Demon Bound

He should have known Alice wouldn’t feel insulted by that. But Khavi hadn’t known Alice wouldn’t be hurt, so there was no doubt she’d meant to inflict pain.
    So what was it about—was Khavi looking for their weaknesses? Probably. He’d been doing the same since he’d come in. Problem was, if Khavi’s only emotional link was to the hellhound, there wasn’t much Jake could threaten.
    Luckily, Alice hadn’t given anything away in her response. Not so luckily, he had.
    But if Khavi thought that loving Alice was a weakness, Jake would be happy to show her how wrong she was.
    With fury still flooding his veins, he began a wide circuit of the chamber, keeping watch on the table. His gaze swept over Alice’s sharp features as she flipped through the book and turned it toward Khavi. Goddamn. Even a crazy demon should be able to see how flippin’ gorgeous Alice was. Sure, not in the Hollywood sense, all sultry eyes and pouty lips—but for fuck’s sake, all anyone had to do was look at her more than once or twice, and they’d realize it.
    As if aware of his gaze, Alice glanced at him from under her lashes, a question in her pale blue eyes.
    Jake shook his head. He’d sit out for now. Would just listen, and absorb. At least until cutting off Khavi’s head didn’t seem so tempting.
    Not beautiful. Yeah. His hot ass.
    “This is what we know,” Alice said, smoothing her hand over a drawing of winged figures warring against the heavens. “There was the First Battle, waged between angels.”
    Khavi nodded, examining the sketch. “Lucifer’s rebellion.”
    “We know that he and his followers were transformed to demons, and those who abstained became nosferatu—and the angels came to Earth to guard humans.”
    “Yes.”
    No big surprises here, then. His lethal mood fading, Jake glanced into the right chamber. The terraced recesses in the floor were a smaller version of the baths in Tunisia. They were dry, with traces of red sand at the bottom.
    He turned, found Khavi staring at him. “Both water and fire purify,” she said softly. “But when we bathe, the water becomes muddied. Fire burns clean.”
    Was this a riddle—or something straightforward, in a flaky kind of way? “Fire leaves ash,” he pointed out.
    “The flames are clean. Regardless, there is no water in Hell.” She studied the next drawing, of Lucifer riding at the head of the dragon, and Michael plunging his sword into its heart. “What do you call this?”
    “The Second Battle.”
    Khavi sighed. Jake had seen the look she gave Michael’s statue hundreds of times on Pim’s face, on Charlie’s face. It somehow combined familiarity, affection, and exasperation—and reminded a guy that females were the superior species, with more going on in their heads than between their legs.
    “His strengths never included his imagination,” she said. “What is the story of this battle?”
    “Lucifer became envious of the angels, and brought a dragon with him to Earth. The angels faltered until mankind sided with them, and Michael—one of the men in the human army—slew the dragon. The angels gave Caelum to him, and the power to create the Guardian corps.”
    Khavi sat motionless, as if waiting for Alice to continue. Alice was just as still, waiting for a reaction.
    Slowly, Khavi unrolled her fists. Jake hadn’t seen her clench them. “Is that all?”
    “In essence—yes.”
    She exploded into motion, backhanding the female statue. Its head shot toward Jake. He snatched it out of the air before the face smashed against the wall, his fingers stinging from the catch.
    Alice straightened, her eyes guarded as Khavi stalked back and forth across the chamber.
    Jake’s gut twisted, a sick, heavy knot. “Is it a lie?”
    Her fingers pushed into her tangles. She tilted her head back and screamed, the sound a hoarse rip from her harmonious voice. Frustration poured from a dark psychic scent that was as rich and powerful as Michael’s—as the nephilim’s.
    Jake was beside Alice before the scream ended. But the anger left Khavi as quickly as it had come; she crouched in front of her hellhound, spoke in soothing tones.
    I have often wanted to scream like that, Alice signed.
    Tension no longer whitened her knuckles. Maybe you should, Jake signed, and held up the bone head. Unlike the statues outside and in Tunisia, no emotion or personality had been captured in the blank, staring eyes. Clean break in the neck. She’s beheaded it with a blade