As Erevan's wounds healed up, two things happened. First, Molly stopped shutting the door at night and gave him access to the rest of her dwelling. Stella seemed pretty happy about that because she was back on nightmare duty.
She curled up in her mistress's arms, nuzzled her face, and vibrated at a frequency that seemed to calm Molly down with pride. He had to admit she was much better at this than he was. Probably because she had more practice. He could do the same thing given enough time but didn't want to step on the cat's toes since she took it so seriously.
Second, and much more importantly, he had access to his magic again. He remained in his cat form because it was what his mistress expected but he was able to access her memories by laying a paw on her head.
He learned much more about this world, including the fact that cats could not speak to humans. It was a good thing he hadn't ever spoken to Molly since she had never given him leave to. That probably would have frightened her since she thought he was a cat.
Erevan now understood more of her duties as a human and the role that cats played in her life. On top of protecting her from nightmares, they were supposed to kill household pests, provide entertainment, and make sure she woke up in a timely manner when she repeatedly snoozed her alarm.
These duties were worlds apart from what he was used to. Molly didn't have anyone out to get her so his battle tactics would be fairly useless here. Her primary stressors seemed to be money and her job as a schoolteacher.
He could help her with those things easily with his magic but then she would question how he was able to do it. Magic didn't exist here except in stories. Neither did demons.
Erevan was a demon not a cat and, though he could fulfil his duties as a cat, he begrudgingly admitted that Stella had those covered pretty well. There had to be more he could do for his mistress.
Of the three masters he had, Molly was the most considerate. She genuinely cared for her subordinates and praised them frequently both with words and physical affection. He had never experienced such a thing but it wasn't unpleasant once he got used to it.
He could understand why Stella seemed so jealous now. She didn't want to lose out on any of their mistress's affection.
It seemed she had plenty to spare for both of them though. They received relatively equal amounts when she was home. Unfortunately, she wasn't home most of the time due to work and other commitments.
When Molly was gone, Erevan had to deal with Stella by himself. She constantly berated him for acting weirdly and no matter how many times he explained it was because he wasn't actually a cat she never believed him until he transformed into his true self in front of her.
In reality, he was eight feet tall with pitch-black skin, long white hair, red eyes, and red and black horns/wings. He also had a leathery black tail, scaly red legs, claws, and fangs.
The cat's fur stood completely on end and she shrieked in fear. "What are you?!"
"I told you, I am the first great general of the demon king's army. Or I used to be. Now I am Mistress Molly's cat," Erevan told her. "I have the ability to transform myself into any creature I have seen before but this is my original form."
"You're a monster! I can't believe Molly let you into the house! You could easily eat both of us!"
"I would not do that! I owe her a life debt so I am in her service until one of us dies. It is my sworn duty to protect her with my own life."
Stella regarded him suspiciously but at least she wasn't hissing at him anymore. "If you really have magic, why are you still pretending to be a cat? You could be a lot more helpful to her as a human."
"How so?" Erevan asked curiously.
"Think about how much she complains about cleaning the house. You could do that as a human."
Hmm. He hadn't thought of that before. He had observed her cleaning the house several times and she never seemed particularly thrilled to be doing so, though she did usually turn on music and sing along as she worked to help the time pass.
"I see. I shall do some of that now to assist Mistress Molly."
Erevan used his magic to make the floors sweep and mop themselves, the dishes automatically clean and put away, and the trash taken out. He finished just in time to hear a clicking noise coming from the front door indicating that Molly was home.
Stella, who had been watching him with awe this whole time, immediately snapped at him to turn back into a cat so she didn't have a heart attack seeing him. The cat had a point. Their mistress had never seen a demon before and likely wouldn't take kindly to seeing one in her house.
When the door opened, she didn't greet them the way she usually did because she was talking to another human. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable while I get started on dinner? I'm sorry I haven't been able to have you over lately. I didn't want to stress out Casper while he was recovering."
The man wasn't much taller than Molly and peered at Erevan with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. "So this is the little bugger, huh? Where did you find him?"
"He was bleeding heavily near the sidewalk in front of my school. I took him straight to the vet and when I found out he didn't have an owner, I took him in since I had a spot open in my apartment's two pet limit after losing Lily."
"Of course you did. Softhearted as always."
He sat on the couch while Molly began pulling things out of the fridge and scrolled through his phone as she cooked for them both. He occasionally responded when she spoke to him but didn't seem all that much like he was listening.
"Ugh, I really hate that guy," Stella said grumpily. "All he ever does is come over here and make Molly do things for him."
Erevan frowned. "I thought you said I would be more helpful to her as a human."
"You would because you actually care about helping. This guy is completely useless. I would drive him away but that would upset Molly because she likes him for some reason or other."
"Why would she like someone useless?"
"Beats me," Stella replied with a sigh. "I truly don't understand the appeal."
As he continued watching the human interact with Molly, he didn't either. She seemed rather smiley with him despite his lack of helpfulness and cheerfully served up their dinner. Afterwards, they moved over to the couch and began watching TV together.
As they did so, Erevan noticed them cuddling and kissing but in a rather different way than she normally did with him and Stella. It appeared that she did like him to bestow her affection in such a way.
"Whenever he comes over, I don't get to sit in her lap when she watches TV either. She's only interested in him," Stella said grumpily.
"Who is he? Is he someone of great significance to Mistress Molly?"
"He's her boyfriend, you idiot. Of course he's someone of great significance. She's planning on marrying him and then we'll both be stuck with him full time. I'm not looking forward to it."
Erevan didn't like the sound of that. He vaguely recognized this man from Molly's memories but hadn't paid too much attention to him because there was so much other information to take in. He did know what marriage was though because they had a similar institution in the demon realm to make alliances and produce stronger demon offspring.
Somehow he didn't think it was the same. If it was, she didn't need to marry someone strong because she already had him in her service. Not that she knew his true strength since she thought he was a cat.
"Mistress Molly does not need a husband. She already has us," he said firmly.
Stella sighed. "Tell that to her. I think it's different though since he's a human and we're cats. He can actually talk back to her, even if he doesn't have anything worth saying. He can go outside with her too. Apparently, humans need other humans."
"I could be human for her."
"Yeah, but then she wouldn't know it was you, stupid! If you told her you could transform at will, she would be totally freaked out and banish you from the house forever. Not that I would mind."
The cat had a point. Erevan didn't want to frighten Mistress Molly. She was already frightened enough by the nightmares that plagued her every night. It was unfortunate but if he was to help her as a human, he would have to gain her trust using a different identity.
That seemed like an awful lot of work since she had other humans in her life. It might be within his best interest to keep functioning as her cat…and continuing to do whatever he could on the side without her knowledge.