Page 17

Thirteen

S late knotted his loincloth over his sticky skin as they ran, shadows swishing around his thighs.

“Is he okay?” Ruby called from where she was lagging behind him. “Can you sense him?”

Slate couldn’t. There was a spell blocking him from sensing the spirit. But he could sense the demons that took him: shades, their scent thick and acrid in his nostrils.

Ruby panted behind him, holding her shadow skirt as she ran. She was wincing, and it took Slate a moment to realize that he hadn’t given her shoes when he conjured her dress.

He turned and scooped her up. She slammed against his bare chest, her breath whooshing out of her.

Slate loosened his grip. It was so easy to forget how fragile she was, especially when she was racing toward danger with him.

“We’re getting close,” he assured her. “I have their trail. They’re right?—”

He stumbled to an abrupt stop.

A glowing rip in reality waited in front of them. It was not a portal, something carefully opened by a witch or sorcerer. But a crude, ugly tear between realms by some careless nobodies with no regard for inter-realm integrity.

Slate growled and reached out, stabilizing the tear with a wave of his hand.

“Is that a portal?” Ruby asked, nose scrunching at the careless composition. “Where does it lead?”

“The mortal realm,” Slate replied. He ran a bloody finger along the newly repaired edges, stretching it until it was wide enough to step through. “Ready?”

“To go home?” Ruby looked at the glowing portal and let out a strange, thin laugh. “As long as you bring me back after.”

The words made something twist in Slate’s chest. He had to stop himself from crushing her closer and vowing something he had no right to say.

“Be ready,” he warned.

Then he stepped through the portal.

They touched down on dry, cracked cobblestones.

Slate set Ruby on the ground and looked around. They were in the middle of Sweetsguard’s empty town square, the first dawn light peeking out over the squat buildings.

The portal tear sealed behind him. Slate glanced over to see Ruby holding her black dagger, blood beading on her finger from closing the tear.

Slate had the bizarre urge to take her wounded finger and kiss it. He settled for giving her a brisk nod.

She nodded back. But halfway through the motion, her eyes caught on something over his shoulder, and she gasped.

Slate turned.

Paimon’s stone ward sat behind him, lodged in the dirt. It was identical to the one in his own realm, complete with the fading blue rune. Except where the Paimon ward in his domain was clean, save for a few stray leaves, this ward had been strewn with filth.

Ruby ran to it, wiping at the mud and oil with her hands. She checked the rune worriedly, her shoulders sagging with relief when she confirmed it was active.

“Still working,” she said with a sigh. She picked sadly at a particularly deep crack in the stone and gave Slate a rueful smile. “I suppose we’d know if it stopped. Demons would pour over the town before we could say?—”

A horrified scream cut her off.

Slate turned.

The pie woman— Glenda , he reminded himself—was standing frozen at the edge of the town square, a bundle of clothes at her feet where she had dropped them. Her face was set in such dramatic terror that Slate wanted to chuckle.

Ruby raised her hand. “Hello, Glenda.”

Glenda screamed again, her face ruddy. She was shaking, her eyes flicking between the two of them like she didn’t know what to be more scared of—Slate, with his shadows leaking behind his skull mask and his chin dripping with gore, larger than any mortal she’d ever seen, or Ruby, dressed in matching shadows and a dagger made of night held in her hand.

“It’s not what you think,” Ruby tried.

This only made Glenda screech louder. She stumbled back, horrified tears pooling in her eyes.

“It’s the B-Bygone,” she cried. “The Bygone has come to break the ward and take us as his eternally damned servants! Flee for your lives!”

“We’re not breaking the ward,” Ruby argued.

Slate leaned down. “It’s not worth talking to this mortal. We need to go.”

“But the dog spirit,” Ruby started.

Slate pointed into the woods in the distance. “They went in there. I can smell them. Are you coming with me or would you like to get reacquainted with your townsfolk?”

Ruby looked at Glenda, who was trying to scrape the fallen clothes back into her arms while she fled. She was still screaming, her face blotchy with panicked tears.

“I think I’ll go with you,” Ruby said.

Slate stared around the strange, shadowless trees.

“She’ll never shut up about that,” Ruby said, sliding her dagger back into her thigh holster. “What was she saying? Damned servant? And I’m wearing your shadows, and you’re covered in blood!”

Slate lashes his tail, irritated. He thought she liked wearing his shadows. And she hadn’t seemed very bothered by him being covered in blood before, even after he had worried about it.

“She should watch her tongue,” he snarled.

It came out even more savagely than he intended. Savage enough that Ruby stopped, her brows rising.

