Page 34 of The Demon's Pet

What would work for us?

I looked at Zane, his bloody body and mutilated face, then back at Sam, calmly reading behind the desk again. “Can you at least… move him?” I begged.

Sam sighed, rolling his eyes like he was extremely put upon, but he stood, walked over to Zane, and dragged him by the leg out of the cell, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

He dumped Zane somewhere outside the building, then came back with the keys and locked my cell again.

“What about his family?” I asked.

“Not my concern,” Sam said. “They let him be like this. They should know the consequences of having a rapist for a son.”

“And if they don’t?”

He shrugged. “No one goes against the celestials. Well, maybe slayers. But we’re not likely to meet one of those here.”

“Slayers?”

He sat back at the desk. “I told you I’m working on something. Let me focus. I won’t ask you again.”

So I did, scooping my ruined dress off the floor to cover myself.

He sighed, then grabbed a blanket off a nearby chair and tossed it over to me. “At least cover yourself. It’s distracting.”

“Sorry for being a distraction,” I muttered, pulling the blanket over me.

But as it warmed me, and the shock of what Zane had almost done began to fade, I realized I truly was safe.

Someone had finally helped me.

I glanced at Sam, wondering just who this crazy angel was and whether he would truly kill me in the morning.

8

“So that’s her?”

An unfamiliar voice jolted me out of my light slumber, and I sat up to see there were now four people in the jail.

The window showed it was very early in the morning, and the horizon was an eerie gradient of light-to-dark blue, as the sun hadn’t yet risen fully.

I tried to be subtle as I rolled over to stare at them.

“She’s bloody,” an angel with ash-blond hair that looked nearly gray said with a sneer, walking over to the cell. His light-brown eyes flashed at me. “Why is there blood everywhere?”

“Sam was here all night,” a higher, smooth voice said as a tall man with very delicate features and soft black hair curling around his face to about his collar came forward. He was a few inches shorter than Sam but still very tall. His irises were silver-blue. “That’s the only explanation needed.”

Unlike Sam, this man wore armor, a shimmering, lightweight plate of some kind, that had shimmering links of chain mail at the joints and a tunic over the top. He looked like a crusader.

He cocked his head at me. “You’re just lucky that blood isn’t yours.”

“He does like killing things,” I muttered back at him, earning a confused look.

“She talks to us like normal,” the black-haired one said, turning to his compatriots. “She isn’t afraid at all.”

The last figure was the one I’d seen with Sam the day of the ceremony. Os. He had gorgeous dark skin, elegant features, and beautiful lilac eyes. His purple hair was tied into a loose ponytail and hung down his shoulder. Os, the black-haired angel, and the blond angel all wore the same light plate armor in various iridescent shades.

I was a little confused by it since they’d been in robes when I last saw them.

Os stood in front of the others and rested his hands lightly, almost delicately, on the bars.

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