She smiled faintly. “It’s partly why I was so eager to regain my former rank. I wanted to feel like I was making an impact. The Principalities oversee all the Third Sphere angels, and I suppose it gave me an inflated sense of importance.”
He frowned at the use of past tense when she spoke about her goals. When she’d first come to him, she’d acted like time was of the essence and nothing could be of greater priority.
If he was a better person, he’d probably have said something encouraging her not to give up on her hopes of making a difference. But he wasn’t better, and he didn’t know anything about helping people. He didn’t particularly care about it either.
She smiled, though it seemed forced. “Shall we go meet your friend Luna?”
He nodded, but as he led her down the next row of kennels, he still felt uneasy. Something was niggling at his consciousness, and he couldn’t get over the feeling that he was missing something big.
Luna’s kennel was at the very end of the last row so there were fewer dogs around since she was so scared of everything. When they reached it, she was cowering at the back, tail between her legs, eyes round and fearful.
When she saw Raum, her head lifted slightly, and her nose twitched as she sniffed the air. Her tail gave the barest flick of greeting, but it stayed down, and she didn’t approach.
“Poor thing,” Sunshine cooed, dropping into a crouch outside the cage. “She’s been hurt, and she doesn’t know who to trust anymore.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Raum said, glancing at her. He opened the cage with Caro’s keys. “I’ll go in first. She knows me.”
Sunshine stood and moved back. Luna looked freaked out when the door was open, but she didn’t cower when Raum went in.
“What do you do to calm them?” Sunshine asked. “She doesn’t want to trust anyone.”
“I usually just sit down.” He slid down the wall and leaned against it with his legs out in front of him. “Then I just wait for a bit.”
Sure enough, after several moments, Luna approached and sniffed his outstretched hands. He rewarded her by holding out a treat, and after several excruciating minutes of sniff and retreat, she finally took it.
Food was always the key to an animal’s heart. As soon as the dog trusted that he was a safe provider, her entire demeanor changed. She slunk along the floor, tail wagging low, and tentatively put her head in his lap, blinking at him with big sad eyes. He scratched behind her ears, and her eyes closed like she’d never felt anything better.
“Perfect,” Sunshine said, and when Raum glanced at her, she was smiling at him.
“I can do what you did,” he blurted. “Make the dogs stop barking.”
She frowned.
“Animals hate demons. But they don’t hate me. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You spied on me. You said you knew everything about me. Didn’t you notice? Didn’t you wonder why animals respond to me?”
“I— I guess I just accepted that you were an anomaly. I didn’t think much of it.”
“I haven’t always been like this. I don’t know why I am now or what changed.”
“I don’t know either. I’m sorry.”
He looked back at Luna, who was gingerly climbing onto his lap. She curled up and lay with her head on his knees. He didn’t know why this suddenly mattered so much. He’d gone over four centuries without knowing what had happened to him, so why was he so worked up about it now?
He glanced at Sunshine. And why did he think she knew something about it?
“Did you ever see me before you found us with Dan?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I had no idea who you were. I knew as soon as I saw you that you weren’t human, but I didn’t recognize you.” Her gaze wandered away. “I did feel a certain…” She shook her head. “But no, I didn’t recognize you.”
“Felt a certain what?”
She stared at him a moment before responding. “I was attracted to you.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that.
