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Slate shook his hand free of oil.

“Did…” Ruby swallowed. “Where did you send him?”

“Nowhere,” Slate replied darkly. “I destroyed him.”

Ruby shivered. She had never seen him so imposing. It should have horrified her. But it was hard to be too scared of a monster who just saved her life.

“You’re hurt,” she whispered.

He let out a low, annoyed growl. “I am fine.”

He smoothed a thumb over his bloody chin. The cut kept bleeding.

“See?” he said uselessly. “Fine.”

Ruby winced. She didn’t know if Skullstalkers needed the same wound care as mortals, but she couldn’t leave it without checking it over first.

“Bend down,” she told him.

Slate blinked. Ruby panicked and tried to remember if she’d ever given him an instruction before.

“I just want to check it,” she tried.

“You needn’t,” Slate said. And yet he was already kneeling, eyeing her warily as if she could do anything to him with her mortal hands.

Ruby took his chin and turned it carefully. She grabbed her dress hem and dabbed at the wound until she could see into the cut.

She sighed with relief. “Not as deep as I feared. You’ll live.”

It was what she always said when people came to her Sweetsguard cottage with medical problems, but it made Slate laugh.

“It will take more than ashade demonto destroy me,” he said, mouth twisting like she had insulted him. “I have killed thousands with little effort.”

The dog spirit barked and trotted up to him, curling around his leg.

Slate growled. But for the first time, Ruby spotted a hint of genuine fondness in his black eyes toward the spirit.

“Do not try to get involved again,” he told the dog spirit. “You are small and puny. I will take care of anything that tries to hurt us.”

The dog barked and licked his chin.

“Cease,” Slate muttered. But he was smiling. Just a little, enough to pull the skin under Ruby’s hand.

Only then did Ruby realize she was still touching him. She dropped her dress hastily, letting the bloody material fall around her feet.

Slate straightened and watched the shadows settle. “Now you have blood on your dress.”

“I’ve had worse,” Ruby tried. She started to say she would clean it in one of the many bathrooms she had found after she awoke, but Slate was already raising his hand.

He curled a claw. The bloodstain lifted into the air and dissipated.

Ruby rubbed the material in wonder. He could clear his comeandhis blood with a gesture. Was it bad she was disappointed? She liked being marked by him. In some strange, primal way, it made her feel wanted.

“There,” Slate said roughly. “Better.”

He twisted to survey the forest. Ruby did the same, wishing that she had been able to find the anointing room where she had left her old clothes. Her dagger was with them.

“Was that a lost soul who turned?” she asked, stroking the dog spirit as it trotted back to her. “Like you talked about?”