Demon Marked

closed his eyes, forced himself not to go in after her. In the dark behind his lids, he could see her again: her wings twisting around, falling out of control, her wild spin straight into the ground. God. He couldn’t stand this. He couldn’t stand seeing her hurt like that, over and over again.
    And she was right: She had no instinctive knowledge. Her fighting had improved, but only because they trained their asses off, until Nicholas dropped from exhaustion into the bed every night. She’d become astonishingly proficient with the shotgun—her boomstick, as she called it—but her ability hadn’t come from some long-lost memory. She was building it, a single day at a time.
    But she was still no match for Madelyn. That demon in Duluth had snatched her up so quickly—and although Ash might be fast enough to avoid that now, she couldn’t wield a sword. She wouldn’t last a second against either demon or Guardian. If Madelyn came, the shotgun and hellhound venom might give her a chance . . . but Nicholas was getting to the point where he wasn’t sure he wanted to take that chance. To the point where he thought that running from Madelyn and protecting Ash was the far better choice.
    Which was more important to him, revenge or Ash? A week ago in Duluth, that answer had been an easy one. It wasn’t easy any longer. He wanted revenge. More than that, he wanted Ash to be safe.
    And fuck it all, he wanted to kiss her again. Kiss her until it wasn’t just familiar, but the taste and feel of him had been branded into her memory—as hers was branded into his.
    He’d kissed her before, but he knew why this one hadn’t been familiar: He’d never kissed any woman like that. Not without calculation, not without considering the consequences or as a means to an end. He hadn’t given a thought to anything but the need to have her mouth open to his, to know the heat and taste of her. To reassure himself that she was alive, unhurt.
    But although she’d quickly healed, Nicholas wasn’t so certain she was unhurt.
    Something had changed in her. He realized now that the Ash he’d met in London might have very well fit the nurses’ description of a flat affect, a lack of emotion. By the time they’d reached Duluth, however, there’d already been more—amusement, irritation, joy—all clear and easily readable, and all of them unaffected by what anyone else said or did to her, and always unoffended.
    He didn’t think that was the case any longer. Nicholas had begun to believe that her capability for emotion had expanded, deepened. He’d begun to believe that she could be hurt now.
    And then he always wondered if that was what she wanted him to believe.
    Jesus Christ, he was so fucked up. Perhaps that was Madelyn’s legacy: He’d never be able to trust anyone, anything, even if he wanted to. Even if he knew that it was hurting Ash that he couldn’t let himself trust her, that he couldn’t let himself believe her.
    Then again, maybe he was right not to.
    God, this would all drive him mad—if seeing her dive out of the sky didn’t do it first.
    But whether he went mad didn’t matter. All that mattered was protecting her, keeping her safe—and if safe meant watching her jump over and over, until she had the ability to fly away from a demon or a Guardian as fast as she could, then by God he would help her do it.
    They still had hours of daylight left. Maybe she could be flying by the end of it.
    She didn’t look up when he came into the cabin. Sitting at the small table, she had the shotgun on her lap, cleaning the barrel with an oily rag.
    “Do you want to try the tree again?”
    “There’s no point. I don’t know how to fly. I’ll just fall and fall and fall again.” She popped open the chamber and removed a cartridge, replacing it with one of the shells prepared with hellhound venom. So she didn’t intend to practice shooting, either. “You know what I want to learn, more than anything?”
    “Tell me.” And he’d do anything he could to help her.
    “I want to know how to get around the damn Rules.”
    Shit. Nicholas couldn’t do that. And the only being that could change those Rules hadn’t been on Nicholas’s side for a while now. “That requires a higher power than we have.”
    “No. I don’t mean ‘how can I break the Rules with no consequences.’ I mean, how to get free, how to move without breaking them.” She set the shotgun aside and stood. “Like before, on the floor. I didn’t