Page 152 of Demon Defeat: Part One

“I will take her home,” Uan said.

“We’re right behind you,” Brenna said, easing the dog down. It immediately tried crawling back into her arms. A stern-looking fey moved up behind her.

“Sit.” The command was spoken softly, without a hint of anger or volume. Yet, the dog immediately responded. It sat and whined as it wiggled in place.

“Thallirin, I think you’re a dog whisperer,” she said.

“It probably understands I will not tolerate it hurting you,” Thallirin said.

Brenna smiled up at him and patted the dog’s head before looking at me.

“Would you mind sending Tasha home and letting everyone know we probably won’t make it tonight?” she asked.

“You do know that the party’s probably just going to move to your house because of that,” I said, nodding toward the dog.

“Not my house,” she said quickly. “Tell everyone it’s Tasha’s, and they need to go to Uan and Nancy's.”

“Got it.”

I left her to deal with the dog and found Tasha and the rest of the party-goers well-guarded by Steve, Brandon, Sid, and Roland.

“Well?” Steve asked. “Was it a dog or a hound? It sounded like a dog to me.”

“A dog,” I confirmed. “One that needs a bath, something to eat, and a face to lick for at least an hour.”

Tasha squealed and clapped her hands in excitement.

“Brenna said you should go home. Sounds like they were taking the dog there.”

“I will walk you,” one of the fey who’d followed me said.

Several left with her, including Steve, who wanted to look at the dog.

“Where there’s one, there’s bound to be more,” Julie said. “Better start gathering the dog food up.”

Mya laughed at the face Drav made. “Don’t worry. We’ll feed them the dry stuff, and you can keep eating the canned stuff.”

Molev wrapped his arms around me from behind.

“I will find you one,” he said softly.

I twisted to look up at him in question, and he kissed my nose.

“I saw the longing in your eyes when you looked at it,” he said.

“My niece and nephew had a dog. It’s them I’m longing for, not the dog.”

His arms tightened around me, and he hugged me close.

“I know it’s been hard to focus on anything else with all the clean-up,” Emily said, overhearing, “But that doesn’t mean anyone is giving up on finding more survivors.”

“Matt’s been working with the pilots to run fuel calculations for those locations you gave him,” Mya said. “There are a lot of promising ones. Plus, there are general airports we can hit up. We’ll make contact with that island sanctuary even if we have to fly there ourselves.”

* * *

Months later,the sound of a plane overhead drew me out of the house. Shielding my eyes, I looked up and watched it fly toward Whiteman. The base, once abandoned, was once again secured against infected as were half a dozen more in the central states. Hopefully, the people arriving would have news of more.

“Hey, Andie,” Katie called. “I was just about to come see if you wanted to go shopping with me.”

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