Page 42 of The Demon's Pet

I hadn’t even seen him set the tether.

Gods were scary.

“Sam!” I yelled. “You’re going to ruin my shoes!” The grass was scraping over my sneakers as I tried to dig into the ground. “Go up!”

He said nothing, just kept flying forward, and ahead, I saw a giant boulder in the field, rapidly approaching.

It was a bit like being beneath a giant parasail, strapped in and trapped into going where it went.

And I was about to become a pancake if I hit that rock.

“Pull up, pull up, pull up!” I screamed, covering my face as the rock came close. My attempts to dig my feet in did nothing.

At the very last second, when I was sure it would be too late, Sam must have flown up because I was jerked up and over the rock just in time to not die.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought I might be having a heart attack. Now ten feet off the ground and still tethered to Sam, I glared up at him.

I heard a laugh.

That sadist.

Then he took off even higher, and I watched my feet lift off the ground as if my entire body were attached to a kite that was dragging it.

Oh gods, what a time to realize I hated heights.

Or maybe I just hated being dragged through space with no control by a psychopathic angel who kebab-ed alphas and kept shifters as pets.

Was I his first?

I tried not to look at the ground, which was far beneath me now, as Sam moved up into the clouds.

I tried to relax, putting my hands out like I was a superhero from a human TV show.

I looked up at Sam, but he wasn’t watching me, or laughing, for once. He was simply focused with deadly stillness on something ahead of us I couldn’t see yet.

His vision must have been amazing.

Slowly, we began to lower again as the sun came up and beamed over the world, lighting the grass with emerald green as we approached a tall wall of trees at the base of the mountain.

Sam got lower, lower, and touched down gently, letting me get my feet for a second before he came down himself.

I put my hands on my knees, slumping forward and gasping to catch my breath.

“Never… do that again,” I said breathlessly. “I could have… died.”

“Nonsense,” Sam said, shaking his wings and folding them back in until they were curved around him like an arching cape. “Why would I take a pet just to kill it? That wouldn’t make sense.”

He brushed off his arms, flexed, cracked his neck, and put a hand to his chin. “I’m trying to remember what the cougars think of the celestials.”

“Cougars?” I asked.

“Any big cats in the area would be here also, but the alphas are cougars.”

I thought for a moment. “I mean… robes are always good.”

He snapped. “Thank you. Robes.” In an instant, black robes covered his body with an ornate silver chain around the middle as a belt. On his feet were simple black boots.

He started toward the tree line. “The community is hidden behind these trees. Come on.”

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