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Star
When Ryk and Dakota returned from their 'walk,' they'd doubled in number. It was only after I saw the cat and dog with them that I remembered Nico mentioning Dakota had pets. I'd forgotten all about it since I hadn't been the least curious about them.
It wasn't that I disliked pets; I was just indifferent. In the demon realm, we'd had Hella, a dog's soul that I was pretty sure was gifted to us by the King of Afterworld—the realm where the light souls that didn’t choose to stay in Otherworld went to. But Hella had all the demons as her owner, and she mostly stuck around people who paid her attention, which meant she was rarely around me.
Thus, I had even less experience with pets than I did with humans.
"Oh! You got them back!" Nico exclaimed, and of course, he'd remembered. The man forgot nothing.
"Yeah. Mom texted, and I figured they'd stayed away long enough," Dakota said with a smile. "This is Candy," he gestured toward the dog, then pointed at the cat inside the crate. "And this is Moon."
Ryk snickered as I raised a brow, meeting the cat's bright green eyes. I was sure Ryk already had a bunch of jokes running around in his head. He probably spent the whole walk thinking them up.
"You can let him out now, Ryk," Dakota said before he could open his big mouth, and Ryk did just that while he unclipped Candy's leash and removed the harness.
Nico stepped closer to Candy, holding his hand out. The dog stepped forward cautiously, but the moment she caught the scent of Nico's hand, she reared back, baring his teeth at him with a growl. Nico jumped back, which was funny because it wasn't like the dog could actually hurt him.
I watched them from my spot on the couch, and wondered if Candy could somehow sense we weren't human. Ryk didn't look surprised by Candy's reaction, so maybe she'd done the same with him?
"Shit. I don't know what's going on with her today. She's usually very friendly," Dakota said, gazing down at his dog with a frown.
"It's okay. She probably doesn't like that there are new people in her house," Nico said, and he nodded. "She'll get used to it soon enough."
A sound slipped out of my mouth at the sudden weight on my chest, and I turned my eyes on the culprit. While they tried to puzzle out what had happened with Candy, Moon the cat had made his way to me and was now happily curled up on my chest.
"Aww, looks like Moon found his new bestie," Ryk said with a grin, and I shot him a glare before returning my eyes to the cat.
He watched me steadily, then started purring. He had a loud purr too, loud enough that the others heard it.
"I don't know what's going on with my pets. The friendly one is being a jerk, and the jerk is acting like you're his long-lost buddies," Dakota said with a shake of his head. Poor guy.
Ryk chuckled, then patted his shoulder, smiling up at him with shining bright blues. Uh-oh. And here I'd thought Nico was the only one with a crush.
While Ryk had said he found Dakota hot, I'd assumed he just wanted to bang him. That clearly hadn't been right. But how was this going to work? No matter what happened, someone was going to end up hurt. I needed to figure out a way that wouldn't damage our friendship because no way was I letting a human destroy centuries of friendship.
After setting up the pets—Nico assured him on behalf of all of us that we didn't mind them roaming free around the house—Dakota turned in for the night, while Ryk and Nico joined me in the living room, Nico with the book he was reading, and Ryk with his sketchbook.
"What are you drawing?" I asked after a few minutes of silence, and Ryk turned his notebook to show me. The rough sketch showed two people, a tall woman with her arms around a shorter man.
"Dakota's parents," he explained when he realized I didn't know who they were, and I hummed.
"Was that where the pets were? At his parents' place?" I asked, and Nico answered instead.
"Didn't I tell you about it? I was sure I did," he said, and I shook my head.
"Nah, you didn't. You told me he had pets, but not where they were."
"Ah. Sorry about that."
"No worries," I said, gazing down at the cat still asleep on my chest.
"He really likes you, huh? It makes sense. Why wouldn't Star and Moon get along?" Ryk teased, and I rolled my eyes at him.
"Tomorrow, you get ten minutes to tell me all the Star and Moon jokes running through your head, and then you can never say them again. Got it?" I said, and Ryk's eyes went wide.
"Just ten minutes? How about twenty?"
"Nope. Ten. Take it or leave it."
