Page 126 of The Demon's Pet

“Everyone back up,” Sam said.

“But—” One of the fae by the cage fidgeted nervously. “Zarris isn’t here.”

“Out!”

The fae started moving back from the cage, and I couldn’t watch anymore. I turned away with a sob.

“Griffin, take her home,” Os said gently. “I don’t want either of you to watch.”

Griffin jogged over to me and picked me up in his arms, carrying me princess style. I tucked my head into his chest and let the tears fall.

Why had I even come here? How could Sam be cruel enough to do this after forcing me to find out this creature’s story?

And one day, if a person high enough in power wanted me killed, would Sam do it?

I needed to figure out some way to escape his grasp before he got any deeper in my heart and tore it completely apart.

28

Go back. Save the void walker.

My inner demon’s voice cut through my tears as Griffin carried me down the path away from where the execution would be carried out.

I struggled to get away, but Griffin held me tight. The wolf in me growled at being restrained. I felt the shift taking over, bones snapping, fur sprouting, claws and paws overtaking hands.

Griffin was forced to let go of me as the change took place, and I took off as fast as my paws could carry me, my claws digging into the soft dirt of the paths that made up fae walkways.

Dirt flew all around me as I ran, and I was sure I was kicking up a huge cloud. But up ahead, with fae standing as far back as they could while still watching, I saw Sam standing in front of the cage, his sword out and gleaming.

He pulled out his other katana from the red sheath, and I noticed the blade appeared red. Had it been that way when he fought the minotaurs?

His wings unfurled, huge and high, and to my shock, he wrapped them around the cage as he closed in on it, hiding what was inside from view from the waist up. I could see the swarm of particles moving, back and forth, back and forth, as if trying to escape.

I wasn’t going to make it. My heart felt like it was going to explode.

Sam sent just one look at me over his shoulder before he turned back to the cage and shoved both swords into the cage, beneath his wings.

An unearthly shriek rent the air, followed by several agonized gurgles, and blood pooled beneath the cage, soaking around the black iron bars. It spread out in reaching tendrils in the dirt, looking like little rivers.

Sam withdrew his swords from the cage, and blood flew with them. When he pulled back, dropping his wings, all I could see in the cage was blood.

So that was how a void walker died. All I could think of was the face of that creature begging me for help.

Even if I’d been faster, there would have been nothing I could do to stop Sam. That thought haunted me most of all.

I would just have to stay by this murderer’s side, complicit in anything he did, never able to stop him while watching him commit cold-blooded atrocities.

Sam said he wanted to take me to his home, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go there anymore.

He’d just proven he was the monster everyone said he was, and I realized, deep down, I hadn’t believed he could be that way because he’d spared me back at the jail.

Now I knew he truly just saved me because he needed something from me. That was all, or he would have brutally murdered me too.

I let go of the shift and fell to the ground in my human form, crying openly. I wasn’t crying for me. I was crying for that thing. For how unfair all of this was.

I thought I’d escaped my haven into a better world.

My heart was heavy, as though it were weighed down with stones.

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