Demon Bound

in the recent battle filled her mind. “What do they gain,” she wondered, “that they would risk it?”
    “You don’t think it’s a return to Grace?” Jake gave a wry grin when she snorted her response. “You don’t think Heaven will take them back?”
    “Surely I couldn’t speculate what those Above—”
    “Yeah, you can. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t want those Above to think exactly the same way they do. So, what would you do?”
    “Keep Belial roasting here forever—preferably on a spit.” When Jake’s eyebrows lifted in mock surprise, she went on. “I think a human wearing wings offends him. I think that he blames Lucifer for their fall, and can’t admit to his own complicity in the rebellion—even as he covets the throne Lucifer gained. And I think that although he might want to return to Heaven, it is because he sees that return as an affirmation of his superiority.”
    “Is he better than Lucifer, though?”
    “I don’t know,” Alice said. “It is like asking who is the better man—Hitler or Vlad the Impaler?”
    “I’m pretty sure that if we hop over to the Pit, we could find out.”
    How awful was she for laughing as she imagined those two tortured there? But there were some things she could not feel sorry for. Jake was not, either, she saw. His laugh didn’t contain even a hint of chagrin.
    They spoke at the same time. “Did you know that Hugh—” She broke off, waited for him to finish. But his smile only broadened, so she said, “So Hugh told you about his encounter with Vlad, as well.”
    “Yeah. Considering how I died, I thought for sure Vlad must have been a nosferatu. Maybe a vampire.”
    But he’d just been a human who’d made a bargain with Lucifer. He likely wasn’t in the Pit, but the frozen field.
    Why couldn’t she laugh at that?
    Alice’s amusement left her on a troubled sigh. She tore her gaze from Jake’s and continued walking.

    After several miles, she realized that Jake’s attention wandered not just during conversations, but during silences. When she glanced at him, she found the unfocused expression on his features almost as often as she encountered his keen, watchful gaze.
    And as the quiet between them was slowly annoying her, the tenth time it happened, she could not stop herself from asking where it was he went.
    Then she had to ask again, when he didn’t seem to hear her.
    “Jake?” She lifted her hand, and the motion snapped him out of it. Exasperation shortened her temper. “What are you thinking about?”
    His slow grin heightened her irritation. “Sex.”
    Blast. She lifted her chin, stared ahead—but she had no one but herself to blame for asking. “You do it rather often. I suppose the scenarios are quite varied.”
    “Yeah,” he said easily, as if he hadn’t registered the pique in her voice. “In this one, I had you on the sand. I stripped you naked, got handfuls of your hair, and when you interrupted me I was in the process of fucking you silly. So neither of us got to come.”
    Her mouth was open, her gaze locked on his. “Oh, dear,” she said weakly. “I’m so very sorry.”
    Jake shrugged. “I had the same one about five hours ago. Since then it’s been you on your chair in the Archives, after I went under your skirts and had my mouth between your legs until you begged to ride me. And there was one where you were sketching the frescoes in a temple, and you turned to me and said, ‘How sexy you are, Jake! Ravish me!’ So I did. Then I had you in Onan’s Bathtub—”
    “Onan’s Bathtub?” she sputtered, uncertain whether the prickly heat that had taken up residence beneath her skin was from embarrassment or arousal.
    Had he intended to shock her? He had managed, but not for the reason he probably assumed. These were situations that she could be in—not generic fantasies with interchangeable women.
    “Yep.” He slid his toothpick into the corner of his mouth, worked it with his tongue for a moment—and Alice wanted to close her eyes. She didn’t. “Considering that it’s the luckiest tub that ever existed, it deserves an official name.”
    “And you chose Onan ?”
    “Hey, I’m from the Bible Belt. You don’t just go blind for stroking one out, you die. So Onan’s a hero—a martyr for the fourteen-year-old-male cause.” He continued over her laughter. “So you were straddling me in the water, and I was sucking on your nipples. Are they like blackberries? Because that’s how I’ve