“Or what?” she asked. “Will the dreaded Bygone take her as a damned servant?”

“I have no use for servants,” Slate snapped. “I…”

He tried to stop his tail, which was lashing so hard it clouded up the plain, boring leaves.

Her discomfort unsettled him in ways he didn’t fully understand.

There was so much he didn’t understand about himself since she had shown up.

For millennia, he had a quiet, sensible existence.

Then she appeared and suddenly he was lusting and hunting and wanting .

The only thing that made any of it worth it was the ridiculous rapture she afforded him.

And soon, it would be gone. They would renew the ward, and she would leave. Existence would return to normal. No more rapture, no more uncertainty.

Unless…

Slate blinked, the idea setting up dark roots.

Unless he made her stay. They were bound. After he renewed the ward, she had to do something for him. It could be anything.

Ruby moved closer. “Slate?”

Slate pulled himself out of his swirling thoughts. His tail wasn’t lashing anymore. Instead, it was wrapped around her wrist, pulling her close. She was frowning, the stark light of the mortal realm making her dark dress look pitifully pale.

I thought you liked being mine , he thought.

He forcibly loosened his tail from her wrist and stepped back. “She should still watch her tongue. I should eat her next for the things she has said about you.”

Ruby’s frown deepened. “What things? Since when do you know the things my neighbor says about me?”

Slate hesitated. He had never specified where he found her chocolate, nor any of the food he had been bringing her. Most of it was from the townsfolk of Sweetsguard, who were starting to complain about a thief.

“Your town disrespects you,” he replied. “You should not tolerate it.”

Ruby shook her head with a dry laugh. “Even before my magic showed, I was different. Too quiet, too shy. Then I discovered my magic and started my witch training, and they said I was putting on airs. I just wish…”

She sighed bitterly. “I wish I didn’t want them to like me so much. I still want it, even after everything. I used to pray to Paimon for it.”

It sounded like a ridiculous thing to pray for. Then again, Slate had never wished for anyone to like him. Solitude had been enough for him. It would be enough again after she left.

“I would’ve given anything,” she said quietly. Then she straightened, her chin lifting into the defiance he was growing stupidly fond of. “Anyway, however much they dislike me now, I expect it will only get worse now that they’ve seen that. They might force me out of town.”

Slate growled. “Let them try.”

“And what, you’ll eat them? That will only get me feared throughout the mortal realm. The Bygone’s servant, indeed.” She rubbed her eyes, which were dangerously close to tears, and then gave him a tight smile.

“Come on,” she said. “You said you smelled the trail here?”

She started to turn away. Slate grabbed her arm, forcing her back. He was hot with fury, his shadows lashing the stale air around him.

“You are kind and selfless,” he growled. “You bound yourself to me even when you thought it meant your death. They should worship you for it.”

Ruby gaped. She was blushing, the red flush running down her neck, and Slate thought about wrapping his tongue around it.

“I—” Ruby started. She ran a hand through her long hair, grimacing when she noticed the mud remaining from cleaning the ward. “Dammit. Why would demons steal a dog spirit? Is that something they do?”

“Not typically,” Slate said. “They cannot eat him. It must be to spite me.”

He cursed himself silently. First, he was not aware of souls withering in his realm until they turned into shades, and now he was letting innocent dog spirits get stolen.

“To spite you,” Ruby repeated. “Why?”

He raised his head and sniffed. Bark, insects, dirt that was somehow less appealing than the dirt in his realm. And underneath it, the acrid stench of shade demons.

“I will follow their trail,” he said. “You stay here.”

Ruby spluttered indignantly and shoved in front of him. “What for? I might not be able to snatch demons out of midair, but I am a witch. And I’m armed. And ?—”

Slate bent down, trying to use his height to menace her for the first time in days. Or possibly weeks. Time was malleable in his void.

“And what?” he demanded.

He expected her to wilt. To apologize, however grudgingly.

Instead, she looked him straight in the eye, his darkness reflecting onto her.

“And I’m with you,” she reminded him. “You won’t let me get hurt.”

A shocked growl rumbled through his chest. She had been practically cowering from him in those early days. Now she didn’t even flinch. Her cheeks were bright, her face set in stunned disbelief like even she was amazed by her own nerve.

Slate stared at her, his growl dying. She was less than half his height. Bones that snapped like toothpicks. Skin that parted like paper. And she was glaring at him like she would fight him right here with only her weak mortal magic and the knife he conjured for her.

Slate wanted to kiss her so badly it ached.

“Fine,” He snapped. “But I don’t want any dawdling.”

With that, he swept her into his arms and started after the trail.