Magic of the Demon Fae (Demonfae, #1) - Ava Mason Page 0,1

down the drain. It’d taken me all day and way into the night to do it. The asshole owner of said car wouldn’t be back for a couple of weeks, but I’d eagerly jumped into finishing it, the promise of actually earning some good cash burning a hole in my pocket.

I might actually be able to buy some fruit and vegetables instead of Ramen noodles for the week.

I marched back towards the car, glancing at myself in the large mirror occupying the whole back wall of the shop. Oil and car dirt caked my hair and was smeared across my face and stomach. As for my tutu skirt? Flattened with a large spot of transmission fluid covering the front of it.

Well, shit. Tuddle was right. I’d never really paid that much attention to how dirty I was before now. I glanced down at my black leather combat boots and smirked. At least they were still spotless, which had nothing to do with the cleaning spell I’d put on them right after I bought them.

Tuddle hissed, and I jerked towards him. “What do you want, cat?”

The oil rag had been shredded to pieces, of course. Instead of circling it triumphantly like I expected him to do, he was staring out the shop’s bay at a figure emerging in the dark of the night.

Someone was pushing a car, a man, with broad, muscular arms that made the shoulders of his white t-shirt strain. He had golden-brown, wavy hair that flowed past his shoulders, and it glistened in the flickering street light like sand flowing through an hourglass. Something about him made me still, and a deep aching in my gut blossomed, filling it with an intense and indescribable longing. He paused to shake his bangs out of his face and time hovered in between real life and movie slow-mo, where all I could do was stare at him in awe.

I wanted to snuggle up next to him, to touch his skin, to taste it on my tongue, to fill my nose with his smell.

Ridiculous. And yet, as real as the Spanx my old high school Spanish teacher used to wear.

I blinked, coming back to reality and followed the lines of the car down to the driver’s seat. I could vaguely see the outline of a body steering the car. This time, electricity danced across my skin, sending a buzzing, popping sensation into my fingers and the tip of my nose. I shivered, wondering what the fock was wrong with me. There was something about the smell in the air, the clenching feeling in my gut, their sudden presence in the otherwise quiet night, that made all my senses sit up and take notice.

Only years of training and mom’s voice in my mind kept me from stepping out of the safety of my garage towards them.

Needing to do something with my hands, I grabbed another rag and wiped it across my face and stomach absentmindedly, while watching them cautiously. Tuddle’s hissing grew louder. “Shut up, would you?”

“That’s trouble, love. Stay away.” He darted out the back door, but not without dropping his typical Tuddle wisdom. “May the fur be with you.”

“Force,” I automatically corrected, still unable to keep my eyes off the approaching broken down vehicle.

Tuddle’s words made me leery of their presence, like a dark omen looming in the night. I watched them more carefully as they headed straight towards my shop. Usually I would rush out to help anyone pushing a car, but the man moved as effortlessly as if he was pushing a stroller at the grocery store. As they moved under the street lights, I took mental note of the shiny red paint job on the brand new Chevy Corvette Stingray and smelled money.

They had plenty of it.

And that was something I needed. Desperately. Especially after my recent fiasco with the Lamborghini. Maybe Lady Luck was with me tonight.

I glanced through the air, searching for signs of the mysterious creature, but she was nowhere to be found. Figured.

When I turned back towards them, I gasped. Two large black wings protruded from the guy’s back, unfurling with such glory and might that I stared at them in complete and utter shock.

Tuddle’s dark warning suddenly made sense and I wanted to race to turn off the bay lights and claim I was closed for the night. It was almost two in the morning. Any respectable mechanic would be closed by now.

And that’s exactly what I was. A respectable mechanic. Not a