Demon Bound

hadn’t asked him to tell anyone but Drifter—but if anyone knew their way around a bargain, might find a loophole, it was Lilith. By the time he finished, Hugh had returned from the kitchen, a frown etched on his forehead. Lilith met Hugh’s eyes and sighed.
    “Teqon’s got her,” she said, turning back to Jake. “The bargain is so straightforward, there just isn’t any room to move.”
    “So finding something to exchange is our best bet.”
    “Yes. Or a threat that forces him to release her—but unless he has a compelling reason to release her without gaining anything in return . . .” Lilith spread her hands. “It’s difficult to find something a demon cares about more than himself. He doesn’t have a throne to lose—and you can’t threaten his life, because slaying him doesn’t free Alice.”
    No, killing Teqon made it impossible for her to ever free herself. Jake scrubbed his hand over his hair, his mind racing. His chest ached; his gut was a lump of hot lead.
    “Do you think she could, I don’t know . . . go to Teqon, and bring Michael with her. She’s technically brought his heart to Teqon then. She just hasn’t taken it out of his body.”
    He’d never seen sympathy on Lilith’s face before. It made the ache worse.
    “No. There was an understanding between them when the bargain was made, of what it meant to bring Michael’s heart. If meaning could be changed so easily, she could ask Michael to cut paper in the shape of a heart, and give that to Teqon.”
    “Well now, hold on a second.” Drifter shook his head. “Charlie changed the meaning of Sammael’s bargain. We both knew when that bargain was struck, ‘preventing any hurt from coming to her’ meant physical injury. She made it about emotional pain.”
    “Yes.” Lilith nodded. “Another meaning can be layered over the original—but the change has to be agreed upon by both parties. Sammael accepted her interpretation because it benefited him. If he hadn’t, how long would it have been before a Guardian killed him?”
    “About five days,” Drifter said easily, but frustration heated his psychic scent. “Four, if Irena had come visiting early. So there’s no other option for Alice?”
    “She could wait until Michael falls in combat, then remove his heart and deliver it to Teqon. But that might be thousands of years—and runs the risk that Teqon or she might die before Michael.”
    “Dammit,” Jake said softly. His fists curled. But there was nothing here to hit, to rage against. “Dammit. Then it depends on that prophecy. And finding something in there that he wants more than Michael’s heart.”
    Lilith unrolled the parchment. Her gaze quickly skimmed over the symbols. “This will take a little while.”
    “I’ll wait.”
    “Not here. Not unless you shower,” she said without looking up. “The apartment over the garage isn’t being used; Hugh can find you some soap. A box of soap. And change your clothes.”
    “And should I leave my flippin’ pants on the floor for Sir Pup?”
    The hellhound lifted his heads with a chorus of hopeful whines.
    Lilith eyed the puppy. “ Not one of the carpeted floors,” she told him.
    Jake opened his mouth, thought better of it, and just followed Hugh out of the room, with Sir Pup prancing along behind him.

CHAPTER 18
    Alice sat beneath the tree in her courtyard, watching Remus and Romulus weave a new web between her portico columns, and willing the faint ache in her shoulder to subside. The pain was not so terrible now. And once the gaping wound had sealed over, she had erased the stench of burned flesh with a short bath and her first shampoo in years.
    Perhaps it had been wasteful to lather the pink liquid over her skin as well as her hair, and absurd to sit in a cloud of strawberry-perfumed air, but the fragrance had been too heavenly to resist.
    She wasn’t certain why Michael hadn’t left yet, but it wasn’t due to that lovely smell. He sat quietly beside her without breathing—he never breathed unless he was talking. He’d already determined that she could be teleported without landing in Hell. Now she was all but healed, yet hoping that her torment would soon end.
    In one hundred and twenty years, she had not passed this much time alone with the Doyen. If she had a choice, she never would again.
    He was, she supposed, very pleasant to look upon. And his company was agreeable enough, but she’d have welcomed amusement—or even irritation—instead of being