Demon Angel

"And if I'm caught with it on my way home?"
    Her lips quirked. "Run very fast," she said, but didn't argue when he left it on the table.
    Next the books, and she set those on the already leaning tower beside the kitchen counter.
    He squatted next to them, looked at the spines. The broad line of his naked back drew her gaze. After a moment's hesitation, she called in his robe and sword. Held them, waiting.
    "These are from various public libraries," he said. Looking around the room, he realized, "All of them." He opened one of the covers, glanced back at her with a lift of his brows. "They must be overdue by now."
    "I didn't check them out."
    "Planning the downfall of mankind by stealing books from the library?" There was no censure in his tone, only curiosity. Then he froze, his gaze fixed on the items in her hands.
    "There are no books Below. And if I take any with me in my cache, Lucifer will confiscate them. I can get away with it here because I can make the theft seem a petty pleasure. But if he realized that it was the books I enjoyed, and not the theft…" She shrugged. "He'd take my ability to read, and it is one of the few true pleasures left to me."
    Hugh rose to his feet, his expression stark.
    "I've seen him do something similar to a musician—took away the music he'd been creating in his head as an escape from the torment." She looked down at the robe, at the pile of weapons. "Everything that I need, everything that means anything to me, I leave here. I wash to rid myself of the scent that clings to me after living on Earth for a while. And then I strip away all that is human, because he hates it." She vanished her clothing, felt the instantaneous shift as she transformed.
    He'd never seen the cloven feet or the scales that gleamed over her skin, but he did not flinch or look away. He stepped forward, lifted the bundle from her grasp, and dropped it to the floor beside them. The wool muffled the clank of metal against the carpet. "Lilith—"
    "Do not be angry on my behalf," she growled. "Do not pity me. And do not be kind to me."
    "Why? Should I think you less human because of what I see now?" His gaze traveled down her length, and she fought the urge to transform back, to hide.
    "Because he hates self-pity above all other things, considers it an insult to his rule. And because I must go Below, and he will decide whether to make me fulfill the terms of our bargain, and destroy you, or to Punish me for stepping into—perhaps undermining—whatever bargain he has made with the nosferatu. I must present a face that is entirely inhumane, entirely without self-pity and completely in line with his goals, or he will destroy me. I must convince him he will be better served by our bargain than by my Punishment." She looked down at her hands—claws. Twisted, with obsidian talons. "There are no other halflings like me because, at some point, they have all wished for something human, a return to what they were, and he has destroyed them all."
    No, not destroyed—what he'd done to them had been worse than destruction. It was that fate Hugh had saved her from when he'd killed her. He couldn't save her from it now.
    She lifted her head. His shoulders were hunched, as if in anticipation of a wound. "And when you are kind to me, when you touch me, I desire what I cannot have."
    And she watched the indifference enter his eyes, his withdrawal, knowing he would make no other choice. There were few things she could depend on, but the actions of this knight she would never doubt. He would subjugate his desires for the life of another. He would slay dragons when they threatened— and when a lady asked him to let her be, he would leave.
    And if his leaving was like another death, it was only because she must be a dragon.
    He did not feel his legs as he went down the stairs; even the weight of his duffel, increased by the files—and the sword and robe she'd stuffed in at the last moment—was nothing. There was naught to do but leave, though he would have stayed, would have…
    What? Earlier, he'd thought to use her susceptibility to him to prove her humanity, but if Lucifer would destroy her for it, he could not. Would not.
    Cold rain pelted his bare skin—he paused on the sidewalk, abruptly aware of his half-naked state. She hadn't returned his shirt. A short, hard laugh escaped him as he dropped the bag. On one knee, uncaring that the wet concrete soaked his pant leg, he pulled out the robe, felt the familiar wool