Page 62 of The Demon's Pet

Griffin nodded. “Do you miss your family?”

“It’s only been like a day,” I said.

“I miss mine,” Griffin said. “I was adopted, but they loved me as their own. As a lion cub, I suppose I looked a lot like a cougar, so I was brought there by a stranger and left there. I got my mane and wings later, and…” He trailed off. “Well, we all knew what had to be done.”

“Hey, it could be worse,” I said. “You’re here. With friends.”

“I barely know you,” he said.

“You got any other friend options?”

He laughed. “All right. Friends. I liked you the moment I met you anyway.”

I smiled back at him.

“Seriously, though, I worry about you with that guy. Os seems nice, but Sam…” Griffin shook his head. “Anyone who can kill like that isn’t right in the head.”

“Someone had to kill them,” I said quietly.

“What was it like for you, before you were taken?” Griffin asked.

“I wasn’t taken, exactly,” I said. “Sam gave me an option.”

“Oh yeah, what was the other option? Dying on the end of his sword?”

I nodded.

Griffin sighed. “I suppose it’s not his fault the rules are what they are. He still seems to use them to his benefit.”

“I think that’s smart,” I said.

“You still haven’t told me what it was like in your wolf haven,” Griffin said. “I’ve heard bad things…”

I pressed my lips together, trying to think just how to approach this. I didn’t really feel like ranting and complaining.

“I was an omega,” I said quietly. “Village omega. So I was everyone’s scapegoat, and everything that came along with it.”

Griffin cocked his head. “The omega system is messed up, but omegas are usually treasured. Protected. Not attacked.”

I gave him a smile that was more of a grimace. “Depends how cooperative you are with what the alphas want. Some alphas are real bastards.”

“Good for you for saying no, then,” Griffin said. “You didn’t deserve anyone trying to hurt you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. All my life, I’d been hurt by various people and told it was my fault and I deserved it.

It was very odd to be around people who defined me as something other than my position in the pack.

“So… the thing about omegas being naturally submissive isn’t true?” Griffin asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s just because they make us.”

“I had wondered,” Griffin said. “Cats are fairly promiscuous and don’t pair off in terms of alphas and omegas. They are tightly knit as a community, though. As much as we hate the wolves, I had always thought of the alpha and omega program as old-fashioned and romantic. That omegas were just born needing to be protected, and alphas stepped up to do the job.”

I snorted. “Not really the case. Or maybe it’s just that I have a demon in me.” I caressed the smooth, cool stone on the collar around my neck.

“Don’t take this wrong, but it seems like defying the alphas of your village was worth risking death. Yet you took Sam’s deal, and he seems far more dangerous than they are.”

I blinked. “Well, I still have a chance to escape him and find a life out there apart from being an omega. If I’d died that morning…”

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