Demon Angel

most of it looking through your housemate's things. You aren't lovers?"
    "I prefer not to seduce children." Not that, at twenty-five, Savi could be considered a child. She would have been furious had she known he often thought of her that way.
    "I remember one young woman you wanted very badly. Granted, it wasn't so unusual then, but she was still a child."
    He lifted a brow.
    "Isabel?" she prompted.
    "I was two years older than she was, not eight hundred." A slow grin spread over his lips. "And I haven't thought of her as anything other than 'the countess' or 'the lady' since my transformation. I didn't remember her Christian name," he said. "Interesting that you did."
    For an infinitesimal moment, she seemed nonplussed. Then she returned with a lazy smile of her own: "Your sense of humor has obviously been restored now that you're human, for you surely jest; I don't believe for a second that you've forgotten my brilliant mimicry in the castle stairwell."
    No. But he was not likely to tell her the only reason Isabel's face—if not her name—had remained so clearly in his memory was not because of his youthful infatuation with the lady, but because Lilith had once inhabited her form. Even his shame upon mistaking the countess for Lilith upon that wall walk had faded; but every moment with the demon, and every emotion she had aroused, remained all too clear.
    "And whose form did you mimic this afternoon?" he asked. "Do you no longer fear Lucifer, or does he no longer forbid beauty?"
    She shrugged lightly, but he saw the flicker of shame in her expression before she covered it with irony. "It is a punishment."
    Uncertain how to interpret her statement and sensing she would not volunteer to clarify it, he murmured, "Aye. Mine." He cupped her chin in his palm, felt the heat of her throat, the beat of her pulse. Beneath the obsidian horns and crimson skin, he could see the same features she'd worn in her human form. The bone structure was the same, the line of her nose, the shape of her eyes. "I can only hope it is a short-lived tyranny."
    She pulled in a sharp breath as he released her. Intent on putting space between them, he began to brush past her, but she stopped him with a hand on his forearm.
    "I'm going to kiss you before I leave tonight," she said. Focusing on his lips, she moistened her own. "I'm feeling generous, so I thought I would warn you."
    The wicked slant of her brows told him it was not generosity at all, but an attempt to unsettle him.
    It worked. His muscles tightened in anticipation, and he was swamped by memories of other kisses, stolen and bargained. Of the hot press of her mouth. Of the sounds she made when playfulness became passion—and ultimately, frustration.
    He'd held himself distant when he'd been a Guardian, but his indifference had been dishonest. And though a part of him wished to thwart her by initiating the kiss now, he did not trust himself to keep it a purely defensive maneuver.
    Shaking off her hand, he strode to the nightstand, swept up Colin's number and headed for the living room. And tried not to acknowledge the part of him that wanted to kiss her—not to undermine her ploy, but for the pleasure of it.
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CHAPTER 15
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    The world was a better place when Hugh bent over in those jeans. She stifled her disappointed sigh when he straightened and walked toward the door. "Running scared?"
    He cast a rueful glance over his shoulder as he left the room. "Yes."
    She grinned, following him. It wasn't fear in the rigid line of his shoulders, the slight stiffness in his tread.
    He was aroused—and resisting it.
    The narrowness of the hallway forced her to fold her wings tightly to her back or risk scraping the paint from the walls. She hadn't spent much time in this part of his home, preferring to investigate the girl's—Savitri's—apartment instead. It had been an explosion of metal and plastic; computers and electronics, many of them half-assembled, had littered every available surface. A geek's paradise.
    Lilith hadn't cared for it, but the DemonSlayer paraphernalia she'd found in one room had fascinated her. Sketches, games, cards—she'd vaguely known about the video game, but had never paid attention to the details of its storyline. Wouldn't have this time, either, but the connection between Hugh and the girl led her to take a closer look. To her surprise—though much of it inaccurately represented demonkind—it contained just enough truth in the