Demon Bound

replaced it with her naginata. In the same movement, she stood and whipped her weapon around.
    And froze with the point of her blade at Jake’s throat.
    Oh, dear heaven. She met his eyes, then her gaze dropped to the blood trickling the length of his neck. The tip of her weapon had pierced his skin.
    She vanished it, turned back around. The beaker had fallen to the ground. Her fingers shook as she picked it up, and the scalpel trembled when she called it in again. “That was—”
    “Stupid, yeah. I forgot how flippin’ long your weapon is.” Jake lowered himself beside her in that easy way men had—balanced on the balls of his feet, his knees wide, and his elbow resting on his thigh. He reached out, rubbed the surface of the fresco with his thumb. “So . . . what do you want me to do?”
    Alice stared blankly at the painting, uncertain how to interpret his question. Uncertain how to interpret his quiet focus on her, and his lack of anger. Uncertain, even, as to why he was not after her head with his sword.
    She wouldn’t have let him take it, but she wouldn’t have blamed him for the attempt.
    A glance confirmed that he was looking at her, waiting for her response. And she decided that she didn’t want more uncertainty. She had enough.
    “I want you to leave,” she said.
    And the wretch laughed. Disbelieving, she watched him rock onto his backside, brace his hands on the floor, and stretch his legs out. “No can do, Alice. I’m here, and I intend to stay.”
    His unbuttoned, long-sleeved shirt fell open with his movement. Beneath it, he wore a black undershirt, and emblazoned across the chest was a red tongue sticking out of an open mouth.
    It could have been an analogue to his response, she thought. “If you don’t intend to listen, why bother asking?”
    “I asked the wrong question. Well, not exactly. I didn’t lead up to it the right way.”
    He hadn’t led up to it at all. Alice leaned forward, began scraping again. He was too blasted stubborn to take the gesture as a dismissal, but she found some satisfaction in performing it. Perhaps she ought to take a cue from his shirt, and weave “leave me be” across the back of her next dress. And add an image that would drive the point home.
    There was a tug at her hair. Startled, she glanced over her shoulder.
    Jake was holding the tail of her braid up, and peering intently at her back. “Wait, don’t move—” He sighed, and his gaze lifted to hers. “Was that a donkey?”
    Oh, dear. She’d projected that? Perhaps she’d driven the point a little too hard. “A mule.”
    “And it was sucking its own—”
    “Yes, well.” She yanked her braid out of his grip. “I had to amuse myself while you were leading up to whatever it is you imagine I’ll want.”
    “And that amuses you?”
    Alice looked away from his grin. Her psychic shields were weak, her emotions swinging wildly. She fought the sudden urge to bury her face in her hands, to let herself cry and scream. Fought, and realized it wasn’t that she wanted him to leave. She wanted to disappear.
    Just wanted to go away . . . for a while.
    “Hey,” Jake said softly. She watched his shadow on the wall darken as he came up on his knees beside her.
    He didn’t try to touch her. Thank God for that. She felt like a riotous mess encased by tenuous threads, and she didn’t know if a touch might have her erupting or collapsing in on herself.
    Either would be worse than her current misery: that he was witness as she barely held it together. And so she had a little something to be grateful for.
    But she would be even more grateful for a distraction—anything that would turn both their minds away from her humiliating state.
    “Please.” She retrieved her scalpel. “Go on.”
    “Okay.” He drew a deep breath, but it was still another minute before he said, “Here’s the thing: I never wanted to head off to war. I wanted college—wanted this, actually.”
    His fingertips slid across the fresco, and Alice felt the silent pull of his fascination, his almost-buried longing. Though she couldn’t fathom where he intended to take her, what leap he was making—she understood that yearning.
    Slowly, she capped the beaker, then angled herself to study his profile as he continued.
    “And when college fell through—because of money, and some shit grades after I shammed my way through school—I worked my ass off getting the car I wanted, and I planned to drive myself right out of town, find a