Chapter Three

One of the shadows in her yard, perhaps the most insignificant of the shadows, waited until the vampire was gone and the woman had locked herself into her home. He trembled as he waited, for Minor demons were small and powerless.

This demon, who’d forgotten his nest-name, if in fact his mother had ever bestowed one before the warlocks stole him, had been in this territory for long enough to learn to fear vampires almost as much as he feared warlocks and necromancers. The vampire he’d been tasked to follow many long days before had killed the demon’s master and destroyed the necromancer’s warlock servants.

That vampire’s woman, who’d seemed kind, at least from a distance, had turned out to be angel-kin, and those could be deadly to Minor demons.

This was a different vampire that his new master—after beating him—had ordered the Minor demon to follow. And he’d never interacted with the woman before. He would have to report it. And report her, the woman whose aura glowed gold and who had held a forest creature in her arms with kindness and caring.

The Minor demon cringed, his own wounds aching from the master’s beating. One of his wings was bent, and he couldn’t fly at all—could only hope that it would heal correctly. He could recognize kindness, even if he’d never received any.

He could recognize caring, although he had only the most distant memory of it.

If only…but no. He would not hope or even pretend to hope.

Hope was the cruelest lie of all. When one of the monsters who commanded him died, another, even more terrible, took its place.

Hope had no place in the world of a Minor demon.

A hot tear splashed onto his face, but he angrily scrubbed it away with one claw-tipped hand. He had no time for self-pity, either.

Suddenly, an amazing smell of cooking and food wafted along the breeze from the house and toward him. His stomach growled so loudly he was afraid that someone might have heard it. He was so very, very hungry. He’d had no food for days.

The master had forbidden him to eat, laughing at his hunger.

The Minor demon curled up in a ball, arms clutching his aching, empty stomach, filled with so much pain and desperation that he didn’t hear the soft footsteps coming toward him until it was almost too late.

Shocked into action, he transformed into the last creature he’d seen of comparable size to himself and huddled in a ball on the ground, hoping against hope that the woman—for it was her; he could smell her delicate scent of flowers and honey now—wouldn’t see him in the darkness.

But she had a light in her hand, and suddenly it was pointed directly at him.

“Oh, no,” she breathed out. “Not another one. Why do people keep dumping their pets in the yard?”

The Minor demon closed his eyes and tucked his tail, which was now luxuriously furred, instead of scaled and claw-tipped, tightly around him.

“Oh, my beautiful boy, it’s all right, my lovely one, let me have a look at you,” she said in a lyrical voice, almost singing, a voice of bells and light and goodness, a voice designed to put any damaged and terrified creature at ease.

And he learned that even a damaged and terrified Minor demon was susceptible. He dared to open one eye.

“A beautiful golden retriever, oh, sweetheart, let me see if you’re hurt, won’t you?” She carefully approached, her voice calm and gentle and filled with love. “May I touch you? You’ll let me help you, won’t you, sweet boy?”

He knew he shouldn’t.

He knew he shouldn’t.

She called him a lovely boy.

He put his head in her hand.