Dre lifted a brow and gestured back to the badly drawn chalk circle. “Make a guess.” He grinned in an attempt to soothe the young man further.
“What do you mean?” The human tried to get into a sitting position and Dre hurried to help him. His hands were tied in front of him with a length of clothesline.
“Shall I help you with this?” Dre pointed at the man’s bound hands.
For a moment he seemed to be confused, but then he held his arms up. Dre let one of his claws slide out to cut through the clothesline. The pieces fell into the young man’s lap and he started massaging his wrists while he looked around.
“Thank you. Now what am I supposed to guess?”
Dre rolled his eyes. Perhaps the teenagers who had summoned him had hit the guy over the head, because he didn’t seem to be the brightest light in the chandelier.
“You wanted to know what I am. Look around you. Chalk circle—”
“That’s not a circle. That’s an egg.” The young man squinted at the floor, where the chalk markings were. “And it’s pink!”
Dre took a closer look and, really, the chalk was pink. How he hadn’t realized that before was beyond him. Though he had been pissed, and he tended to get tunnel vision when that happened.
“Okay, you’re right. It’s a pink chalk egg with scary symbols.”
“Not that scary. Some of them are wrong. I mean, look at that one over there. It should have two loops instead of three. And the four lines at the center? If whoever drew this tried to summon a demon, they should have spent a bit more time studying their basic mathematics, because you need parallel lines, not crooked ones. And…” The young man trailed off. Very slowly he turned his head to Dre, his gaze traveling from his navel up to his face. “Holy shit. You’re a demon!”
Dre bowed with a flourish. He could hear the fear creeping back into the young man’s voice and he wanted it gone again. He had liked the scholarly tone that the guy had used when he’d examined the circle way better.
“At your service. And as I said, don’t be afraid. I swear, no harm will come to you.”
Different emotions flickered across the face of the young man. There was the fear again, but also caution, which Dre thought was good. A human could never be careful enough when dealing with paranormals. Mixed in with those emotions was a healthy dose of curiosity fighting to be heard. After a few moments, curiosity apparently won out. The young man held out his hand.
“My name is Sammy—and I’m human.”
“Nice to meet you, Sammy. I’m Dre, which is short for Dresalantion. And I’m a demon.”
Dre took Sammy’s hand in his own and marveled at the softness of the skin and how completely his huge paw swallowed Sammy’s much-smaller hand. Sammy seemed to notice it, too, and for a moment, they both just stared at their connection. Dre was the one to break the silence first.
“How did you get here?”
Sammy scrunched his pert nose. “To be honest, I don’t know. One moment, I was taking out the trash after our book club meeting, and the next, something stinking was pressed against my nose. I woke from the sound of your footsteps on the floor.”
Dre sighed. “So, you probably don’t know who took you?”
Sammy shook his head. “No. I did hear them shrieking just now, but I was still too dazed to realize what was going on.”
“Pity. They should pay for what they did.”
Dre was still convinced Sammy’s abductors were underage, and he would have loved nothing more than to teach them a lesson.
“They’re dabbling with occultism. If you haven’t frightened them off, they will soon get another lesson.”
Sammy sounded a bit sad.
“Don’t tell me you feel sorry for them?”
“Not really. I mean, they kidnapped me, and I’m not naïve enough to think it was for friendly reasons, but they clearly have no clue what they’re doing, which means they won’t survive for long. And we won’t either if we don’t get out of here. I don’t like the sounds this building is making.”
Dre didn’t know what to make of Sammy. He didn’t seem too frightened anymore, and the way he talked about his kidnappers showed that he knew quite a lot about the paranormal world. He sounded pragmatic, and yet Dre could sense an innocence in Sammy that he usually associated with children. And as if this contradiction weren’t odd enough already, there was also Sammy’s slender build that spoke to something inside Dre, as well as a deep sadness in his eyes that hinted at yet another secret of the young man’s.
Sammy slowly got up and had to grab Dre’s arm when he suddenly started swaying. Dre steadied him by slinging his arm around Sammy’s waist. This brought their bodies even closer and, despite the filth all around them and the traces of fear and adrenaline still lurking in Sammy’s system, Dre got a whiff of his natural scent and felt a shiver down his back. Unlike shifters, demons didn’t recognize their true mates through scent, and Dre had always wondered how some pheromones in the air could make a shifter go crazy. But when he inhaled the spicy aroma of pine needles and cinnamon wafting from Sammy, he could imagine what it had to be like. The young man’s scent waspleasant. Dre realized he had been staring at Sammy with his mouth open and tried to downplay his reaction.
“Easy there. Whatever they used to knock you out must be still in your system. Do you want to sit down on”—Dre gazed around—“that comfortable-looking pile of debris over there?”
