The crowd in the bar tittered, and all eyes were on us. I didn’t like being the center of attention, but I was not backing down from my ex. Not even to avoid the embarrassment he was causing.

He was, unfortunately, not deterred. The growing crowd oohed as he scooted forward in a weird bunny hop off his knees in order to clutch at my hand once more. “Please, please forgive me. You made me a better man. I know that now. You’ve humbled me, and I can be better. I am better, but only with you at my side.”

I rolled my eyes and jerked my hand away from him. “Please, the only thing you want is the money.”

“No, not true.” He looked away, though, unable to meet my eyes. “You are beautiful now, and I would be proud to call you my girl.” He smiled up at me, and there was more than a hint of lust in the depths of his eyes.

That was the other part of this recipe he was trying to sell me. I wasn’t the quiet, drab church mouse he’d married, the girl who’d been raised in the Firstamentalist church, raised to be submissive. Raised to be a doormat, to do what I was told and not question the patriarchy. Once I was turned into a Super Duper, I’d become a siren, and my beauty was a part of my deadly power to control those around me. My brown hair had darkened to a raven-wing black, my brown eyes had brightened to brilliant emerald green, and my body had lengthened and refined in every shape and curve. But none of that defined me. None of it.

I was the same Alena as before, and just happy to be alive and living my life.

I drew myself to my full height, over six feet with my heels on. “I was beautiful before.”

Some of the women in the crowd hooted, and several of them hollered.

“You go, girl!”

“Give him hell!”

“Dumb ass should never have cheated on you!”

I raised an eyebrow at the man at my feet as the women in the background cheered me on. “Go away, Roger. Go away and don’t bother me anymore. Ever. If my parents invite you to dinner”—yes, that had happened after he’d left me for Barbie—“you better decline. You are not a part of our family, and you never really were, so stay away from all of us. Understand?”

His eyes hardened, flashing with nothing short of pure rage. “You should have died in that damn hospital.”

Now there was the Roger I was expecting. I pointed a finger at him. “And you should have never underestimated my desire to live and survive without you.”

“Oh snap!” someone yelled from the crowd. The voice sounded suspiciously like Ernie, the cherub who had, for the most part, helped me in my journey as a Drakaina.

A smiled twitched over my lips as I turned away from my ex. “Leave me alone, Roger.”

“You never updated your will, did you?” he shouted.

I rolled my eyes but didn’t look back. “Roger, I have not had time; I’ve been rather busy.”

“Good,” he growled. “Don’t forget that you had a choice—I gave you a choice—and you picked the hard way.”

I didn’t even flinch at his words. Didn’t think anything of them, because he was full of hot air and promises that never came to fruition. That much was the same before and after our marriage collapsed. Roger was a user, and a lazy one at that.

I shouldn’t have been surprised at what happened next, but it happened so fast, and, really, I didn’t think he had it in him to be so ballsy—not Roger.

The crowd crying out a warning, the noise of a gun cocking, the click of the hammer falling, the boom of the weapon inside the pub, the sounds right on top of one another.

I spun to face Roger, and with my inhuman speed I turned in time to take the bullet in the right side of my chest at the top of my breast instead of my heart. The hit threw me back a few steps, and I clamped a hand over where the bullet had slammed into me. The pain was dull, and while I gasped for air, I already knew I was fine. I’d only had the wind knocked out of me. Roger, though, didn’t realize the can of worms he’d just opened.

He grinned, wide enough that I could see all the way to his back teeth. “Law is law. You might have beaten me in the divorce”—he lifted the gun and waved it in the air—“but I can still kill you and not go to jail because you are a supernatural beast, and I am a human. I exist; you don’t. That hasn’t changed. I checked. And your will leaves everything to me, doesn’t it?”

Rotten bananas couldn’t have left a worse taste in my mouth. Who was this man? Had I ever really known him? And he was wrong. I did exist in the eyes of the law; that was how I’d managed the divorce.

Remo cleared his throat. “You still got this?”

God love him, he was trusting me to take care of Roger on my own. Now that was a man who respected me and my abilities.

I pulled my hand from where the wound would have been if I’d still been human. As it was now, there was just a burnt-out hole in my top that stunk like gunpowder and charred fabric. “Yes, thanks. I’ve got this.” I held my hand out to Roger, showing him the bullet, which was squashed flat. “Roger, you should do your research before you try and kill a Super Duper, especially one like me.”

His face paled, and his hand trembled on the gun. “Oh shit.”

I smiled at him, and my two oversized fangs lowered. The tips dripped with a venom that would kill him if I so much as flicked a single drop into his mouth, never mind if I bit him. “Would someone call the police, please?” I asked, keeping my voice light and calm. I might not be bothered by a bullet, but Roger still had a gun with ammo in it, and the pub was full of humans.