Demon Marked

you.”
    It had already bitten her once. Apparently, she’d been lucky. Damn lucky. Ash eyed the size of its jaws. “One bite could kill either of us.”
    The hellhound chuffed, but this time it was a deep bellow, from a chest as wide as a truck. She could almost taste the amusement behind it—
    No. She could taste it. A little odd, but in the same way she sensed emotions in people.
    “It’s laughing,” she realized.
    “Ash. Go .”
    Not without him—but it was too late anyway. She heard a light thud from outside, followed by a second. A flutter, a flap. The sound of wings.
    Feathered wings.
    Her chest tightened. “Nicholas. The Guardians are here.”
    For a moment, there was only silence. Then a footstep from the porch seemed to break it, and Nicholas roared her name. The hellhound’s heads swung around. Ash’s heart stopped.
    Nicholas was attacking the thing. Trying to get to her. Oh, God.
    She sprinted forward, and though Nicholas’s heart was between beats, she saw that the hellhound reacted just as quickly, that he’d already noticed her coming around and so she shouted, “I’m just protecting him!” before sliding beneath those enormous gaping jaws, across the floorboards and up. Nicholas seemed frozen, his expression contorted by fury and determination, and he’d found the only stabbing weapon the hellhound hadn’t taken: the heel of her boot. Clenched in his raised fist, he was trying to protect her, but this would only hurt him, and if she didn’t slow down, she’d hit him while going too fast and hurt him, too. She slowed, and caught his wrist as he stabbed down. She hadn’t slowed enough. As her body hit his and they went flying, Ash managed to react, to twist, and take the impact.
    She slammed back into the wall next to the bedroom door, holding on to him. It took him only a blink to realize what had happened, and then his arms were around her, shoving her behind him and putting himself between the hellhound and her.
    Between the Guardians and her.
    Ash slipped her hands around Nicholas’s waist, ready to carry him away. She looked over his shoulder as the footsteps came nearer, as the resonance of their steps against the wood changed when they crossed from the porch into the cabin. “I hear two,” she whispered. “One with heels.”
    The hellhound gave a happy chuff, an unmistakable sound of greeting. His giant, slithering tail wagged. A woman answered him.
    “Such a good boy. I love it when you look so mean. But you’re taking up all of the room. Hugh can’t even fit in here with me.”
    With a noise like a sigh, the hellhound suddenly diminished—looking almost like a Labrador again, but twice as big, and still with three heads—and revealing the man and woman standing near the door.
    Tall, with a long black wool coat that buttoned to her throat, and a tangle of long dark hair, the woman regarded them with arched brows and a sharp amusement. The man gave less away, but Ash couldn’t miss the calluses on his hands, the bulk of his shoulders. A man who had his own obsessions, was driven by some deep purpose.
    That purpose was to kill her, Ash supposed.
    “Just turn around,” Nicholas said. His arms came back and his palms flattened against the wall on either side of her, as if to protect her from every side. “She’s not like most demons. She’s not evil.”
    The woman smiled and came farther inside. The man—Hugh, she’d called him—shut the cabin door.
    “Different, yes. I know better than anyone,” she said, her gaze narrowing on Ash’s face. “You are new.”
    Easier to kill, Ash thought.
    “And those symbols . . . Taylor was right. Those aren’t for the transformation. They’re a spell to create a new Gate. Fuck.”
    Ash trembled. A spell. The demon who’d attacked her in Duluth had said something similar, and there was a memory there, something she needed to know, but she couldn’t trace it now.
    The woman turned to look at Hugh, who seemed to shake his head without moving at all. She focused on Ash again. “I see you’re all naked and cozy here, shacked up in the middle of nowhere, but unless the demon you’re bound to is dead, you’re not safe. Nobody will be safe if Lucifer opens that Gate. So you need to come with us.”
    Okay, that was easy. “We’re safe then,” Ash said, and since she didn’t have a bargain with these Guardians, had no problem telling them, “The demon is dead.”
    Hugh spoke. “Lie.”
    She felt Nicholas’s tension