Strays: A Romantic Fantasy Adventure

“Zero!”

The devil halted with the axe above his head. He brought it down to his side and turned around, watching the lovely girl as she waved before bounding towards him, leaving the fox demon behind.

Ren’s axe came down, splitting a log in half. He looked at the boy, the small smile from earlier having had returned, and grinned at the rare sight as he grabbed the handle of the axe from him. “You sure are precious when you look like that. Go on. Go see her before you shrivel up and die, you poor, little thing.”

The man didn’t have to tell him twice, and Zero walked towards the girl who didn’t even bother to slow down before crashing into him and squeezing her arms around his body tightly.

“I’m back!” Ivy smiled brightly as his arms encircled around her in return.

“I’m dirty,” he warned.

“I don’t care.” She rubbed her cheek against his unclad skin, perfectly content and indifferent with the unkempt state he was in.

Sakura stalked by, one hand holding the black book, the other drifting across Ivy’s head and up over Zero’s shoulder affectionately as she passed on her way to Ren. The angel set the two axes aside and opened his arms to the woman. He looked down, disappointed, as she smacked the book against his bare chest.

“Can we try that again?” he asked, looking back up at the woman hopefully.

“No. You’re disgusting. Don’t touch me.” She grimaced while quickly looking him over, noticing that the scar on his shoulder was losing the roughness to the petals and becoming smooth like the skin around it. Her hand came up and her long nail scratched at the fading flower. “Looks like this is starting to heal.”

“Yeah, it does that sometimes. I’ll deal with it later.” The angel didn’t seem too concerned about it as he looked back down at himself, noting that he was drenched in sweat, dirt, soot and bits of splintered wood. “You know, I never mind touching you when it’s the other way around. I could put my shirt on if that’ll make you happy.”

“It won’t.”

“But Ivy doesn’t care. Why do you?”

Sakura was already tired of the back and forth. “We need to talk about Zero.”

“About why you’re always nicer to him?”

The demon thumped the angel’s forehead with the book. “About why his mother was taken hostage when devils never take hostages.”

Ren looked at her questionably as he grabbed the book and began flipping through it. “Where does it say that?”

“No where. There is not a single record of a devil taking someone captive. They only ever kill people. They never take them. Especially not angels.”

The angel glanced up at the devil who was still being dotted on. “That’s obviously not true.”

“Obviously. So why did Zero’s father take and keep his mother? Why did he father a child with her?”

“She was of royal blood. Maybe it had something to do with that?”

Sakura grabbed the book, skipping through sections and pointing out the various records as Ren made small grunts of affirmation all while slipping behind the preoccupied woman. With delicate care, he placed his hands on her hips and chin atop her head while she rambled on. It took the demon a moment before realizing that something wasn’t quite right and she paused her reading, huffing in irritation. “How the fuck did this just happen?”

“Shhh, don’t resist. You know you like it,” he whispered in her ear. “Please continue.”

She sighed, knowing she couldn’t really argue against him this time and decided to just give the man what he wanted. “There are dozens of accounts of devils killing those with royal blood, men and women. It doesn’t matter. Devils don’t discriminate or favor any angel. They kill all of them.”

“Yeah, but that’s according to these records. Is there any mention of Zero’s parents?”

Sakura shook her head, Ren’s following along. “There was nothing about his mother. Ivy and I didn’t know his father’s name.”

Ren reached out, turning the page and reading, “It was Gostog. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that she wasn’t the first or last angel to be kidnapped by a devil. It’s just not on record on land. It may be on record in The Kingdom though.”

“Fuck,” the demon growled. “Those are records we’ll never get our hands on. But still, what makes one angel different from the others? Why kill hundreds of angels just to spare one?”

“Well, we could always ask the source.” Ren released the woman and snatched the book from her hand, walking off towards the pair. “Zero! It’s time to take a stroll down memory lane!”

The devil didn’t hear him though as he too busy peering down at the girl who held on to him closely, her eyes curious, her mouth going a mile a minute. He had long lost track of what she was saying but also didn’t want to interrupt, instead preferring to just watch the changes in her face and listen to the melody of her voice. The way her lips opened and closed, puckered and straitened, soft and rosy.

Her eyebrows furrowed, realizing that the boy was a little too quiet and his gaze distant. “Zero? Are you listening to me?”

He understood that. “No.”

“Why not?” Those rosy lips became a pout.

“I couldn’t follow what you were saying.”

“Oh, sorry.” Ivy gave him a bashful smile. “I guess I was talking too fast.”

