Demon Marked

all around her.
    “You have to be freezing,” she said.
    “Actually, no. You kept me warm.” He drew back just enough to look down at her. “You don’t remember the Boyles. Why do you care so much?”
    “I don’t know.”
    His thumb swept the lingering wetness from her cheek before he met her gaze again. “I won’t believe these are real. Not from a demon.”
    Was he reminding himself or her? “Right now, I wish that you were right. I’d rather feel nothing than this.”
    A strange expression passed over his face—humor and sadness, all at once. “I’ve thought that before. Revenge is better.”
    “Then let me have it.”
    His gaze dropped to her lips. “Johnson isn’t going anywhere. You can come back after our bargain is finished and do it.”
    She could do that. “Or maybe a quick death is too good for him. Maybe I could spend the rest of my life making his a living hell.”
    Nicholas grinned. “Now that’s a demon talking—and it wouldn’t break the Rules. Though I’m disappointed that your first good plot isn’t designed to ruin me.”
    “Oh, me too.” Ash laughed. Oh, that felt better. So much better. “I’ll have to come up with something that—”
    His fingers tightened and his expression changed so quickly that Ash was left reeling. Abruptly, he let her go, grabbed his crossbow from the hood.
    “Get behind me, Ash.”
    Why? She turned, scanning the field. Nicholas had frozen beside her, his gaze fixed on a point at the edge of the driveway. In the dark, she easily made out the shape of the man standing on the wrought-iron fence, his feet balanced on two points.
    Ash blinked. Dark haired, handsome, and slickly dressed, he could have been Nicholas’s brother. Except Nicholas’s blue eyes didn’t turn crimson like that. Fascinating.
    Her heart leapt as she realized: This was a demon. He might have answers. He might know who she was. Unless . . .
    She edged back behind Nicholas. “Is it Madelyn?”
     
    No, Nicholas didn’t think so. Demons were creatures of habit, and that included the genders they preferred to adopt in their human forms. This was someone different . . . and he didn’t want to wait around and find out who.
    “Get in the car, Ash.”
    “In the car?” The demon hopped down from the fence. “Oh, she won’t be safe there.”
    Fuck. Nicholas swung the crossbow up, the explosive bolts ready. He couldn’t control the pacing of his heart, but as long as the pounding didn’t shake his aim, he didn’t care if the demon heard it.
    Heedless of the weapon pointed at him, the demon walked forward. “I’ll admit, when I felt your grief from across the city, I wondered what had struck one of my brethren so. A demon, pained by loss? I thought it might be a trap. But now I see it is worse. It’s pathetic.”
    Oh, Jesus. Ash had brought this thing here? “You didn’t shield your emotions?”
    Her back pressed to the side of the rig, Ash shook her head. “I don’t know.”
    Shit. Shit. That meant the Guardians probably felt it, too. Though right now, that might be a good thing.
    “And look at you.” The demon’s eyes narrowed to glowing crimson slits. “Why, you’re not brethren at all, but a little halfling? I thought you all dead or frozen.”
    Ash drew a sharp breath. “What do you mean?”
    “No, no. No questions. There’s one that’s so much more important.” Five yards away, the demon stopped. “Lucifer must have let you out. Why?”
    “I don’t know.”
    God. Nicholas clenched his teeth. Why wasn’t she lying to this demon? She needed to be. Did she not recognize the danger he posed to her?
    “What use could you have been? And he must have bound you to someone. Not to himself, because he can’t control you from Hell. Not now.”
    “I’m bound to him.” She indicated Nicholas with a tip of her chin.
    The demon’s gaze raked over Nicholas and paused on the crossbow. With a laugh, he asked, “Do you truly think you can aim that fast enough, human?”
    “We’ll see.”
    “Keep up, then.”
    Nicholas blinked. The demon appeared beside him, breath hot on his cheek. Jesus. And gone before he could react, thirty feet away and laughing. Footprints in the snow marked every step that Nicholas hadn’t been able to track.
    They had to get out of here.
    “Ash, get in the backseat, now . Grab a weapon. Any one.”
    He reached behind for the door handle. Ash turned to do the same. A hot wind rushed past him.
    She was gone.
    Nicholas spun around.