There are a lot of ways a guy can get rejected. (I’d say man, but let’s be real—I’m more of a guy. Occasionally male friend, if I’m being generous.) Some of them hurt. Some of them bruise.

  And some of them feel like a cosmic force laughing directly into your face.

  Right now? I was getting hit with all three at once.

  Lily’s voice was still ringing in my ears.

  She strolled back into the apartment like she was returning from a luxury massage appointment instead of draining the life out of a pair of human golden retrievers. She stretched like a cat, arms overhead, spine arching, a satisfied purr practically vibrating out of her chest.

  She looked annoyingly radiant.

  Her skin had a post-feeding glow, like she’d just rolled around in moisturizer and supernatural secrets. Her ginger curls bounced around her face, lit with an unnatural shimmer. Even her freckles looked smug.

  I didn’t have to ask where she’d been. The scent of other people clung to her like discount aftershave and regret.

  “Mmm,” she sighed, flopping onto the couch beside me and letting her head roll back against the cushions. “That was exactly what I needed.”

  I took a long sip of my warm soda to keep my mouth from running ahead of my brain. It tasted like disappointment and fake citrus.

  Elly, sitting cross-legged on the floor, shot me a subtle warning glance—one of those don’t do it, Daniel looks that never actually worked on me.

  Lily cracked one eye open and gave me a playful smirk. “Oh, don’t be pouty, Danny. You know how it is.”

  Yeah. I did. That didn’t mean it didn’t feel like being benched from a game I didn’t even get to play.

  It wasn’t just Lily. It was all of them. Every supernatural woman orbiting my life had the same unspoken rule:

  Daniel is safe. Daniel is harmless. Daniel is the emotional support himbo you bring to the big leagues but never let off the bench.

  It shouldn't have stung as much as it did. But it did.

  So, I sat there, sulking—contemplating—on the couch, brooding into my lukewarm off-brand cola and pretending to watch a nature documentary where two scorpions were duking it out under moonlight. Elly munched on chips with crunchy vengeance, her feet propped on the table like this was movie night instead of my slow-motion existential meltdown.

  “You’re sulking,” she observed, her voice low but not unkind.

  “I’m contemplating my life choices,” I muttered. (And roommates, I didn’t say.)

  “Same thing.”

  From the fancy armchair she’d claimed as her throne, Euryale glanced up from her phone and smirked. “He’s sulking because Lily went and sucked the soul out of a dude with biceps the size of his torso.”

  I shot her a glare sharp enough to skin potatoes. “Thanks. Really needed to hear that out loud.”

  She gave a faux-innocent shrug. “What? I’m just saying what we’re all thinking.”

  Elly at least made a token effort to be supportive. “She didn’t mean it personally, Daniel. It’s just how she… works. You know that.”

  Yeah. I did know that.

  Didn’t make it suck less.

  Euryale leaned into the cruelty just a bit more, because of course she did. “Maybe you should start working out, hmm? Bulk up. Get some tasty muscles. We could probably auction you off.”

  “Eury—” Elly snapped, cutting her off.

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  “What?” Euryale blinked innocently. “Just trying to be helpful.”

  I tried—tried—to laugh it off. But something about tonight, about all of it—the endless close calls, the trench coat ambush, the bus bench PTSD—it just settled in my chest like a lead weight. Like I’d been left out of something important.

  Again.

  Then Euryale, ever the smug queen of timing, leaned over and booped me on the nose. She actually said ‘boop.’ With her finger.

  And that’s when it happened.

  A sharp crackle—like sweater static on steroids—snapped through the air between us. There was a quick flash, barely more than a spark, and Euryale recoiled like I’d tased her with a cattle prod.

  She stumbled back; her golden eyes went wide with confusion. She flexed her fingers.

  Once.

  Twice.

  A third time.

  ...Nothing.

  No shimmer of power. No subtle glow. No hint of the supernatural elegance she usually carried like a second skin.

  Her whole expression shifted—startled first, then furious.

  “Oh, shit,” Elly breathed.

  Euryale’s gaze locked onto mine like a sniper scope, and—for the first time since I’d met her—there was fear there.

  Real fear.

  “What the hell did you just do?” she whispered, her voice sharp, trembling with something that wasn’t entirely anger yet. But it was close.

