Demon Marked

Ash still hadn’t returned, he realized she might not want to return until she was certain she’d be alone.
    He probably should have realized it earlier. Leaving the house had made the message pretty clear: Even the cold was better than in the cabin with him.
    But she had returned, if only because of the bargain. And since it was his only hold on her, Nicholas still wouldn’t release her. It was the only reason the bargain mattered now. He didn’t care if Madelyn came.
    He just didn’t want Ash to go.
    But she already was. He shot out of bed when he realized her footsteps were crossing back to the door—as if she’d only come in to retrieve something, and was leaving again.
    Not yet. “Ash?”
    At his voice, she paused in the doorway, her shotgun in hand. The moonlight gleamed on her pale hair, left her face in shadow. “It’s one of the wolves, I think. I’ll take care of it.”
    The door closed. Nicholas shook his head. The wolves. What was she taking care of?
    He crossed to the front door. The freezing air immediately bit at his bare skin. The moonlit clearing lay empty, and the darkness beyond the tree line impenetrable. She could have gone any direction, and the snow wasn’t fresh enough to follow her tracks.
    Disappointment eating a hole in his chest, he turned back—and heard the faint noise. A sharp, plaintive bark followed a series of ululating yips. An animal, obviously in pain. What was Ash planning to do? Take care of it?
    Jesus. She shouldn’t do that alone. Helping it might mean getting close to it, and even as fast and strong as she was, an animal—a fucking wolf —could still hurt her, and one that was trapped or in pain would be more likely to lash out.
    And if was hurt so badly it had to be put down, she shouldn’t have to do that, either.
    He headed back inside, hauled on his clothes in the dark. Grabbing a flashlight and his rifle, he slung the weapon over his shoulder and picked up the snowmobile keys. Outside, he listened, searching for the direction again. All was quiet. Was it already done?
    No movement in the tree line—though he didn’t know if she was coming back. Maybe he’d take the snowmobile out anyway, look for any recent tracks, make certain she was all right.
    Halfway to the shed, he realized that the possibility she’d hurt the wolf had never even occurred to him.
    Stunned to the core, he stopped, staring blankly into the night. It hadn’t occurred to him. And even now that he realized it hadn’t, not a single doubt existed within him. It was the perfect opportunity for a demon to torture an animal—isolated, with no one to hear and the evidence easily erased. But when he considered Ash, he rejected the idea as impossible.
    Ash simply wouldn’t. Maybe every other demon on Earth and in Hell would, but Ash wouldn’t.
    If he went out there looking for her, got lost in the snow, needed help, every other demon would ignore his shouts—or maybe even come in close enough to gloat while he froze to death. Ash wouldn’t. She’d simply come. Even tonight, when she couldn’t stand the sight of him, she’d come.
    He’d been wrong, all this time. Not wrong to doubt at first, but to doubt for so long. He’d been waiting to get his head on straight, to figure out how to make sense of her, and now finally, finally, it did. She was an exception. He didn’t know how, but he’d help her find out.
    For now, he just needed to find her. Tell her. And pray it wasn’t too late to matter.
    Almost laughing at the lightness the realization left in him, he scanned the tree line again. And there she was. The soft red glow moving toward the cabin through the trees.
    He went to meet her.

    Up and down, up and down. Her emotions had gone through the most insane day of her life—that she could remember—and this was an up again. Her eyes glowed with it. She needed to learn how to control that, eventually. Right now, she didn’t care.
    She glanced at the dog limping along beside her. His foot had been caught in an old, rusty trap—probably one that Nicholas’s survivalist grandfather had used, but hadn’t been pulled up after he died. Not the wolf she’d expected, but a black Labrador, and friendly enough after eating the chunk of meat she’d collected from the cabin’s icebox. Not a stray, either. Too well fed and wearing a collar, he’d obviously belonged to someone until recently, and had either gotten lost or had been dumped by his previous owners.
    Too bad for them.