Demon Bound

unease rolling through her. Of the Guardians, only Michael had similar wings. The rest of them could mimic a demon’s leathery wings, the nosferatu’s more membranous ones, and create their own of white feathers. But no one could copy Michael’s, or the way in which his amber eyes could become wholly obsidian.
    The crimson glow had left the nephilim’s eyes, leaving only black.
    Their appearance had also apparently turned Jake’s thoughts to the Doyen, but in a different direction. “Does Michael know of your bargain?”
    “Yes,” she said flatly, but of course her tone did not dissuade him.
    “And?”
    “And I am to do as I must, with the understanding that if I choose to fulfill it, Michael will do as he must.”
    “Kill you.”
    “Defend himself.”
    “Kill you.”
    She shrugged as best she could in the cramped space, and felt the ice-tipped spear of his anger.
    “Would you try? Assuming you could beat him.”
    Little chance of that. Challenging Michael would be more difficult, she imagined, than taking on five nephilim. “I like to think I wouldn’t.”
    Once upon a time, however, she’d also thought she wouldn’t have made a bargain with a demon.
    “But if it came down to it? His life or your soul?”
    Her chest was in knots. In truth, she didn’t know if she’d stop herself because it was right , or because there was no point in following through. “If I did fulfill the bargain, I would no longer be frozen in Hell when I died, and no dragons would be devouring my body in the Chaos realm. But if I murdered him to save myself, wouldn’t I be bound for Hell, regardless? Unless I atoned for that—but how could it be forgiven, to cold-bloodedly plan his murder? And so the only difference would be the nature of my torture.”
    Jake shook his head. “You don’t know that. We don’t know how humans and Guardians are judged in the afterlife. That’s not our role.”
    So he could recite from the Scrolls when it suited him. “No. But I know how I would judge myself.” And that was all that mattered while she was living. Her opinion—and the opinion of the few who held small pieces of her heart. “So I would create another alternative.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like not dying, and trying to make immortality last as long as eternity,” she said, avoiding his gaze. The nephilim’s mouths were moving in unison. “They are chanting now.”
    Jake was rigid beside her, but he did not pursue it further. Silence fell between them, as if they were listening to the chanting they could not hear. The tension slowly left his form—probably from boredom. With no room to prop her elbow, she allowed herself to relax against him, watching the nephilim with her cheek resting on his shoulder.
    They got along best, she mused, when neither of them spoke.
    After twenty minutes, however, with the nephilim not having so much as ruffled a feather, her thoughts began to wander. To his leg, most often, and the muscled thigh lodged between hers. It would be very easy to rub against him.
    Very, very easy. Her forehead creased as she contemplated it. If she went slow enough, he might not even notice—or just assume it was the restless movements that any woman made when she was stuck between an attractive man and a wall.
    An inch, she thought, over the course of an hour. She could entertain herself and relieve tension at the same time. And the rubbing would not ignite her senses half as much as the excitement of hiding her reaction, the anticipation of reaching her goal.
    By the end of the hour, she would be so focused on it, her arousal so high, she’d very likely attain orgasm. From an inch.
    Her lips pressed together to muffle her laugh as she pictured it—and then she bit back her gasp as Jake shifted slightly, against flesh sensitized by her imaginings.
    Needy flesh, aching now for another stroke, however small.
    She went utterly still, not daring to breathe. How foolish that had been, teasing herself, pretending that she could perform such a mental exercise without evoking a physical response. Now she was inflamed.
    Her eyes followed the movement of Jake’s hand as it rose to his mouth, then she looked away. Still, she heard the soft click of his toothpick against his teeth, the slide of his tongue against smooth wood.
    If only the nephilim would do something.
    Jake made a quiet, frustrated noise and moved once more. The breath she’d held hissed through her teeth. She felt him turn his head, and his gaze on