Demon Angel

form—she would be a difficult fit in many ladies' circles. He eyed her rich clothing; she must have some form of support, and he doubted it was the generosity of other women.
    She slanted him an amused glance, as if she could read his thoughts, and his cheeks heated. He was almost thankful when Sir William interrupted them.
    "I see you are returned, pup." His gaze ran between Lilith and Hugh, hot with anger.
    Hugh fought to keep his dislike from his expression. "I am."
    "And you returned on the same worthless nag you borrowed ere you left," Mandeville said.
    Hugh felt the insult. A horseless knight was one of little value, a burden to his lord. "He was too worthless to eat, and so I rode him," he said.
    "For two years? Tourneys are not outlawed in France, yet you've not earned arms nor mount."
    Lilith stood with her hands behind her back, rocking back and forth from heels to toes as if enjoying the tension immensely. "Why is it, Sir Hugh, that you have armor but no arms?" He flushed, but she only pursed her lips and allowed her eyes to run the length of his form. "I have heard speak of a young man—an exceedingly young man—knighted the evening before the barons met Lackland at Runnymede. And of how d'Aulnoy gave him his own suit of mail, feeling the deepest affection for him."
    Hugh shrugged, trying to control his embarrassment. "He'd had another made for him; it no longer fit him, but it did me."
    "Aye, he grew too fat," Lilith said bluntly. "But you have grown in those two years, for you've had to split the links at the shoulders."
    She couldn't have known that, since he'd removed the heavy armor soon after arriving at the castle, but she'd seen him wearing the mail. It was impossible to pretend he'd not met her at the temple now. Mandeville's face mottled with his rage; Georges stared at her without expression.
    "I had plenty of time to practice," Hugh said quietly. "I expanded."
    Her eyes glittered with humor. Tapping her finger against her bottom lip, she continued, "But Sir William thinks you should have been making your fortune in tournaments. Yet you did not enter even a one, and so you own nothing of a knight's belongings but a poorly mended bit of armor. Even your horse was loaned to you for the mission only." A sly look entered her gaze. "But I suppose it would have been difficult to protect the countess had you jaunted off to every tourney."
    "Aye," Hugh said, suddenly baffled. Was she making sport of him or defending him? "Many men die in the tournaments, and I couldn't fulfill my duties injured or dead."
    "So you let yourself grow soft in the courts?"
    "He has said he expanded in practice," Lilith said to Mandeville with a touch of exasperation. "Sir Georges mentored him."
    "Aye?" He gave the older man a dismissive look.
    "You are welcome to try his arm," Georges said.
    A bit of glee lit the seneschal's face. "Are you game, pup? Want a bit of practice?"
    Hugh grinned, a cold, confident expression that belied the angry resignation in his gut. "Of course."
    Lilith leaned against the wall next to Georges, her hands behind her back. In her fists, she clutched the sword she had called in from her invisible cache of weapons, and hid its length between skirts and stone.
    Unfortunate she couldn't make it appear in the center of his chest instead of in her hand.
    "You reek, Guardian," she said for his ears only.
    "You did not notice my odor at the ruins earlier."
    That he was right annoyed her. "You sent him in, knowing I was there." She glanced away from the field, where Hugh and William circled, each holding swords with blunted edges. Though he'd adopted the appearance of a man long past his youth, this close he couldn't hide what he was from her. Michael—the Doyen, leader of the Guardians, sworn to protect humans from such as she.
    Except he had never killed her as he did other demons; she knew why, and the reason made her bold and angry. "You should no longer be so careless with innocents around me." Unlike Lilith, Michael did not take his eyes from the combatants on the field, as if he did not consider her a threat. "You thought he would distract me from my mission," she guessed.
    "He has."
    She smiled. "He is but part of my plan. Surely you've seen how he looks at the countess? And she him?"
    "It means nothing; he will not do what you think."
    "Of course he will." She returned her attention back to the combatants. William fell back, unable to withstand the onslaught of Hugh's speed and quickness.