the sweetly scented killer

doggy

(a/n): i'm back. you're welcome.

flora

Seth and I form a right angle with the way we stand.

He holds his drink in one hand and my waist in the other. I hate when he does that—placing his hand on the small of my back and keeping it there. It makes me feel like a small child and I can't stand it.

I shift my weight uncomfortably. I don't want to be in this conversation any longer. A conversation about certain poisons and their efficiencies.

Have they nothing more to discuss? Must they speak of this at such a formal gathering (even if the gathering is for such a twisted reason)? Must we speak about cyanide?

"Oh, and the poison from a flower," one of Seth's father's closest friends groans. She places her hand on her chest and rolls her eyes back. "As elegant as it is lethal."

My mouth salivates, and I try to keep up with it by swallowing until my body no longer lets me.

"Will you excuse us," Seth says as more a statement than a question.

He brings me a glass of water, and I take barely a sip of it before I feel disgusted to consume anything. I sit down and look up at Seth while he stands in front of me.

"It's okay," he says while pressing his hand cold from the water to my forehead. "Just breathe."

I close my eyes.

I watched it pass their lips. Watched them marvel over the taste. I didn't even feel guilty when I went home after. When I knew it was a sin.

What happened to me? Is it being here? In this place where horrendous things are preformed on people because it's said that they deserve it?

Who am I?

I open my eyes and let them meet those of my mate. Their natural vibrant blue has been traded out for a melancholy gray.

"Do you want to go home?" he says quietly. I shake my head. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am sure," I respond.

***

I had a pet snake when I was a girl. His name was Doggy and he was bright green.

There were quite a few people who did not like being around him very much. I suppose snakes weren't their cup of tea. Which, now that I think back I can't blame them for. They recognized the danger in most snakes. But Doggy was harmless. He would wrap around my arms and hang around my neck and keep me company.

I found him near a garden that wasn't mine. Somehow, as if I could read the expressions of snakes, I could tell he looked lost. So I took him in, and I cared for him and loved him as much as I knew how.

Sometimes I would spend time looking at him. Studying him. Minutes. Hours. I would watch the way he moved. I would trace scale by scale with my eyes, and watch how they moved with him.

And sometimes, he would watch me, too. We would stare each other down. Occasionally he would pounce at me after this. Not as if he were attempting to harm me. If he wanted to, I think he would have. But Doggy never hurt me, and I learned to recognize that in his eyes. He was a snake—a predator—but he never wanted to be one.

I never realized how much people can look like snakes. Have that look in their eyes like they want to pounce at you and cause you harm. I could reach their soul trying to find a bit of harmlessness, and I'd come to a dead end.

Most people just aren't like Doggy. Most people don't know how to be harmless, and when you think they're going to pounce, you're probably right. The more time I spend here, the more I'm able to pick out snakes. And the more I'm able to see that harmless Doggy was a one-of-a-kind.

"Seth!" a woman beams. She looks slightly familiar, but something off-putting about her face diverts my match-making sends me off track.

My husband smiles at her and lets her kiss his cheeks. "I haven't seen you in eras," he grins. "How have you been?"

"I've been well, thank you for asking. I keep trying to coordinate with your mother to see you and Damien but it just never works out," she sighs, shrugging. Seth smiles sadly. "I guess it takes a charity gala to bring us together."

"I guess so." She smiles at me and I return it.

"Aren't you the cutest little thing?" she cups my face in her hand. I laugh a little.

"Aunt Priscilla, this is Flora—my wife."

"Your wife," she cocks her head to the side, her eyes going back to her nephew. "I remember when you were as tall as my knees. And now look at you. A mate of your own." She pulls me into a hug and I pat her back a few times while she rubs mine.

"CeCe," a man says after walking up next to her. She releases me and looks at him. He throws an unreadable glance at Seth, then nods her along.

"I have to run, but it was so nice to meet you!" Priscilla beams at me with a wide grin. "And it was so good to see you, honey. Mwah." She blows a kiss at him.

I watch this woman full of energy retreat down the hall. She looks up at the guy next to her, and he shakes his head, then looks back briefly. We make eye contact for a moment, before he turns back around. "Who was that man?" I ask.

"My uncle, my mom and Priscilla's younger brother."

"Why didn't he say anything to you?"

"Because I'm the product of my mom being with my dad," he sighs.

"But..." I start to frown. "It's not like Alora got to choose her mate. Your father was chosen for her. They fell in love and had kids."

My own mate pushes his hands into his pockets and walks closer to me. I back up until I hit the wall. He smiles a little at that, then roams my face with his eyes. "Some people believe that the heart chooses and God does the rest."

"What does that mean?"

"That the connection you have to your mate before you meet them is because your heart has found them without you searching. And so when an angel is mated to a demon—" he takes his hand out of his pocket to stroke my hair out of my face lightly. "—they believe it's because something in the demon is good hearted enough to love an angel, and something in the angel is vile enough to love a demon."

My eyes drift past him in thought. "Do you think it's true?"

"Maybe," he takes another step closer, drawing my attention back to him.

"Do you think my heart is...wicked enough to want you?" I can't help when a small, sinister grin slips onto my face.

Seth watches my lips with a downturned smirk as it unfolds. "Tremendously."

***

I remember watching Doggy's guts spew out of him under the weight of Fauna's foot.

I was in shock for a moment, I couldn't move. And I ignored my twin's bloody-murder cry and her yelling at me for playing with him on the floor on my side of the room like I always did.

I ignored mother chastising me for frighting my sister, and I ignored father as he cleaned up the remnants and tried to comfort me.

I was furious, to put it lightly. I wanted to watch Fauna die the same way Doggy had. I wanted to step on her with my heel and smear her guts on the ground in a little rainbow.

Castiel helped me say goodbye to Doggy the proper way, even though he wasn't too fond of snakes. And only then while saying goodbye did I cry, because I knew I would never see my best friend again.

His soul comes to visit me sometimes. And I'll forever hold my little Doggy close because I know, especially after living twenty earth years of life, that there is no one like Doggy. And there never will be.