Page 132 of The Demon's Pet

I slid my eyes to the side and could just make out a figure in black in my periphery, stalking down into the basement and toward me.

“Stop!” Zadis yelled, running down behind him. “This is private property! You’ve destroyed my house. You’ve—”

Sam stopped in front of me, looking straight into my eyes before moving down my body. When he was convinced I wasn’t hurt or in any imminent danger, his eyes returned to mine again.

Those dark depths gazed into me, then flashed with even more rage as he turned to face Zadis, standing in front of me in the center of the dirt aisle that led between all the glass cases.

“You blood-bound her?” Sam practically shrieked at Zadis, leaping forward to catch the fae by the throat and then throw him savagely into one of the walls of the basement.

Zadis slumped then stood again, brushing his robes off, and Sam moved in front of me again to face off with him.

“She is a demon,” Zadis said. “How dare you intrude on fae matters by bringing this creature here—”

“If I took that collar off, she’d finish you in an instant!” Sam snapped.

Zadis smirked. “Not much incentive for me to take it off.”

Sam huffed and turned to look at me, then turned back to Zadis and punched him, right through the face, sending him sprawling backward and into a glass case, which shattered, sending tempered glass all around the droplet creature inside, unmoving and unharmed by the disruption.

Like me, he could only be freed by Zadis’s death.

Looking into that creature’s eyes, I saw fear that mirrored my own. How long had he been here?

Zadis recovered again, looking a bit shaken. “Where is Zarris? You can’t just destroy fae property and fight a fae prince. You’re a celestial—”

“Right now, I’m just someone so pissed I could hold your beating heart in my hand and not be satisfied,” Sam growled back at him. His hands were in tight fists, and I could hear the knuckles cracking.

“You can’t kill me,” Zadis said, going even paler as he looked to the stairs where light was still streaming, as if he expected backup to come.

Sam unsheathed his red katana, holding it out to the side where it gleamed dangerously in the light, the blade no longer red. “I can’t wait to taste that filthy blood you used to bind my property, you fucking prick.”

Zadis reached behind him and, to my shock, pulled out a long, elegant sword, not a katana like Sam’s. “I will fight you, but you must not use your ninth-realm celestial powers. Make this hand-to-hand.”

Sam grinned in a way I found scarier than his grimace. “Good. I want this to be personal. It would be pointless to simply obliterate you with energy. I want to hear you beg.” He pulled out his other katana and ran the blades together, making an awful screeching noise. “I want to hear you scream.”

“You’ll be fucking yourself over,” Zadis said, though his voice sounded somewhat shaky now. “Even the ninth realm won’t tolerate this. You and I both know this. So why bother? It’s just a demon. A special demon that I’m proud to have in my collection, but a demon all the same. Surely, it’s not worth—”

Sam lunged forward, swinging his red blade in a hard, fast-as-lightning diagonal strike, and Zadis spun, catching it with his own blade, which he held with one hand despite its size. In his other palm, he built a small ball of blue flame, which he sent at Sam the second he blocked his attack.

Sam spun faster than I could see, dodging the magic, and I saw his black sword lash out in a diagonal strike that slashed across Zadis’s upper leg, making the fae let out a grunt of pain as blood spurted from the wound.

Sam raised his sword, his eyes manic and glowing red, though I hoped Zadis wouldn’t notice. Holding the blade in front of his face, Sam licked it with one long, ominous motion, then gave Zadis a maniacal grin. “I know your blood now. So you hate demons, but you want to fuck with demon powers? You want to hunt rubies, but you can’t control hellfire? You want to blood-bind someone else’s property?” He swung his sword out to the right, and Zadis’s blood gleamed from it.

Zadis was looking down at his wound but kept his sword up with a shaky hand. His other hand came forward with green fire in it this time, which shot at Sam, who ducked backward, easily evading it.

Sam held both swords and spun toward Zadis. The first sword missed, but it was just a feint, so Zadis didn’t see the second coming, right for his ribs.

Sam’s sword cut through Zadis’s robes and skin with a tearing noise, and Zadis gasped as he fell forward, dropping his sword and putting his hand up to catch the blood falling from his chest.

Sam approached, one katana over his shoulder with the dull side of the blade down, one dragging behind him ominously. “Get up, prince. I’m not done yet. Or are you ready to beg?”

Zadis’s hands were covered with blood as he looked up at Sam, and he nodded. “Please, I—”

“Too bad,” Sam said, placing a booted foot in Zadis’s chest and kicking him backward so he rolled a bit on the dirty floor, leaving a trail of blood before he landed on his face with a thud. “I want to hear you scream instead.”

Sam advanced on Zadis, the chains on his outfit clinking, his swords catching the light, now both soaked with Zadis’s blood.

Sam kicked Zadis’s sword back to him. “We aren’t done fighting, fucker. Pick that up. And don’t bother with any spells. They won’t work on me.”

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