Demon Marked

Madelyn tossed back her head and laughed, cutting through the shock that held him frozen and threw him back to twelve years old again, humiliated and horrified after she’d walked into his room and caught him with his pants down. Oh, Nicky, you don’t even have enough there to play with. God. It had taken him years to keep that mocking, nails-scrapingacross-his-brain noise from echoing in his head. Now he feared it would never go.
    Her laughter faded, but her amusement didn’t. “Oh, Nicky—your expression almost makes up for all of the pain you’ve caused me. It almost makes up for that stupid girl throwing herself between us, even after she agreed not to. It almost makes up for three years in the Pit, with my skin flayed, and my flesh stripped from my bones and fed to hellhounds. Do you know what that is like, Nicky? Oh, but I would love every human to know.”
    Not just evil, Nicholas recognized. That torture had broken her. “You’re mad.”
    “Mad?” Madelyn’s laugh rang out again, wild, unchecked. “No, not anymore. Not after three years of searching for the right Gate, through every ruin in England. Do you know how many ruins there are on this cursed island? And when I finally found it, I learned that you’ve taken my little Ashmodei and have tried to hide her away.”
    Not well enough. “I’ll destroy you, any way that I can. If it means you fail to sacrifice her and break your bargain with Lucifer, all the better.”
    “We’ll see if someone will break their bargain—but it won’t be me. Oh, Ashmodei,” she sang out, and vanished her swords. “You can stand up now, love. You can also speak again. I think it’s time to play a little game with Nicky.”
    Ash rose, naked and lean and strong, with her eyes shining fiercely red. Mud tangled in her hair and concealed half her tattoos. Leathery wings folded at her back.
    She was absolutely beautiful . . . and she’d been going to let Madelyn sacrifice her. She’d been willing to die, just to keep from returning to that frozen field.
    Nicholas would give everything he could to make certain she didn’t have to do either.
    He smiled, his arrogant son-of-a-bitch smile that had led to Madelyn trying to shoot him once before. “What game will we play? ‘Make Ash kill Nicky?’ There’s only one problem with that, Madelyn.” He showed her the grenade in his left hand. “You let her get close enough, and I’ll blow her to Hell. That means you wouldn’t be able to fulfill your bargain with Lucifer, and you’d end up screaming in the frozen field.”
    Madelyn’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”
    “Try me. You’re going to kill her, anyway. I’ll take a lot of fucking pleasure knowing that you’ll pay for it.”
    “And that close to the explosion, you’ll die, too.” Madelyn tilted her head. “But let’s see what happens, make a little test. Ash, take that grenade from him and bring it to me.”
    “That will break the Rules,” Ash said softly. “It’ll bring the Guardians. By ‘take,’ do you mean that I should persuade him to give it to me?”
    “Are you disobeying me, halfling?”
    “I’m simply verifying exactly what you want, so that I can obey to your satisfaction.”
    No, Nicholas thought. Ash was lying. She could do anything she wanted to him. But if Ash could do anything she wanted to Madelyn, she’d probably have already done it. He had to assume she was bound not to hurt the demon.
    So that would be up to him.
    He slipped his finger through the pin. “She can take the grenade straight back to you. You better hope that she holds down the safety lever.”
    “Ash, bring me his finger, too.”
    “Of course. Which one?”
    Madelyn frowned at her. “The left forefinger, the one in the pin. And that way, his hand will be a match to yours.”
    “What?” Cold fury spiked through him. “Show me.”
    Ash didn’t. Laughing, Madelyn grabbed her wrist, lifted Ash’s hand into view, and flicked a long fingernail against the stub of a knuckle. Jesus.
    “Nicky, love. You always give yourself away. You shake with rage because of a finger and yet threaten to kill her? I don’t think so.”
    Ash closed her eyes. “If you let me go, I’ll bring the grenade to you now.”
    “No, no. Just kill him. And we’ll finish the sacrifice before the Guardians come.”
    “Of course, Madelyn.” Her voice was flat. “How should I do it?”
    The demon pursed her lips, her gaze running the length of Nicholas’s body. “So