Page 29 of Kazimir

Devon stopped three feet from his snout. She crouched low, hands open, palms up. “Easy, big guy,” she said, voice trembling but clear. “You don’t want to hurt her.”

Axiom cocked his massive head, a sound somewhere between a rumble and a whine escaping his throat.

No one in the room moved.

Devon smiled, small and lopsided, then reached out her hand. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you? You only do what you’re told.”

For a second, nothing happened. Then Axiom took a cautious step forward, nose twitching, and—impossibly—pressed the top of his skull against her palm. She ran her fingers along the ridges of his head, scratched behind his ear, and the beast made a noise of pure animal contentment. His eyes half-lidded. His tail, a clubbed thing of scar tissue and bone, thudded once against the floor.

Somewhere in the crowd, a witch gasped. At the bar, the glassware rattled from the impact.

Devon laughed—a sharp, incredulous sound that cut through the tension like a scalpel. “He’s not so scary when you get to know him,” she said, still petting the hellhound. “Just misunderstood.”

I stared, unable to speak. No one would ever dare approach a hellhound unless they had a death wish.

Rosa Alvarez, still crumpled against the wall, looked from me to Devon and back, her face a rictus of humiliation and terror. “What are you?” she managed to choke out, voice raw.

Devon didn’t answer. She kept her gaze on Axiom, running her hand down his back. The hellhound leaned into it, tongue lolling out of his mouth in an expression that could almost be called goofy.

I let the silence build, watching the shockwaves ripple through the room. The balance of power had shifted, and everyone felt it.

Finally, I stood.

Axiom looked up, eyes meeting mine. I nodded once, and he vanished, dissipating into a smear of shadow and sulfur that lingered for a heartbeat before fading entirely.

Devon straightened, brushing her hands against her thighs as if the interaction had been no more significant than petting a neighborhood mutt. The crowd parted for her as she walked back and took her jacket back from Amelia. She didn’t look at me, but I felt her presence like a magnet pulling every molecule in my body toward her.

I turned to Rosa, who was struggling to regain her composure.

“Leave,” I said, voice soft. “If you ever touch me again without invitation, there will be nothing left of you but what the hellhound spits out.”

Rosa nodded, scrambling to her feet. She didn’t bother with dignity; she just fled, nearly tripping over the bodies in her way.

The lounge remained silent, everyone processing what they’d witnessed. Bohdan caught my eye from his post, gave a barely perceptible shrug that said, Well, that was unexpected.

Devon stepped back, arms crossed over her chest. She looked shaken, but there was a calmness to her now—a confidence, maybe, or relief.

It took less than thirty seconds for the crowd to vanish. Even the most bloodthirsty regulars knew when to yield to the will of the Sovereign, especially after a hellhound manifestation. Bohdan executed the evacuation with his usual ruthless grace: a raised eyebrow, a sweeping hand, and suddenly every chair scraped backward as the supernatural elite remembered pressing appointments elsewhere.

Amelia was the last to go, pausing behind the bar to collect herself, her gaze switching between Devon and me. She flashed a half-smirk, half-warning at Devon, then slipped through the service door with a swirl of copper hair and residual adrenaline.

And just like that, the lounge belonged to us.

Devon was still standing at the spot where Axiom had melted away, arms folded tight over her chest. Her eyes were on the floor, but her jaw was set, ready for anything.

I took a measured breath, trying to still the aftershocks of anger and adrenaline. “You should not have approached the hellhound.”

Devon’s lips quirked, almost a smile, but not quite. “You should not have summoned him.”

Touché. I paced a slow circle around the edge of the dais, hands clasped behind my back, a habit from centuries of dealing with subordinates who required demonstration of both power and control. “Axiom responds only to orders. He is a weapon, not a pet.”

“He didn’t seem interested in hurting me,” she said, voice soft. “Maybe you don’t know your own weapons as well as you think.”

I laughed—a short, cold burst that surprised us both. “No one in my recollection has ever walked up to a hellhound and lived. You’re either very brave or very stupid.”

She met my gaze then, and I felt the old wall inside me splinter. “Well, I’m not stupid,” she said.

I stopped pacing. Let the silence stretch between us, weighted with everything we didn’t say. “You misunderstood what you saw,” I said, my voice lowering to its true register. “The woman—Rosa—she is not a rival. She is not even a friend. She touched me without permission. That is unacceptable.”