Page 107 of Demon Demands

“You’ve never seen him do that?” I asked.

She shook her head slowly. “No. He’s always been mopey, you know? Depressed, I guess. I would be too if I’d been locked in the stables with no one to play with,” she murmured, captivated by the pedmar and her hounds.

“You want to go run with them, don’t you?” I guessed.

She flashed me a brilliant smile. “Yeah. I do,” she admitted, biting the corner of her lower lip. “I’m worried that meeting my wolf might be too many introductions for one day, though.”

I wrapped my arms around her from behind, leaning my face next to hers. “I don’t think so, Sweetheart. He seems extremely intelligent. If he watched you shift, he’d understand.”

“You think so?”

“He followed your hand signal when the boys approached. You had your back to him, but he watched what they did and copied them.”

“Huh.” She bounced her head left and right, trying to make a decision. “He chirped in my mind too. I wonder if he thinks in colors and images like the boys do.”

Sloane stepped away from me, releasing one short whistle to call her hounds to her, and Pete came with them, morphing back into one body as he galloped. The four of them stopped in front of her, waiting patiently for a command.

“I want to show you something, Pete,” she said, closing her eyes. After a moment of silence, the pedmar used his trunk to ruffle her hair, and she chuckled at him before whispering, “Don’t panic, okay?”

Shifting as slowly as she could, her silver wolf ambled to her feet, shaking her fur out. The gentle pedmar studied her, twisting his head like a confused puppy. He reached his trunk out to sniff at her, then danced his feet in place with recognition as he rubbed across her ears.

An elephant with happy feet was the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen. I pushed the image to Novak, hoping the guys would join me outside as Sloane pranced around.

She hopped onto a nearby tree stump with a ferocious bark, and Lira mimicked her. Sloane and Lira’s packs met in the middle of the yard, following the two females into the wooded area behind the stables. And the excited pedmar trailed after them.

As I turned to head back to the patio, the stump Sloane had used caught my attention. The tree had been sick; a fungus that I’d never encountered was still damaging what was left of it. But what drew me to it wasn’t the illness. It was a carving.

The bark above the base had been peeled away, and a small heart had been cut into the tree. Two Ds sat atop the heart, a single S beneath it.

I knew about Sloane’s past with Dolyn, but the young infatuation they’d had for each other had shocked me when she’d explained everything. I could see that he still cared for her, though it was more like Grim’s affections toward her, not that of a past lover.

They’d been explosive as a couple, constantly butting heads and arguing. There wasn’t much of a difference in their friendship. They were matches and gasoline, compatible but destructive, working well together as long as there was space between them.

Her temper had to burn out or his had to dry up before they could be stored in the same room together. I’d learned that the first time I met the Drake siblings. Hyde had whispered, “Watch this disaster unfold,” when we’d met them for lunch one day.

Needless to say, the meeting had ended with insults, a knife, and a fireball being thrown. Sloane had fumed over his audacity to change her plans for weeks, never fully explaining anything. She just pointed at blueprints and cursed him to Hell and back.

The kitchen door swung open behind me, the guys piling out and gazing at the empty yard. Briggs went as far as blocking the sun from his eyes like that would help him see.

I shook my head at him. “You just missed them, but they’ll be back.”

“Damn,” Novak drawled. “I wanted to see the elephant.”

“It’s a pedmar,” Palmer sassed.

Stone's brows shot up as he turned to fully face the mage. “How do you know what a pedmar is?”

“Sloane woke me up ta go ridin’ in the middle of the night,” he grumbled.

“And that’s when you pulled your head out of your ass?” I snorted at Novak’s question, earning a glare from Palmer.

“Yes,” he confessed, pouting a bit at being called out.

I plucked at my lower lip, trying not to smile. “We all heard when Briggs dislodged his head.”

“No fucks given,” the shifter commented, shrugging. “I was being a dick, then I stopped. Everything is fine now. Thanks for your concern.”

“Several fucks were given,” Stone corrected.