Free Accidentally Demonic by Dakota Cassidy

we don’t wrap this up, you’re stewed by daylight, right?”
    He grinned, wide and breathtaking. “Right. You know how it goes. Sunlight plus me could equal a vampire version of Dawn of the Dead . Just a heads-up.”
    Casey snorted, tamping down a severe case of the slaphappys. “By daylight? Wait. No. Stop. If you tell me that you’ll sizzle if the sun shines on you, I swear I’ll pass out. Right at your feet.”
    His eyebrow rose in Wanda’s direction and the corners of his lips tilted upward. “I guess I’m the best candidate to catch her. Me being the only man here.”
    A gasp fell from Casey’s lips and her hand went to her belly. “Sit. I need to sit.”
    Marty came up behind her and directed her to the couch, where Wanda dragged her coat off the back of it and tucked it under Casey’s chin. “I know. Believe me, I know how you feel, but let’s just figure this out. Clayton’s a good guy, and I’m sure he has a good explanation for what’s happening. I know for a fact if he’s owning this, he’ll do whatever it takes to help.”
    That notion might have given Casey some reassurance, if not for the fact that she still wasn’t sure Wanda wasn’t nuttier than squirrel shit.
    Clayton stood before the women, hands deep in the pockets of his dark blue jeans. “So here’s what we’re dealing with.”
    Casey found herself leaning forward in anticipation right along with her sister and her friends—ears wide-open.
    “I think, and I use that word loosely, you’re a demon.” After he spoke, he hunched his shoulders inward; his eyes squinted in obvious preparation for some screeching denial on her behalf.
    Nina’s sharp bark of a laugh made Casey cringe. “No fucking way, dude! What a rush. Oh, Jesus. I’ve never had so much shit go down as I have since I met the two of you. Seriously, every time I turn around somebody else is hip deep in horse puckey. Never a dull frickin’ moment.”
    Marty nudged Nina in the ribs. “How about you dig somewhere deep in that nonexistent, black place where your heart used to be for some sensitivity, would you? As I recall, you didn’t think it was such a scream to be turned into a vampire, and we all walked around on eggshells while you bitched about it at every turn for close to a month. Just shut your trap and give Casey a break. As a matter of fact, give us all a break from that mouth of yours.”
    “A demon?” Casey whispered with surprise. Almost like she’d just been told she was only the first runner-up in the Miss America Pageant. She’d expected to hear she was a vampire or a werewolf. Why couldn’t she be a vampire or a werewolf, too? The way Wanda and her friends talked, it appeared they had that supernatural bent all figured out. If she weren’t one of those things, whom would she turn to for help . . . and therapy? “So what does that mean and how did it happen?”
    Clayton’s coal eyes became evasive, but only for the most minute of seconds. “I had a vial. I’d just collected it and was heading out of the bar when I crashed into you. From where I stood, it looked like you were in the process of trying to keep some photographer from snapping a shot of a young girl who was . . . um, behaving badly—exposing herself.”
    Yes! She remembered that now. Lola’d had far more than her fair share of booze that night, and for whatever reason, a few chocolatinis always made her want to be naked. The problem was, it was never from behind her bedroom door. Casey had seen the photographer was from a ragmag and, as was her job at all costs, was going to prevent him from getting a pic of Lola that would only end up all over the Internet, minus the modest black dots covering her most delicate of girlie bits.
    The photographer had gotten pretty pissy when Casey tried to get Lola the hell out of there.
    “Another man tried to help you when the photographer pushed you out of the way, and right into me. That’s when I spilled the vial’s contents on you.”