Demon Bound

blood was just the novices saying the same fool things about you that they always do.”
    “No,” she said. “That one is true. I asked Selah to bring the first few widows not long after the Ascension.”
    Drifter seemed to consider that. “All right, then,” he finally said.
    He was going to leave it there, but Jake wouldn’t. No matter how much it cost him.
    “So everything you’re wearing is made of the same stuff?” And in the temple, it had been smooth and warm under his hands. “Even your bloomers?”
    Irena broke out with a loud laugh, startling the humans around them. Charlie groaned, and Jake tossed a five-dollar bill on the table in front of Drifter.
    A human couldn’t have tracked the speed at which Alice reached over, pinched the money, and sat again. Jake’s body tightened, but he forced his mind out of her skirts. Tried to.
    When she moved quickly, everything rigid became supple, her body long and fluid.
    “They aren’t made of spider silk, novice. I weaved them from the legs of those widows who have passed,” Alice said, her back straight now. “For when one is a Guardian, loyalty is the utmost virtue. And so I keep my friends close—even if they itch.”
    “You’ve got itching down below?” Jake leaned in and lowered his voice. “They’ve got powders for that now.”
    Alice smiled. Her teeth, he saw, were sharp again.
    “Oh, Lord.” As if sensing disaster, Charlie spoke up, asking Alice’s opinion on the materials the decorators planned to use at the theater.
    Jake sat back, studying Alice.
    Spider legs and loyalty. She’d used the same tone that’d gotten his back up before, but he’d have bet his left nut that her moralizing platitudes were a joke.
    Half the time, anyway. Or only around people she was tight with—not the fucking new guy.
    But when she unbent a little, the Black Widow wasn’t half-bad.
    And where had he gotten the impression that she was dried up, spinsterish? As angular as her features were, they weren’t pinched or heavy. Her dark brows, her straight nose, and her direct gaze gave her a no-nonsense look, sure—but there was also something dainty about her mouth, her pointed chin.
    When he looked past the severe braid and rigid posture, she appeared about the same age Jake did. Early twenties, maybe. Not more than twenty-five.
    It was the dress, he thought. And he didn’t usually notice the thickness of a woman’s lashes when the disapproval in her eyes was driving icy spikes into his brain.
    Those lashes flickered in response to Irena’s voice. Alerted by that unease, Jake realized Irena was addressing him, caught the tail end of her question.
    “—have begun your specializations?”
    “I’m on swords. With Alejandro.” He checked his watch. “I’m meeting him at midnight.”
    Every day the same: four hours with Alejandro, six hours in San Francisco, ten with Drifter, and the rest in personal study. Now that he’d come across Alice’s collection, most of those personal hours would probably be spent in the Archives.
    “Alejandro? That is good.” Irena nodded abruptly, and Jake wasn’t about to ask why her tone suggested otherwise. “He was born to wield a blade.”
    Charlie looked at Drifter. “You’re good with a sword, though. I’ve seen you.”
    “Damn good,” Drifter said. “But I’m more of a fists-and-pistols man.”
    “Hugh taught both of us the basics of the discipline, Charlie,” Alice said. “But when we specialized with Alejandro, I daresay we learned more in one year than the previous sixty.”
    “That we did.”
    “Jake will, as well.” Alice’s gaze rested on him. “I have already seen Alejandro’s influence in the way he holds his blade.”
    Charlie flashed a grin at Drifter. “Alejandro used to freak me out, you know—the first couple of times he came in here to visit you. There’s that devil goatee thing he’s got going on, and then he’s all dark and quiet and staring. Like it hurts him to smile.”
    “He’s a good man,” Irena said softly.
    “Yeah.” Jake glanced at Alice, and got his money ready. “It’s other people who creep me out.”
    And if he told himself that enough, maybe he wouldn’t think about stroking her mouth open with his tongue. He must be desperately horny to be thinking of it now. But he sat anticipating her reply, completely focused on her lips as they softened and parted.
    Her forked tongue flicked. A cobra swiftly uncoiled from her mouth onto the table, and struck at