprechauns, you know that,” her father said.
“It’s not nice to repeat stereotypes,” Starlight said.
“It’s not a stereotype when it’s true,” her father countered.
Starlight just glared at him.
Her mother sighed, then said in a long-suffering voice, “Very well, darling. We’ll be on the fairy side if you need us.” She waited, but when Starlight said nothing, she added, “We’ll see you in the morning then.”
Starlight waited until her parents boarded the elevator, its doors closed and the arrow above them slowly moved over to hover between the numbers two and three before stopping there.
She waited a bit longer to be sure they wouldn’t be coming back down, then made a beeline for the bar where she celebrated her return to her birth realm by getting drunk and having sex.
Lots and lots of sex.
Two months later, when she turned up pregnant, she couldn’t express even a little bit of surprise.
This was what happened when you were completely irresponsible, right?
Unfortunately, due to the drinking, she had absolutely no idea who the father was.
In fact, she didn’t remember a thing about that night, other than the flashes of heat that came anytime she tried to remember.
That was something at least.
She had no memories, but she was pretty certain a good time had been had by all.
Not remembering the details meant she couldn’t inform the father when she found out she was pregnant, and perhaps that was a blessing because it meant when Jasmine was born, Starlight didn’t have to share her with anyone.
Not even her parents because they were most definitely not done with the realm-hopping.
Of course, they tried to convince Starlight to travel with them.
“You can have a baby anywhere,” her mother exclaimed. “I did!”
“Even better,” her father said, “You can raise a child anywhere. We did!”
Yes. She was quite aware of the fact that it was possible to drag a child from realm to realm for her entire lifetime. She might dispute the use of the word “raise” though.
Of course, Starlight didn’t say that because it would have hurt her parents’ feelings and for all their faults, they did love her.
They just loved traveling more.
Which meant, that once they accepted that Starlight was serious when she said her traveling days were over, they said their goodbyes and hit the road.
At the time, they were in a tiny town called Zero, Kansas.
They’d been on their way to California when Starlight had a bout of morning sickness, and so, it was in Zero, Kansas, that she discovered she was pregnant with Jasmine.
It was also in Zero, Kansas, that Starlight decided to stay.
She fell in love with the town almost immediately.
It was as close to a ghost town as one could get.
The sign on the outskirts of town proclaimed a population of fifty-nine, which increased to sixty-two when Starlight and her parents arrived, then fell to sixty when her parents resumed their travels. Several months later, that number jumped to sixty-one when Jasmine was born.
A lot of people would be horrified to live in a town that was so empty and quiet, but for Starlight, that emptiness and silence was what she craved.
A tiny pocket of normal in her otherwise crazy life.
There were no Shenanigans in sight, which reduced the likelihood of paranormals or realm crossings being anywhere around.
Best of all, there was absolutely nothing in Zero, Kansas, that threatened Starlight’s dream of normalcy for herself, and most especially, for the daughter she planned to raise there.
She mostly got her wish.
Life was pretty normal for the next ten years.
Starlight worked as a waitress at Zero Diner, while Jasmine went to school a couple towns over with seven other children from Zero.
Of course, every so often, Starlight would get a reminder of her crazy past, when a postcard would arrive from her parents, or worse, when they would show up to regale her and Jasmine with tales of the latest realms they’d visited.
Starlight worried their stories would make Jasmine wish for a different life, to travel the realms like Starlight had with her parents, but so far, Jasmine seemed happy with her life in Zero, Kansas, and that made Starlight happy as well.
Then, out of nowhere, everything changed.
First, a coven of witches moved to town, then they cast a spell—a stupid, idiotic spell for their fated mates—and the next thing Starlight knew, there were paranormals everywhere.
Everywhere!
Seven witches and they caused all this chaos.
First, a wolf pack moved in, then a Vampire Coven showed up, followed by a coalition of Chameleons.
Suddenly, Starlight’s perfectly normal life, was as crazy as it had ever been.
Her shifts at the diner were now the opposite of normal.
Every. Single. Day.
Shifters bursting into wolf form.
Chameleons planning heists and outrageous cons right in the middle of the diner.
Witches starting fires and raising the dead.
Then, there was the vampire.
The infuriating, sexy, know-it-all, devastatingly handsome vampire, Talon.
She’d done an amazing job of ignoring him every time he came into the diner, even while serving him. She ignored his flirting, pretended her heart didn’t race every time he got near and that the sound of his gravely voice didn’t send shivers down her spine.
She got really good at pretending.
Then the shy witch lost control of her sex magic one day and the next thing Starlight knew, she was over the vampire’s shoulder, being carted out.
She was lucky he was so impatient and only took her to the side alley, where he pressed her up against the wall and proceeded to turn her brain to mush.
She’d never, in all her fifty-four years, been kissed like that.
Or if she had, the kisses were lost with all the other memories of that night, and even if they hadn’t been, they’d have been obliterated, along with every other thought in her head, from the heat that blazed through her from Talon’s kiss.
She was seconds from spontaneous combustion when the school bus lumbered around the corner.
Saved by her daughter.
Jasmine was dropped off outside the diner every afternoon at four o’clock sharp and it was only the sound of the bus as it pulled into the town square that brought Starlight back to her senses.
She’d avoided the vampire ever since, though it was hard to do when he was always coming into her place of employment and flirting with her, but she did her best.
Of course, avoiding him during the day would have been so much easier if the rumors of vampires and sunlight were true. However, as it turned out, the severe sunburns caused by a witch’s curse were only inconvenient and painful, rather than deadly.
Perhaps it was a bit selfish that Starlight lamented this fact occasionally, but she couldn’t help it. After all, the vampire not only made a pest of himself at the diner during the days, but was also a constant visitor in her disturbingly vivid dreams at night.
