Page 43 of The Demon's Pet

I slumped toward him, my body feeling tight and sore from the effort of tensing for so long and being dragged with him.

“Can’t you at least, like, maybe carry me next time?” I asked.

Sam stopped, turned to me with his brows furrowed, and sighed. “I don’t need you getting ideas of romance like women do when carried like that.” His mouth quirked up. “Then again, I didn’t know you wanted to be in my arms so much. I’ll keep it in mind.”

He started toward the tree line again, and I stared at him, mouth agape.

He had to be kidding.

My hands tightened into fists as I stomped after him. “I don’t want to be in your arms. I just don’t want to be flung through the air like I’m being catapulted.”

“At least you’re not dead,” he retorted.

“I almost was, thanks to that rock, asshole!”

He chuckled again. “I had plenty of time. I told you. I’m not going to just take a pet to let it die.” He exhaled. “Now shift into your wolf form before we go into this village.”

I shook my head. “No way. The cougars are our enemies. We fight like literal cats and dogs. Bad idea.” I’d been warned since a long time ago to avoid any cougar I saw near our territory and to call village elders to deal with it.

We just didn’t get along on an elemental level, despite sharing a belief in and reliance on the celestials.

“Fine,” he said. “They’ll still smell wolf on you, so stick close.” He grinned. “Very close.”

“I’d rather be eaten by a cougar,” I muttered.

“Your choice,” he said simply.

I would never get used to this angel.

As we reached the trees, I looked up at the towering blue-green pines that stretched at least forty feet high.

Sam led the way between two of them, and I gasped at the scene that opened up before me.

There was a canopy of treehouses supported by huge oaks that had to be extremely old. Beneath them, small cabins stood on the ground in small groups, made of rough-hewn dark-brown wood.

The fancier houses were definitely in the trees. Which made sense. Cougars liked high places.

“Interesting place,” Sam said. “I like it.”

He walked forward into a clearing of dirt littered with pine needles and let his wings unfurl again.

“There must not be very many of them,” I said.

“Some of them live in the wilds, in the mountains,” Sam said. “I just need to find the leader. They don’t form a pack exactly—”

I heard a slight rustling and looked up to see a giant cougar winding his way downward, delicately treading over tree branches and landing on the ground in front of us, staring with beautiful amber eyes.

“The others are hiding,” it said from fanged lips.

“I am a celestial,” Sam said, as if the wings didn’t give it away. “Here for the abomination.”

“The execution,” the cougar said. “Come with me.”

The cougar padded across the clearing to a small shack with a chain link fence around it. “In there.” Then the cougar moved back, slinking toward the treehouses again. “Do as you must.”

The cougar then slipped into the shadows and was gone.

“Well, that was quite a welcome,” I said sarcastically.

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