Demon Forged

like a sharp inhalation. The air cooled.
    After a long second, pieces of charred flesh rained down in heavy splatters.
    Irena lay stunned. She was alive. Alive, with snow melting against her back, Alejandro’s taut body pressing down on hers, his ragged breath in her hair. He murmured her name.
    Then his mouth found hers and invaded in fierce possession. Irena welcomed it. He tasted of fire and blood, and she drew him deeper, chasing away the dread and despair that had threatened to devour her whole.
    The moment was too brief. The shattering pain of battle engulfed her body. Taken by surprise, Irena made a sound deep in her throat. She turned her head and clamped her lips to prevent it from escaping as a whimper.
    Alejandro’s mouth touched her jaw, and then he was standing, holding his hand out for hers.
    Jake’s voice rumbled distantly through the ringing in her ears. “See? Just friends. That was exactly what friends do.”
    Irena sent him a killing look as Alejandro pulled her up by her real hand. Beside Jake, Alice’s prim expression lost its fight against a smile.
    “Then you and I must be quite good friends,” Alice told him. Her brown hair had come loose of its braid. She held Irena’s bloodied forearm at her side, caught in the shifting folds of her skirt. Her pale gaze met Irena’s across the snow, and she lifted the severed arm. “How ridiculous you are!” she called out. “If you had wanted practice, you know there is a queue of former students waiting to chop off a piece of you. You did not have to call on the nephilim.”
    Irena couldn’t manage a smile—couldn’t even manage a breath. She could, however, use her Gift to lift her steel middle finger in a gesture that expressed her feelings perfectly. Despite the amused tsk ing sound Alice made, concern filled her psychic scent.
    Jake frowned. He called in his electrical ground and vanished.
    When Alice reached them, Alejandro took the arm. He turned to Irena. “Are you ready?”
    Irena nodded. She closed her eyes and vanished the steel arm. Agony shrieked up from the stump and through her shoulder.
    They worked quickly. Within seconds, Alice had wrapped her arm in black silk bandages, and created a sling to support its dead weight. Irena opened her eyes as Alice knotted the straps of the sling together.
    “It is crude,” Alice said as she vanished the blood from her hands. “But it will hold your arm together until Jake returns with Drusilla.”
    Irena’s nod set off a series of stabbing pains through her chest and stomach. Warm liquid heaved into her mouth, and she spat blood. Slowly, she sank to her knees. She just had to remain still. Very, very still.
    Alejandro crouched beside her. He reached for her, but stopped himself, clenching his hands into fists by his thighs. They remained that way, silent, until Jake’s Gift crackled through the air.
    A second later, Dru dropped to her knees in front of her. Her blue eyes widened as they ran over Irena’s face. “Oh, Lord, you’re a mess.” She reached for Irena’s hand. Her healing Gift probed gently, testing the injuries. Dru sucked in a breath. “Jesus. Did they pulverize you?”
    “They didn’t have to.” The bitter cold froze Olek’s words into thin icy clouds. “She blocked the nephil’s ax. Even Irena can’t absorb those blows without damage.”
    Dru nodded. Her Gift slid deeper, and warmth spread through Irena’s muscles. Sensation returned to her arm, first as a tingle over her skin; then feeling returned in a sweet rush. Her shoulder slid painlessly back into place.
    The constriction around her lungs eased, and Irena breathed out a thank-you.
    Dru smiled tightly. She eased back on the heels of her red tennis shoes. She turned her head, as if taking in the churned, bloodied snow, the shallow crater, the overturned iron block.
    She looked back at Irena. “It was close?”
    The constriction was suddenly there again, around Irena’s throat, squeezing her heart. She clenched her teeth and nodded, then dropped her chin against her chest.
    Dru turned to Alejandro. “I can leave her with you?”
    “Yes.” He bit out the word, as if he couldn’t believe she’d had to ask.
    “Good.” Unfazed by his anger, Dru rose to her feet. “Jake, Alice—we’re out of here. Now.”
    She used the tone that only a fool would argue with. Neither Jake nor Alice protested, and a moment later, they vanished.
    Alejandro only had to touch her. His fingers brushed her cheek, and