Blood Pact (Darkling Mage 7)

“I think you’re all being silly,” Sterling drawled. He was sprawled along his favorite couch in the Boneyard, the long red one that he liked so much, one foot dangling off the edge. “Equally silly. You, Dust, for worrying about it, and you, Gil, for getting so attached so quickly.”

“Listen,” Gil said, his voice ringing with warning. “It’s a corgi. It’s cute. Look at those stubby legs. That little butt.” He nuzzled his face into the top of the dog’s head. The dog yapped and blinked up at him, pleased. Gil grinned. “Werewolf or no, I’m only human at the end of the day.”

Gil had taken to loving the little mutt like a fish to water. Or, I dunno, like a dog to water. He’d fussed over the corgi, cooing over it the very moment he spotted it in Sterling’s arms. As expected, the dog refused to stay put with me, wriggling around and snapping. I confess, it was kind of disheartening. I’m normally pretty good with animals. Hell, I’m great with animals.

But again, this all boils down to my pathological need to be liked – even by strange, potentially magical killer dogs. And the fact that the new Boneyard dog didn’t like me was twisting me up inside.

“And you can’t exactly fault me for being suspicious about all this,” I told Sterling. “There were a lot of dead bodies. I mean, the smell alone.”

Sterling folded his arms behind his head and sighed wistfully. “All that blood.”

“Ugh.” I wrinkled my nose. “All that blood.”

“Well, he’s not a shifter, I can tell you that much,” Gil said, scratching the corgi under its chin. “Are you, boy?”

The corgi barked happily. I squinted at the two of them, but I trusted Gil enough to know the difference. Who else but a werewolf could spot another shifter?

“So we know two things so far,” I said. “That it’s a boy, and that it’s not someone in disguise.”

“That we know of,” Carver said. His false eye was glowing with amber light as he scrutinized the dog. “I don’t sense anything amiss about this creature, which makes me even more suspicious. I do not trust these small dogs that are truly only overgrown rats.”

The corgi barked in Carver’s direction, then growled. Carver flinched.

I chuckled. “You’ve got something against dogs, Carver?”

“No,” he said. “Not necessarily. But as a lich, I am essentially a walking skeleton wearing the skin of a man. I understand canines are fond of bones.” He shuddered. “Keep the thing away from me and we’ll all get along swimmingly.”

The amber fire in his eye faded, and he glided out of the break room, cup and saucer in hand. It wasn’t like Carver to bring his tea to any other spot in the Boneyard – he generally liked to drink it boiling hot, right off the kettle. He clearly wasn’t comfortable around the corgi.

Who, it turned out, had developed a kind of fondness for Gil in return. The dog licked enthusiastically at Gil’s hand, then his face, and our big, burly resident werewolf just laughed and literally took it on the chin.

“What is this?” I said, arms folded. “Something about the ancient bond between wolves and dogs, maybe?”

“Or,” Gil said, vigorously rubbing the dog’s head, “I’m just naturally good with animals.”

“Very likely,” I huffed. The dog turned to me, then growled.

I found myself flinching, too. I mean the little guy was cute, sure, but considering the circumstances we’d found him in, I wasn’t a hundred percent sold on befriending him. Carver’s reasons for distrusting the corgi were ridiculous in their own way, but I knew better. We had a murder-dog on our hands, I was sure of it. The question was getting more details about what the hell had happened at the Ramsey House. The thing couldn’t talk. Could it?

“Gil,” I said. “Possibly stupid question, but can you communicate with it?”

“Him,” Gil said. “Communicate with him.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Him, then.”

“And no, I can’t. I’m still a man, if you haven’t noticed. I’m a werewolf, sure, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got a whole doggie dictionary trapped up in my skull.” He tapped the side of his head, as if to prove his point.

You know, fair enough. And I wasn’t about to check if he could talk to the dog in werewolf form, either. Gil tended to go completely out of his mind when he went full dog, losing his ability to think rationally as the transformation into a lycanthrope overrode his brains with that of a ravenous, bloodthirsty wolf. Which meant that, even if we did figure out a way of restraining him, he’d probably spend all of his wolf-time trying to eat the corgi in the first place.

“Puppy!”

I was just wondering when Asher was going to realize that everyone besides him was gathered in the living area. He rushed straight towards the corgi, blissfully ignorant of the fact that it was discovered among the ruined corpses of so many cultists, then scooped it up in his arms. The corgi yapped happily, immediately rewarding Asher with two licks to the face.

Sterling chuckled from his sofa. “Seems like the dog likes everyone but you, Dust.”

“Banjo,” Asher said between giggles, turning his head this way and that to dodge the corgi’s slobbering. “His name is Banjo.”

I frowned. “Banjo? Says who? Does it have a collar?”