“That’s alright. You can tell me again.” Zero felt the hard cover of the book smack against the top of his head, and he glanced over to see Ren standing there. “You ruin everything,” the devil told him blankly.

The angel gaped at him, shocked that the boy had the gall to disrespect him in such an arrogant manner. “Who taught you that? Was it Sakura? She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Ignore her. Listen to me.” He held the book in the boy’s face. “We need to talk about some of the things in here. Or more specifically, not in here.”

Zero stared at the book that nearly touched his nose. “What?”

“It’s saying that devils don’t take hostages. Any idea why your mother was kept around?”

All was quiet for a moment as the devil thought on it, his memories of his mother few and far in between. He shook his head, having come up with nothing.

“No heart to hearts with your father about why he found her so special?”

Another shake of the boy’s head. He definitely would have remembered that.

“Wanna throw out some random guesses?”

“I don’t know.”

Ren shrugged, giving up. “Looks like the mystery continues. Go down to the stream and wash yourself up. Could you go with him, Little One? Make sure he doesn’t drown.”

“I won’t drown,” the devil told him, his voice tinged with a hint of irritation. He didn’t know why the man always had to bring up drowning at almost every body of water, but he did. It may have once been an issue, but he had long since learned how to swim. But even if he did drown, what difference would it really make?

The angel raised his brows, challenging. “Fine. Go alone. Little One can go with me back to the town center to return this book.”

Zero looked down at the girl who still hadn’t released him. “I might drown,” he told her simply, quickly changing his tune.

A giggle bubbled from Ivy’s lips, and she unwrapped her arms from his waist, taking his hand instead and pulling him along. “I’ll make sure you don’t.”

Sakura watched the two wander off, her frustration growing the further away they got. Ren had seemed like he wanted to get to the bottom of what had gone on with Zero’s parents, but when push came to shove, he barely did anything at all.

“That’s all you’re going to ask?” She demanded as she turned and followed the man to the side of the house where a large, wooden barrel full of water stood. “You didn’t even try to find out anything from him!”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Ren insisted before dunking his entire head into the barrel, resurfacing and shaking his soaking hair.

The fox ignored him and the water that sprayed everywhere. “If you’re going to half-ass question him, then I’ll go down to the stream with them and do it myself.”

He sighed as he leaned over to scrub his face. “You need to stop.”

“He needs to…”

Ren glowered up from the barrel at the woman as his temper flared. “I said stop.”

Sakura bit her tongue, knowing that antagonizing the man further wasn’t going to get her what she wanted. It wasn’t often that Ren lost his temper, but when he did it was a guarantee that the rest of the day would be spent pointlessly quarreling, neither willing to back down or give in. A possible yelling match wasn’t something she wanted to deal with when she had more important matters to attend to, like coaxing the information she wanted out of the devil.

The angel straightened himself, rubbing his face, and breathed deeply. “When did I ever make you talk about the den?” he asked, his voice patient.

Regret instantly washed over the fox, and she averted her gaze, now understanding where he was coming from.

“When?” he asked again, wanting her answer.

She peeked back up at him. “Never.”

He nodded. “Because it wasn’t my place to pry it from you. Everything you told me was because you wanted to. Not because I made you. The same goes for Zero. I’ve never pushed for him to tell me more than he wanted to. Are you going to try to force him when he’s not ready?”

“No. I won’t.”

The angel grasped the back of the demon’s neck, pulling her into him, oh so very pleased as he felt her arms sneak around him in return. “I know you want to figure out what’s going on with Ivy, but do you really want it done at Zero’s expense?”

Sakura shook her head and sighed. “No, I don’t.”

“You have to remember that Zero’s not like other people. He was locked up for most of his life with barely any social interaction, and what little he got wasn’t exactly beneficial to a child’s healthy development. He knew how to talk when I found him, but he didn’t know many words, and he rarely spoke. He could go weeks without talking. It’s a miracle he’s the way he is and not just a shell of a person or completely insane or some sadistic psychopath after what he went through.”

The fox glanced down at the ground, ashamed of herself. She had wanted what she wanted and hadn’t considered how that affected anyone else. It was so easy to unintentionally overlook all the boy had been through when he was always so gentle and docile. It was hard to imagine that that had once been his life, but it had been, and she needed to be understanding of that. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I fucked up.”

“I wouldn’t say that. You kept your mouth shut and didn’t beat the shit out of him, so no harm done. But we can’t force him. It’ll only overwhelm him, and he’ll shut down. We need to wait for him to be ready to talk.”

She looked up at the angel. “But he never talks.”

Ren smiled, already having passed that hurdle. “He talks to Ivy.”