Demon Marked

now.
    She turned away to collect her shirt, aware that he still watched her. Aware that her body reacted to that look.
    Porno time, then. She could have a fresh memory of both responses, and better compare them.
    He still watched her as she retrieved a recently laundered blanket from the closet and spread it over the love seat facing the television. She sat and picked up the remote.
    “My chair?” Nicholas asked.
    She didn’t look around. “You’ll notice I didn’t sit with you during dinner.”
    He joined her on the love seat a moment later, newspaper in hand. He read steadily through the opening credits, but by the time the grunting and ass slapping began, his fingers had crumpled the paper’s edges. Not even once did he glance at Ash.
    A round of perfunctory sucking and moaning finally pushed him over the edge. With a muttered “Fuck,” he rose and stalked into the connecting room. Shortly afterward came the sound of undressing and the spray of the shower. Ash would have bet anything that he’d turned the temperature to cold.
    She switched off the video. Her test hadn’t worked well; she still didn’t know if the movie aroused her, or if her sexual tension had been created because she’d imagined doing everything she watched with Nicholas.
    She liked to think that he’d been imagining the same. If so, her plot had worked, somewhat. She didn’t see him naked, but she’d learned that he’d walk away from a sexual situation with her . . . which meant that despite his upper hand, she affected him more than he could tolerate.
    That knowledge could be useful. So she’d had a productive evening, if a little evil.
    And she’d enjoyed the hell out of it.

CHAPTER 8

    Until Nicholas stopped at a bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of Duluth, Ash forgot about his plan to mislead the Guardians by abandoning everything in the hotel room and remaining checked-in. When he’d mentioned paying for the new room in cash, she’d expected them to pull up to a flea-bitten motel, but the converted Georgian Revival mansion sat on two picturesque acres of snow-covered fields surrounded by a wrought-iron fence.
    Maybe Nicholas saved the flea-biters for when he was truly desperate, and not just hiding from angelic warriors who’d cut off Ash’s head the moment they saw her.
    She waited in the rented SUV while he went inside, and listened to him spin a tale about hotel bed bugs, stolen credit cards, and lost luggage, charming the innkeeper into a quickie reservation. As it was winter, and a slow period for tourists, he might have gotten a room anyway, but the week he paid in advance probably helped his cause.
    To pass the time, Ash counted the money left in his briefcase. It took her longer than she’d expected. No wonder he’d willingly abandoned a few thousand-dollar suits at the hotel. With this stash, he could buy and abandon them several times over.
    Strange that she felt no urge to steal the cash. Once again, her demonic nature failed her. Now she only had to decide whether her impatience to travel north and meet Rachel’s parents was rooted in some demonic need, too . . . or a human one.
    Finally, Nicholas returned to the SUV. His gaze dropped to the open briefcase. Ash lifted her brows, inviting him to accuse her, but he only said, “There’s always more.”
    Dammit. If he cared so little, she should have taken some. Next time.
    Just north of Duluth, Ash tried to shape-shift again. When her face remained the same, she admitted defeat and climbed into the back, mentally urging Nicholas to drive faster. Perhaps it was best that he didn’t, though. Even a Minnesotan deputy might question the number of weapons in the long black duffel on the backseat. Ash shared space with it, hunkered down below the windows.
    Nicholas was probably right that she’d be easily recognized when they neared Rachel’s home. The township numbered only a little over two thousand residents, the population distributed along four rural roads. Rachel’s parents lived a few miles past the center of the township. Ash held her breath as they drove through, her heart pounding with anticipation, her throat tight and chest full.
    She knew these roads. Outside the window, she only had a view of the pointed tops of pine trees, their limbs drooping beneath a heavy blanket of snow, but she could picture the two-lane stretch of pavement. She could almost see the dirty snow pushed to the side by the plows. And even before Nicholas began to slow,