Page 71 of How to Hide Your Angel Kid

The cart squeaked and bumped against Galent’s thigh.

“Zarrie likes me!” Handsome bounced on his heels. “All I had to do was show her a wolf face.”

“Awww.” Pinks melted, hugging Zarrie. She grabbed his nose. “I guess you’re liking it here.”

“She’s making us all her pack,” Galent said, awed.

Pinks’ heart swelled. But he remembered his friends again, and sagged.

“What’s wrong?” Galent murmured.

“I—I shouldn’t be getting all this, everything good, when my friends are still in trouble,” Pinks said guiltily. “They—I told them I’d help them with everything, but now I’m staying here. Instead of going home with them when they’re rescued.”

Galent’s eyes lit up for a second, before he made himself look solemn. “They can help each other.”

“But.” Pinks sighed. “Things don’t come as easily for them, because they’re missing parts of their bodies. I’m the only one who’s fully intact amongst my friends. I want to help.”

“They may stick around here, too,” Handsome said. “I believe Ace and Raptor, at least, are hoping to find mates for themselves when they rescue your friends. What was the phrase they used? ‘Like a blind date, but with violence.’”

Pinks stared at him. “That’s... a terrible way to phrase it.”

Galent shrugged. “I can’t imagine they’d go easy on the kidnappers. The violence is guaranteed. And they’ve never met your friends before, so it will be literally a blind date.”

Maybe... things would work out. Pinks didn’t dare pin too much hope on it. Instead, he huddled against Galent, and tried to keep his guilt away.

Thethingdidn’t attack.

As the days passed, Pinks peeked out from the windows, expecting to see the creature and its friends about to hex Galent’s mansion into pieces. Galent was still turning into a statue randomly, and he avoided touching Zarrie whenever he could. Zarrie never stopped trying to grab him, though.

On the side, Pinks began his secret project.

Wren had sent him a tiny piece of cloth with runes written all over it. Whenever Galent disappeared to make a business call, or work on his laptop, Pinks sneaked off to one of the spindly metal decorations on the mansion’s walls.

His favorite was a tiny copper origami crane, because it was small and easy to handle. All Pinks had to do was press the cloth around one wing, and flap the crane’s wings up and down. This caused the magic in the different pieces to interact, creating new magical energy that the runes quickly absorbed.

Sometimes he did the same with the larger decorations, because they had more metal, and more magic. They were awkward to move around, though, so Pinks only did it when Handsome and Galent were both busy.

But Handsome was starting to get suspicious.

“What’re you doing?” Handsome asked one day, when Pinks was flapping the wings of a copper dragonfly.

Pinks jumped violently. He released the sculpture, tucking the spelled cloth into his palm. “Um, nothing?”

The butler raised an eyebrow. “Lord Fangy hired me for mansion security. Very little gets past me around here.”

Pinks flushed. Shapeshifters had extremely sharp hearing, more so than wolves. It made sense that Handsome would hear him,even if he was occupied with doing something else. “Are you going to tell Galent?”

“Should I?”

“You haven’t yet. Why not?”

Handsome rubbed his chin. “You seem fairly harmless. You haven’t been sneaking around his hoard. All you’ve done is move nearly every metal sculpture in the mansion, although none of them have come alive, despite how much you’ve been working their parts.”

Pinks sighed, sagging. He showed Handsome his rune cloth. “I just wanted some extra protection, because I’m weak.”

“You’re not weak. Lord Fangy wouldn’t have picked you otherwise.”

Oh.Pinks blushed harder. “I’m not big or powerful.”

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