Page 207 of The Demon's Pet

The wind whistled by us, and I felt utterly exhausted, like my legs were ready to give out.

After all, I’d fought Bran, I’d fought Gabe, and then I’d forged a sword and killed for the first time.

A girl had a right to be tired.

I looked down at the sword, then at Sam. “What do I do with this?”

Sam pulled a couple black cloths out of his pocket and walked over to grab my sword with them, shielding his hands. He walked over to Betty’s shack and set my sword against it. “Betty will need to make you a proper sheath.”

“Should we warn her?” I asked.

He shook his head. “She’ll know what it is the moment she sees it.”

Sam then came over to me, sweeping his arm under my legs to lift me into his arms, but instead of heading back to the cathedral, he looked around to make sure no one was watching and then walked toward the outer corner of the courtyard.

Toward a large grave with a statue of a mourning angel overhead.

When he stood in front of it, he raised his hand, and to my shock, it moved, making a grinding noise of stone against stone as it revealed an opening with stairs that led down.

“A crypt?” I asked.

“Did you read my letter?” Sam asked.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t. It would have made it real that you were gone.”

“I’m a killer,” he said. “I’m not a bodyguard. I’m not a saint. All I’m good at is murdering things that need to die without feeling bad about it. I could never deserve you, with your kind heart. I thought it would be better to take even a day away from you, to see if it could break this bond.”

“Bond?”

Sam started down the stairs, carrying me into the dark. He murmured something, and torches lit the stairway, revealing we were heading down to a large, open room.

“That’s what pissed me off about Zadis and the other fae, talking about bonds. Demons are the ones who bond. The deeper our bonds are, the more we feel what our bonded ones are feeling. When I felt myself bonding to you, I thought I was overstepping.”

“Why?”

He paused on the steps, still holding me. “Because you’re the brightest star I’ve ever met, and my whole life has only been darkness.”

I put my hand up to his cheek, unsure of what to say.

He stared at me for a moment, eyes softening, and then continued to carry me down the stairs.

When he walked out of the stairwell and into the main room, I was too surprised to speak.

It was a beautiful study with a large leather couch, and where there should have been shelves to hold coffins, there were instead rows and rows of books.

“My book crypt,” he said. “I left you the instructions to get here and use this place in my letter. When I saw you liked to read, I always knew I wanted to show you this place.”

He walked over and set me on the couch, then moved over to one of the shelves and took out a book. “You might like this one. It’s a romance.” He tossed it to me, and I caught it.

I stared down at it, dazed, looking at the couple on the front, embracing on the front of a pirate ship.

I smiled. “Where did you get all of these?”

He shrugged. “I spent a lot of time in a human library when I was ejected from the demon realm for having wings. I would stay there when Cayne was fighting, until he built this place for us.”

“I love it,” I said. “I can’t wait to read them.”

“There’s a reason I brought you here,” he said. “I want to share things with you, Cleo. Things I’ve always wanted to keep others away from. I want to be with you and protect you. I want to kill for you and die for you if that’s what’s needed.”

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