Demon Marked

He closed his eyes, tipped his head back against the door. “I planned to bring home a puppy for you. And I found one, a little Jack Russell. God, it was almost like Enthrallment. He licked my face and I fell half in love with him right there in the kennel. But then I realized—I couldn’t.”
    Something inside her froze. But he wouldn’t think that she’d hurt it—he didn’t believe that any more. Did he?
    “Why couldn’t you?”
    Something in her voice must have betrayed her. His eyes flew open, suddenly blazing blue. He caught her face in his hands, shook his head. “No. Not that. Never that.”
    Her throat felt thick. “Then why?”
    “Ash . . . I swore I’d never hurt you again. Ever. But a dog won’t live forever. In fifteen, twenty years, you’re going to be hurting like hell, just because I brought a puppy home today. I can’t do that to you.”
    “Oh.” Now the ache moved from her throat to her chest, so sweet, so perfect. “It’ll hurt. But I think I’d rather have fifteen or twenty years with him. I think he’d prefer that, too.”
    Nicholas slipped her hair behind her ear, studying her face. “Are you certain? I’ll call them now, and we’ll go back tomorrow morning. You can see him first before you decide.”
    “I’m certain,” she said. “Wouldn’t you prefer it, too? Any amount of pain is worth feeling like this, no matter how short of a time we have.”
    “It’s worth it.” He drew her in, kissed her hard. “I’d have gone to Hell and picked you out a hellhound puppy, but I think Sir Pup would eat it, defending his territory.”
    God. “He won’t eat a terrier puppy?”
    “I asked Lilith. She said we should bring the puppy in during training, that it would do Sir Pup good to learn restraint, and that he could teach the puppy how to be a halfling’s companion.”
    An evil puppy at Ash’s heels? She could get used to that.
    “She’s grooming me,” Ash said. “I’m going to be just like her in two thousand years.”
    Nicholas’s face darkened slightly. “I hope not.”
    Oh. She looked up at him, and knew he was remembering the cabin, Lilith’s manipulation. “I think she lied, you know.”
    “Which time?”
    Ash had to smile at that. Yes, that fit Lilith very well. “When she said that she’d sacrifice one for the good of all.”
    “You don’t think she would?”
    “Maybe.” If pushed to her limits. “But she’s not stupid—and the smartest thing she could have done in that cabin would be to let Sir Pup kill me, then and there. To not take any chances that Madelyn might find me, that the Gate might be opened. She didn’t do that. I believed she would, though.”
    “So did I,” Nicholas said.
    “And why wouldn’t we? Two thousand years, that’s a lot of people who must have died around her. So what’s one more person? It wouldn’t mean anything, right? But I think that’s where we went wrong. Because when you see all of those people die—or just a few like the Boyles, like Rachel or your parents—then one more person isn’t nothing .”
    “It’s everything,” he said. “One more person means everything.”
    “Yes.” She rose up, kissed him. “So I wouldn’t mind being her in two thousand years.”
    “I think you’ll be better.”
    “Because you love me.”
    “I do.” Palms sliding to her ass, he lifted her against him. “So what’s your plot today?”
    She ran her fingers down his stomach, closed over his thick length. Hard, ready for her. “I plan to see whether I can reach your limit with just my hands.”
    His grin offered the sweetest challenge. “That’s it? That’s what a demon would do?”
    Not at all. That plan was much, much simpler—she would love him forever, stay with him until the end of time. Maybe it wasn’t what any old demon would do.
    But it was exactly what this demon would do.
     
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    HEART OF STEEL
    Coming November 2011 from Berkley Sensation!

CHAPTER 1

    Yasmeen hadn’t had any reason to fly her airship into the small Danish township of Fladstrand before, but her reputation had obviously preceded her. All along the Scandinavian coast, rum dives served as a town’s only line of defense against mercenaries and pirates—and as soon as the sky paled and Lady Corsair became visible on the eastern horizon, lights began appearing in the windows of the public houses alongside the