  I blinked. “I… I didn’t do anything.”

  Her posture tensed like a spring pulled too tight. “You touched me.”

  “It was the boop! You booped me!” I was already backpedaling, both physically and emotionally.

  Her voice dropped to a low snarl. “And now I can’t feel it. My power. It’s gone.”

  I stared at her. “Okay, well, let’s just calm down and maybe try—”

  “No.” Her eyes flared. “Oh, fuck no.”

  She took a step forward.

  And I took one back.

  “I, uh. Didn’t mean to do that.”

  Euryale stared at me. Her hands flexed again, like she was trying to will her powers back into existence.

  But nothing happened.

  No glow. No magic. No freezing vulnerable human males. I mean, I was semi-immune to her effects anyway, but this was like a person waving a dead flashlight at you. There was no light, no nothing.

  In fact, she kind of looked… dull. She was still drop-dead gorgeous, but she’d gone from a story-worthy, mythological sort of beauty to the really hot chick you saw out and about and did a double-take of—beautiful, yes, but mortal.

  And it wasn’t just that.

  Her golden hair had lost its brilliance, the luster dimmed into a dry, ashen blonde with streaks of silver like threads woven into silk. Her skin, usually lit with some kind of divine backlight, now had a faint patchiness to it, like someone had dialed down her saturation. At the corners of her eyes—normally smooth and regal—I saw it.

  Little faint lines, not quite crow’s feet. They were too precise for that. Too textured. Scaled. Like the ghost of serpentine skin trying to peek through a human mask.

  “Oh, shit,” Elly whispered.

  Euryale grabbed the front of my sitting-around-the-house hoodie, yanking me out of my chair so fast my head snapped forward.

  "What the hell did you just do to me?"

  “Elly,” I croaked. “Little help?”

  Elly didn’t move. Neither did Lily. They were both watching me like I’d just sprouted horns—or wings—or maybe another mouth.

  "I think it's temporary," Lily finally said, but she didn't sound sure.

  Euryale’s grip tightened. "You don't just cancel someone’s magic, Dan." Her voice was lower now, her pupils narrowing to thin slits. "I felt that. Something ripped it away."

  A flicker of fear crawled down my spine.

  That was new.

  Even at her most furious, Euryale had always felt controlled. Like she could tear a car in half, but she wouldn’t. Right now? Her hands trembled just enough to betray that she didn’t know what she’d do next.

  I tried to swallow past the lump in my throat. “I was just—” I gestured vaguely. “Annoyed?”

  Elly let out a slow exhale. “Dude. You just turned your emotions into a supernatural weapon.”

  I blinked.

  That didn’t sound great.

  Then, as suddenly as it vanished, the pressure in the room shifted.

  Like something snapping back into place.

  Euryale gasped.

  Her hand flicked up, and a shimmer of magic flared to life over her fingers—radiant, familiar. Her power had returned. I could feel it, like static charging the air.

  She stared at her hand.

  Then at me.

  I shrank back into the couch. “Uh. Friends?”

  She stepped closer.

  And now that divine presence was back in full force—her hair brightened, the shimmer returned to her skin, and the golden glow behind her eyes burned anew. But the human trace—the memory of it—still lingered.

  “If you ever touch me like that again, Dan,” she said, deadly calm, “I’m using your ribcage as a jewelry rack.”

  She let that settle.

  “You need to figure out what the hell is going on with you.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “Definitely on my to-do list.”

  Euryale let out a slow breath, rubbing her temples. “I need a drink.”

  She turned and stormed straight out of the apartment, her heels clicking against the floor like tiny declarations of war. The door slammed behind her with a final bang that shook the wall.

  A heavy silence settled in.

  Lily broke it first.

  “So, uh… congrats? You just weaponized your personality.”

  I groaned, dragging a hand down my face. “It was an accident.”

  Elly gave a low whistle. “You EMP’d a literal gorgon with a mood swing. That’s a hell of a party trick.”

  From the top of the fridge, I heard a quiet skritch, skritch, skritch.

  I looked up.

  The pantry creature was watching me. Its fur was extra sparkly from all the Pop-Tarts it had eaten. And it looked excited.

  Like it had just realized I was a much bigger snack than anything in the pantry.

  I buried my face in my hands.

  Fantastic. Fucking fantastic.