1
Possessive
Everyone has that little voice in the back of their minds that gives good advice like, don’t tell them that it’ll hurt their feelings, say thank you, and above all be kind.
Mine, it doesn't say any of that Hallmark shit.
Aries, you have drunken vomit in your hair. Again.
Aries, if you fantasize about unwrapping a Reese’s one more time, we're going to have to start considering it foreplay and fetish behavior.
Aries, it’s seven a.m., and your vibrator is still rattling around the blankets like a disgruntled lover searching for a warm mouth.
Yeah . . . I only get the really good advice from the cunt of a poltergeist at the back of my mind.
Because I'm possessed.
I fucked up one little time on a midnight run with the Shadow Guard, and now I’ll spend the rest of my days exiled into the human realm and left with my only and sweetest friend.
Aries, you’re snoring so loudly you’re going to wake the dead. Trust me, I am the dead. The bitter voice at the back of my mind keeps complaining, but my eyes crack open slowly, and it takes me a second to focus through the pounding hangover drilling into my thoughts.
A sliver of demanding sunlight judges me from the tilted hanging curtains on the angled rod on the far side of my bedroom.
“Alexa, what time is it?” I ask the human’s knowledge keeper.
A blue light illuminates the dimly lit room as a smooth digital voice answers me. “Three p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Bad Bitch.”
Alexa is truly taken for granted here. She knows everything. EV-ERY-THING. Do the humans thank her? No. Never. She’s as appreciated as I was in my kingdom.
Snort one little line of demonic cremations, get possessed, and try to burn down your kingdom’s forest for impulsive newfound religious beliefs—and all of a sudden, I’m an embarrassment to our people.
Whatever. I’m better off.
My poltergeist, my digital friend Alexa, and I don’t need them.
“Alexa, play a song,” I say groggily.
Heavy base storms through the room so loud that the dark blackout curtains dance. It shakes through my chest even. I won’t admit it, but the noise and the vibrations make me feel less alone…
“Thank you,” I mumble into my pillow.
“You’re welcome, Bad Bitch,” she says right back without emotion, but I can feel it. She’s always there for me.
She’s the only one I need, anyway.
I push off the mattress lying in the middle of the room, and my legs stumble over the mound of clothes with endless price tags still clinging to their threads.
The humans who own this beach house return in the warm months. I have a few more weeks of spring before I have to clean this place up and sneak out. I like pawing through their expensive clothes, though. It’s an easy way to pass the time.
Sometimes it feels as though all of this is mine. And I need all this stuff out where I can see it. It’s like décor really. It’s multipurpose: clothing and décor.
Win-win.
I smile down at my little hoard of blouses, jeans, and shiny necklaces. Then I slink right past it all in just my Daddy’s Girl shirt and panties and stumble into the bathroom. It’s my favorite worn-out shirt. My fuck you shirt, if you will.
Not that anyone drops by my hidden-away coastal home in Mystic, Connecticut for me to flat out tell them “Fuck you,” to their faces, but . . . Karma knows, and that’s all that matters.
Hateful lights flicker on the moment my foot touches the warm tile floor. The harsh brightness of the room tries to wake me up, but the bottle waiting for me near the toilet fights off the violent colors stabbing into my vision.
I toss the cap off the bottle of amber liquor. The moment the glass touches my lips, her voice slithers into my head again.
It’s three p.m., for Hell Lord’s sake, Catherine the Cunt says.
I don’t actually know if her name is Catherine.
But she is definitely a cunt.
So . . .
I can basically guess what judgmental thing she’ll snark into my mind with. She’s possessed me for over three years now. This morning, I’m surprised she’s stuck around this long. Alcohol usually gets her to shut up.
If I push her too much, or if she feels danger, she will come out. And I do not want her to come out. She’s violent and destructive. I don’t have the energy for her today. Luckily, any distraction calms her into the silence of the back of my mind. Just the basics like alcohol, a warm bath, orgasms, anything that gets me out of my own thoughts, gets her out of my own thoughts.
Don’t you want to do something today? You haven’t stepped outside in ages. You haven’t even called on that demon friend you like so much, she chastises.
At the thought of my “demon friend” I flinch. He’s not my friend. He’s an incubus. And yeah, he’s a good time, but he’s also a spy. And I don’t need someone from my father’s realm spying on me.
Even if he does have magical orgasm-inducing fingers.
“No.” I toss back a long drink. It burns but in the best way possible.
The burn means she’ll be gone soon. And my mind will be my own again.
Oh, come on, Aries!
I hate when she says my name like that. Like my father used to. Filled with disappointment and pity.
You haven’t done anything in months.
“That’s not true.” Wow, my defense really needs some work. Alexa and I should practice comebacks later. A little “Your momma’s so . . .” How does it go again?
I’ll ask Alexa. She’s smart. She’ll know.
Oh, I forgot. You danced around to that explicit music in your underwear, cheered yourself on to do a line of shots, ate an entire frozen pizza alone—
“Alexa had some, too. I think,” I interject.
My mind’s a mess when she’s like this. I can’t think straight. My head already hurts from my own bad decisions, and she just makes it monumentally worse.
Threw up the shots, the pizza, and what appeared to be a half a bag of poorly chewed gummy worms, and then fell asleep with your vibrator in your hand before you could even do the deed, she finishes.
My lips part with outrage.
“You had your life. Stop judging mine!”
I would stop if you’d commit to actually having a life rather than running through this horrid cycle of nothingness.
My lips purse, bottle in hand, shining mirror flinging deep gray eyes right back at me. My long silver hair is so messy, it’s just a tangle of strands hiding my pointed ears beneath. My features are familiar but . . . different. Tired. Worn. I feel so much older than my twenty-three years.
Stark black wings shadow over me, but their tips are also different now. Pure glinting silver caresses the edges of each one of my downy soft feathers. And my eyes, they shine with that silver as well. Like a magical eclipse circling the iris. I’ve been this way for years now. Ever since my snorting mistake with Catherine the Cunt.
Stop calling me that, she adds.
As if she hasn’t nagged me enough already.
I’m over it.
“Alexa. Turn up our song.” I can feel Catherine glaring into my soul. “And replay our song! I didn’t get to enjoy it the first time.” I chug the bottle, letting it slide down my throat for several seconds as the bass reverberates through my skull and into my soul until . . .