Page 68 of The Demon's Pet

Sam sent me a look of warning, but Zarris smiled.

“I am familiar with you, Samael, as we’ve done business before.” His eyes moved over to me and Griffin. “However, you’ve brought me something very interesting.”

Which one of us was he talking about?

“You, girl, come here,” Zarris said, beckoning me.

I hesitated, looking at Sam, and a smile crossed Zarris’s handsome face.

“You would defy a high priest of the fae?” His tone said it would be very stupid to do so.

“This is Cleo from the Lark pack in the celestial havens,” Sam said. “She is my…”

Yes, how are you going to describe this?I thought meanly.

“My consort,” Sam said simply.

Zarris grinned. “You will want shared accommodations, then. Are you bonded?”

I looked over at Sam again. What was bonded?

Sam shook his head.

“So she can entertain overtures from my warriors, or perhaps even myself?” Zarris’s eyes gleamed even brighter at the concept, but Sam took a half step in front of me.

“She chooses to be with me for now,” he said. “But I don’t own her.”

Yeah, he does, I thought. But I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t know anything about these people, and Sam seemed to know them all.

Sam folded his arms. “You know Os. This is his pet, Griffin.”

Zarris smiled, lifting a hand in greeting to Os, held in an odd symbol with his thumb and first finger extended.

Os merely nodded.

Griffin looked confused, overprotective, and ready to run from the room all at once.

“A griffin, hm?” Zarris said, standing to walk around Griffin.

“No,” Sam said. “It’s just his name. Some kind of shifter. We’re still figuring it out.” He exhaled slowly, in a way that finally caught the fae’s attention and sent him scuttling back to his chair to face Sam. “You have an abomination. Tell me about it.”

“Of course, celestial one,” Zarris said, though there was a hint of sneer in his voice when he said celestial. “The creature is out in the cage. Some sort of void creature, though we’re not sure what. That cage prevents him from escaping back to the void to evade punishment.”

“How did he get here?” Sam asked.

“We do not know,” Zarris replied. “But what we do know is that he murdered five people in the middle of the night.”

“Tell me more,” Sam said.

“We took in a small family of wood fae, because we’re closer to kin than not, and they were seeking shelter.”

“The fae are always generous in offering shelter.”

“Well, with access to our own fae dimensions and unlimited space due to our magic, it would be unreasonable not to,” Zarris said, resting back in his chair. “This family was assigned to a small house. A mother, a father, and three children. In the black of night, we smelled smoke. All we found were the smoldering ruins of the home and five bodies. That creature was hovering over them in cloud form. Though, he can also look like a man.”

Sam nodded. “Might be a void walker.” He lifted his head, his dark eyes clear and sharp. “Lead me to him.”

“He might try to attack you when you do attempt an execution. The cage binds him, for now, but you can’t go in with him without risking attack,” Zarris said. “He is a coward who strikes and runs to the void in a moment’s notice.”

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