Page 16 of Bound

He turned to leave once more.

“Slate,” Ruby repeated, sounding much stiffer.

He turned back to find her looking embarrassed.

“Do you think you could find my clothes?” she asked quietly.

Slate considered her naked appearance and wanted to argue. She looked good like this, all smooth and soft, not hidden by all that thick fabric. But she also looked deeply uncomfortable. If she was going to be stuck in his void for a while, she would have to wear something.

Just not those clothes.

“I will find you something better,” he promised.

Five

Slate was still gone when Ruby climbed out of the bathtub.

Ruby wound a thick, fluffy towel around her body and waited. But she was getting cold again, and the demon was nowhere to be seen.

She bit her lip, considering. Nothing in this realm had hurt her yet. And Slate hadn’t told her to stay put. What harm could come from trying to find him?

She stepped into the cool hallway and stifled a shriek.

The dog spirit was waiting for her, tail wagging furiously.

“You scared the skin off of me,” Ruby gasped. She adjusted her towel and bent down to pet the dog, her hand almost pressing through its translucent fur. “Are you allowed in here, boy? I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

The dog spirit licked her hand, unbothered.

Ruby kept stroking, lost in thought. “Is he kind to you? He seems…”

She trailed off uncertainly. It wasn’t like shetrustedhim. But for all his monstrous traits—horns and fangs and tail and huge black eyes, his dripping tongue, and his hungry gaze like he was constantly holding himself back from eating her—he hadn’t doneanything monstrous. He had her completely at his mercy. He could doanythingto her. And he had decided to…

…run her a bath and find her some new clothes.

Ruby had meant for him to find the clothes she’d left in the anointment room, but he had said he would find something more suitable. Whateverthatmeant.

She looked down the hallway. It was long and narrow, the stone cold and plain under her feet. It had a surprising lack of decoration, not like the bedroom she had been shown earlier.

Ruby turned back to the dog spirit. “You don’t happen to know where that bedroom is, do you?”

The dog spirit barked. Its ghostly teeth closed around her sleeve, tugging her down the hall.

“Oh,” said Ruby. “Alright.”

The dog spirit led her through crumbling hallway after crumbling hallway. Ruby tried to keep track this time, but she was never good at puzzles.

“If you’re leading me to your food bowl,” she began jokingly, stepping around a persistent drip that had carved a hole into the floor over the centuries.

The dog spirit made a muffled noise around her sleeve and stopped in front of a huge, dusty, ornate door.

Ruby eyed it. “You’re sure?”

The dog spirit barked happily.

Ruby pushed the door. It took all her strength before it started to creak open, and Ruby sighed in relief at the bedroom he’d shown her earlier: the same giant, dusty bed, the same decrepit walls. The fireplace was still crackling as if no time had passed.

“For a spirit who’s so good at finding things,” she said as she crouched in front of the fire, fanning out her long dark hair todry. “You’d think you’d be able to find your way to where you’re meant to be.”

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