Demon Bound

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    DEMON BOUND

    A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

    PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / November 2008
    Copyright © 2008 by Melissa Kahn.

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    eISBN : 978-1-440-60748-6

    BERKLEY® SENSATION
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To Brad.
Whether here or Over There—may you always
make it home safe, little brother.

CHAPTER 1
    How easy killing a Guardian would be. Even Michael, the most powerful of all the Guardians, would fall if a sword cleaved through his heart or his neck.
    But although the methods by which Guardians could be killed were simple, accomplishing it was another matter entirely. The Guardians’ strength, speed, and training enabled them to fight the demons and bloodthirsty nosferatu who preyed on humans; their Gifts could be employed as weapons or defense.
    And slaying Michael would be more difficult than slaying any other Guardian. His Gift of teleportation allowed him to disappear before a blade could touch him. In his thousands of years, Michael had developed unmatched skill with his weapons, lightning reflexes, and great physical power. His heightened senses warned him of an enemy’s approach.
    He might not be so wary of an ally’s approach, however. It was no surprise, then, that a demon had arranged for a Guardian to kill him.
    But a Guardian worthy of her wings did not slay other Guardians.
    Even if she was bound by a demon’s bargain to do that very thing, a Guardian should not kill a fellow warrior. Even if it would save her soul from eternal, frozen torment, a Guardian should not cut the heart from the Doyen’s chest and deliver it to his enemies.
    And a Guardian should not imagine killing Michael whenever she was faced with him, whether in person . . . or while studying his carved granite features in the upper chambers of an abandoned desert temple.
    Yet as Alice Grey traced her fingers over Michael’s sculpted likeness, she could almost feel his heart, warm and bleeding in her hand. In the one hundred and twenty years since she’d been transformed into a Guardian, the image had become frighteningly easy to conjure.
    Perhaps she’d never been worthy of her wings.
    Alice dropped her hand away from Michael’s stone chest and tried to ignore the tightening around her own heart. What a fool she was, to imagine freeing herself from the bargain she’d made. Even if she paid the price that Teqon had demanded, she would be neither safe nor