While Fiends were testing the nerves of humans, Zayne was testing mine by asking if I was okay about five hundred million times. Like I was a fragile glass flower seconds away from shattering, and I hated feeling that way, because I was fine. Totally okay with everything. I wasn’t pestering him with questions about Stacey and their previous more-than-just-friends status. Even if he’d picked up on something through the bond while Stacey had been at his place, it had been a momentary lapse of control. I was acting normal, so I wasn’t sure why he was so worried.

By the time we’d spotted the Raver demons, I was happy for the distraction. Until I’d smelled this alley.

Stringing together a slew of curse words, I focused on the task at hand. With my narrow, blurry vision and the dim flickering glow of the lone alley light, I couldn’t afford any distractions when it came to the puppy-eating jerk that looked kind of like a rat.

If rats were six feet tall, walked on two legs and had a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.

The long-tailed bastard and its pack of ugly low level demons had just tried to snatch up a dog that reminded me of the blue alien from Lilo and Stitch.

What kind of dog was that? A French bulldog? Maybe? I had no idea, but the Raver had made a grab for the so-ugly-it-was-cute puppy and its fedora-wearing owner, who’d wandered too close to the alley the horde of Ravers had been scavenging in.

Luckily Fedora Guy hadn’t seen the Raver. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to explain what it was to a human. A mutated sewer rat? Not likely.

The demon had scared the poor puppy, causing it to yelp and topple onto its side with its little legs rigid. And that flipped me straight into Bitch Got to Die mode.

Trying to eat humans was bad enough, even if it was the result of cosmic karma for the human wearing a fedora in the humidity of July, but trying to munch on cute Frenchie pups?

Completely unacceptable.

I’d nailed the sucker with a dagger, scaring it off and scattering the pack, and now it was booking it on two muscular hind legs while Zayne went after the rest. It stopped and crouched. Before it could jump, I launched off the cement and went airborne.

For about two seconds.

I landed on the Raver’s hairless back, my arms circling its thick neck as it let out a squeak that sounded an awful lot like a dog’s chew toy.

The demon pitched forward and hit the alley hard, the impact jarring me to the bone. It reared, but I held on as it tried to buck me off.