**AMBYS 2024 GRAND FAVORITE NOVEL**
Rhia loves caring for the monstrous residents she inherited from her late aunt. There's nothing else she needs but her misfit family in the countryside of Upstate New York and the sexy demon that satisfies her nee...
Rhia shuffled inside the house, setting the bag of coffee and milk on the table. She knew she shouldn't have said anything about what her parents taught her. The look of fear on Ezra's face was the same look she used to get from the kids at school. She thought he'd be different especially since he sees spirits too, but she was wrong.
"You were gone for a long time." Carter grinned with his hazel eyes full of mischief as he walked into the kitchen. "Who's this neighbor that has everyone gossiping around here?"
Rhia opened her mouth to answer him but a loud buzzing swirled in her mind as the room went off kilter and her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
She was trapped in darkness, staring at Sae's golden irises. His black clawed hand was outstretched and he held a swirling mass of fire and lava in his palm. His mouth was moving as if he was talking to someone, but she couldn't hear anything other than the deafening sound of rushing water.
Rhia tried to move her hands to reach him, open her mouth to speak or turn her head to see who he was speaking to, but she was paralyzed. Sae looked at her for a brief moment before he closed his hand over the fiery mass and his image winked out.
"Rhia! Rhia!" Carter called, shaking her body.
Air burst to life in her lungs and she gasped, grasping Carter's shirt. "What- what happened?"
"Fuck," Carter breathed, dragging a hand through his hair. "I don't know. You just passed out. You scared the shit out of me."
"I don't feel so good," she said, clasping a hand over her mouth as a wave of nausea rose through her.
"Okay, hold on," Carter said, lifting her up and moving swiftly through the house to the bathroom. Rhia pushed out of his arms, falling to the floor before she vomited into the toilet.
"What's going on? Rhia, are you okay?" Xochi called from outside the door.
"Carter! What happened to our little one?" Pinoir called out after her.
Rhia groaned. "T-tell them I'm f-fine," she said as chills washed over her and she hurled coffee and bile into the toilet.
"You're not fine," Carter said, cracking the door open. "Get a glass of water and a blanket."
"I'm...I'm okay," she said, with her teeth chattering as she shakily pushed away from the toilet to stagger to the sink. The small space grew increasingly hot and a bright light clouded the edges of her vision. "C-carter?"
"I'm right here," his muffled voice said as six iridescent eyes on the face of a brown-skinned woman materialized in the mirror.
"Hello, my little goddess," the woman said as her mouth curled into a sharp toothed grin.
Rhia screamed, and the sound of her high-pitched wail shattered the mirror, sending shards of glass bursting through the face before her and slicing her skin.
"What the fuck!" Carter roared, catching her as she fell backward and shielding them from the glass hovering in the air. The shards fell to the floor as Rhia fell limp in his arms.
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