Page 1 of How Not to Charm Your Human Colleague (Falling for Demons #2)

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Kizros

K izros’s tail flicked in agitation. On one hand, these were humans . On the other, these were humans . He’d never seen them before, never gotten the chance to study one like this.

He’d also never understood how ugly they really were. Not just on the outside, like this woman, but on the inside.

“Slavers,” Ozirax said as Kizros pulled the needle free.

Red blood, not black, sloshed in the vial, and he had to remind himself that he’d have a proper obsession over the odd color when he wasn’t in the guard’s company.

“They lost a few men to the Dreadmoor before we found them, but the rest? Ripped them apart once we discovered what they were carrying. ”

Kiz grimaced, not just because he wasn’t one for violence, but because Ozirax had said that while standing so fucking close to him, he could feel the edge of the demon’s spiked sickle threatening his skin.

“Can you back up a step?” Kizros placed the vial on the bedside table, along with his other ingredients. “I’m trying to work.”

“No.” While Ozirax wasn’t usually one to elaborate, Kizros had a special charm around others. Call it his magic or his own inability to shut up, Ozirax succumbed to it like all the rest and gestured a clawed hand to the large woman, still unconscious. “This one is spicy.”

Kizros wheeled around in horror. “You tasted her?”

“Of course not. She’s human.” Ozirax scowled, then motioned toward the table. “Get on with it before she wakes. Again . Your rune only keeps them within the city, not from going for your throat.”

Kizros shook his head but subtly shifted away from the woman, mixing her blood into the ingredients he’d already rationed. “What else can you tell me?”

“There are six of them,” the purple demon continued, though begrudgingly.

Perhaps under other circumstances, Severath would be the one following Kizros around and briefing him on the situation.

But under normal circumstances, there wouldn’t be six human women they didn’t know what to do with stuck in their city.

“All varying degrees of injured. One cannot walk without crutches. Two somehow woke during the attack, though the big one used the last of her energy attempting to disarm me. The other tried to run; that’s the murderer, no surprise. ”

“Hmm,” Kizros mumbled, distracted by his work.

He’d been requested the moment Severath’s squadron had found the humans, but his only instructions were to make six rune-protected cuffs for the women and to bring supplies to test them for drugs, contaminants, and anything else they might have brought with them that could endanger the demon population.

A few stirs of his potion, clockwise then counterclockwise, followed by a stopper with the inscribed rune, had the dark red liquid glowing a soft pink.

“What does that mean?” Ozirax leaned over his shoulder, once again with no regard to personal space.

Maybe that’s why Kizros liked the demon.

While Kiz’s recklessness involved potions and trying to breed two violently opposed plant species, Ozirax’s came in ignoring personal boundaries and flinging himself closer to unknowns, like glowing potions and spicy human women.

“Sorcery. Disgusting humans playing with magic again,” Kizros answered, rotating the vial to see the reactions happening within.

“They would have been traveling to Cyrinth, though the sorcery should have kept them unconscious the whole time. These swirls mean it stopped their need for food, water, and other business. Possibly quelled any violent tendencies.” He glanced at the human Ozirax thought dangerous.

“Then again, if they got the dosage wrong…”

He’d seen the state of a few of the humans before the healers had mended the worst of their injuries. The clothes Balran had taken off them needed to be burned in the Blazes. He doubted even the women would want the reminder, especially with how little those pieces of fabric had covered.

“There might be some side effects that even the healers wouldn’t be able to mend,” he continued, glancing over to the other woman in the room. This one was smaller—just as ugly with her light red hair—and snoring. Disgusting things, so colorless and boring. “Are we really keeping them here?”

Ozirax took his black gaze off the spicy human. “What other option is there? They’ve seen our runes, our city?—”

“That wasn’t their fault.”

“Does it matter?” Ozirax asked, then folded his arms over his chest. “They’re here to stay, and we’re stuck with them. Argeth is collaborating with the human who woke up early to create a work program.”

Kizros gasped in disgust. “So they’re slaves.”

“They’ll get stipends, a living space, enough to get started.

Paid as we are, just… with supervision until they can acculturate into our society and we know they won’t have any long-term side effects from exposure to our city.

” He glared down at the unconscious woman.

“ If they can acclimate. It’s for their protection.

Your father voted for this, as did most of the Houses and council,” Ozirax said plainly.

Kizros ignored that bit of information, if only for his own mental health.

He’d long ago chosen not to go into politics, even if right now he was curious.

Six women, six jobs. Well, five, considering the specific rune he’d made for the murderer.

Maybe four, if Ozirax was so concerned about the large woman.

Would one of them want to work with?—

No, that would be ridiculous. Sure, there was a gaping hole where his last assistant had left him, but a human?

Bland as they were, they were fascinating to him and might have some usefulness.

Like delicate fingers for measuring ingredients instead of claws.

He could teach her magic… not that disgusting excuse for magic the humans called sorcery, but runes.

He’d have to keep that from the council, of course, and maybe nothing important like unlocking runes so they could escape, but little things.

Growing a flower. Balancing soil nutrients.

All the things his former assistant had no patience for.

Kizros shook his head and began gathering his things.

He couldn’t put the idea in his head and get excited over nothing.

The city was small, but not so small that he might have the opportunity to study a human.

He knew enough about their kind to understand they probably wouldn’t want to be around him anyway, just like Tholvich.

But he had a job to do, and a councilor and third human to speak to before he helped the rest. If that was all he could offer these women, then he’d make sure whatever horrors they’d just escaped didn’t continue to haunt them.

Besides, he wasn’t cut out to care for a colorless human.