Demon Bound

chamber—these sites were hers , blast them!—and wanted desperately to know how they’d found it, what they planned to do here.
    “Alice,” he said.
    “Of course.” Her nod was stilted, and she held out her hand. “Of course. Let us go.”
    Immediately, his Gift kicked through her. The walls remained solid around them. His fingers tightened on hers, and he tried again. And again.
    A red glow appeared at the end of the corridor.
    “Shit.” Jake pulled her back, to the opposite side of the chamber. His Gift slammed again, with enough force to push her off balance. He caught her around the waist and dragged her up against him, pressing her cheek into his neck. “Hold on. I’ll get us out. I probably just need to see what’s coming at me.”
    Alice vanished her weapon. He would succeed, she thought. But if it was at the last second, an uncontrolled jump and landing, she didn’t want to accidentally take his head off with it.
    Jake’s arm tightened around her. The nephilim’s footsteps were approaching—fast, even to her quickened perception. Careful to keep her skin against his, she turned her head, tried to watch from the corner of her eye.
    The nephilim were almost at the entrance. Red skin, black feathered wings. The males wore only plated skirts; the two females had similar armor, topped by a filigreed breastplate. Their swords were stained with rust—or dried blood.
    Alice’s fingers clenched as she prepared to call in her weapon again.
    Jake lifted her, and the world spun.
    Her shoulder hit rock, and Jake swore. Then his body was hard beneath her. She scented blood, heard the scrape of a knife. She raised her head—tried to. Only three or four inches, and then she rapped it against stone.
    Disbelieving, she looked down into his face. He’d rolled them into the niche carved into the wall. And she could no longer hear the nephilim’s footsteps. Just her heartbeat, and Jake’s.
    He’d activated the shielding spell, she realized. He’d scraped the symbols into the stone, then used his blood to seal the opening of the niche.
    “ Goddamn .” His embarrassment seared her psychic blocks.
    “We are alive, novice,” she said, and turned her head to watch the nephilim race across the chamber.
    She couldn’t stop her flinch when one stabbed his sword toward the niche’s opening, but the blade skidded across the invisible shield as if he’d tried to impale steel. Slowly, she loosened her hold on Jake, shifting her body to the rear of the niche. She only managed to lever herself onto her side, her thigh over his and still half-lying on him, but it wouldn’t be as distracting as straddling his hips.
    “I wouldn’t have thought of this,” she added as an arrow splintered against the shield. “I’ve never used the spell. I’d have been dead now if I was alone.”
    A female nephil hacked at the stone with an axe. Chips flew, but the shield would hold its shape around their small space even if the nephilim managed to chisel an opening in the rock above them.
    “Next time,” he said, “I’ll set the shield at the chamber entrance.”
    “That would have been ideal,” she agreed.
    “I avoided the situation.” His wry grin seemed to dare her to say I told you so .
    “Yes, well. Typically, I steer clear of being trapped in stone niches the size of a sarcophagus, with nephilim waiting to let their axes take bites of my skull. But we all eventually find ourselves in those situations we avoid, and must make the best of them—which you did. Can you teleport from inside the shield?”
    “Yes. Want me to try, or wait?”
    “And see what they do?” At his nod, she said, “That would also be ideal.”
    To her surprise, what the nephilim did was hold a short consultation—then vanish their clothing.
    Demons in their original form had no gender; they adopted genitalia after shape-shifting into human forms. But perhaps because these nephilim possessed human bodies and could only shape-shift between their human and current forms, they’d had to adopt the sex of their physical host, as well.
    “Nephilim orgy?”
    Alice would never admit that she’d been wondering the same thing. “If so, the males need encouragement. I have seen slugs with more vigor.”
    She felt his gaze on her, but continued watching the nephilim. They abandoned their assault on the niche, and arranged themselves in a circle around the dais. Their black wings were spread, their wing tips touching.
    Those black feathers sent