Demon Marked

identity.
    Madelyn would probably do so soon, however. Since Rachel’s tattooed face had first spread across the Internet and news feeds, other demons had come after Radha, all trying to prevent that spell from being cast and Lucifer’s early return. The Guardian had slain them all—and Ash had no doubt she’d be able to slay Madelyn, too.
    Until then, Ash remained a brunette who couldn’t shape-shift, and who still couldn’t fly. But she was working hard on that, doing the one thing that had never occurred to her while she’d been jumping out of a tree: reading.
    Flying, she discovered, truly was for the birds. Humansturned-Guardians—or halflings—didn’t have an instinctive ability, and they had to make up for that lack in knowledge and understanding. In two months, she’d read her way through books and scrolls detailing bat and Guardian wing anatomy, piloting manuals for small planes and fighter jets, and texts loaded with information about the effects of wind currents and altitude—all in the hopes that when she was finally in the air, some of that knowledge had soaked deep enough into her brain that she understood the adjustments that needed to be made, and why she might need to change the angle of her wing in order to stop herself from crashing into the ground.
    But the rest was simply familiarity. Inside the Special Investigations warehouse, Ash wore her wings constantly, and now she could maneuver them as easily as arm or a leg. She could flap them, hard and fast enough that she hovered—wobbling but upright—a few feet above the floor. In the next week or two, she’d be teleported to a desert for her first trial flights, with a Guardian standing by to catch her if something went wrong.
    Much better than falling out of trees . . . but she wished Nicholas could be with her.
    And her feelings for him hadn’t faded.
    She’d thought they would—or that they’d be replaced by some newer, fresher emotion. She liked several of the Guardians and vampires she’d met, but she hadn’t stopped loving Nicholas, wishing he were there, trying not to laugh. Several other people she’d met were undeniably attractive. Ash didn’t want them. When her body ached, her thoughts were only of Nicholas.
    And she missed him. That was new, a longing that cut deeper with each passing day, instead of fading as it should have. Even her resentment had subsided, though it had burned hot when she’d first read through the reports Taylor had compiled on her parents’ murder. For days, she’d been glad to be rid of him, glad to be surrounded by Guardians who gave her any information she needed, especially when it mattered. But her resentment hadn’t been able to stand up against her understanding of him.
    He’d been wrong to conceal Madelyn’s involvement. He’d sacrificed her need for revenge on the altar of his own. But she also understood that he hadn’t let himself believe in her need, or the grief that had driven it. He might have known it was real; he wouldn’t let himself believe it.
    That had changed. Given the same choice now, he’d have told her. Ash believed that to the root of her soul . . . and that belief didn’t fade.
    So she lived with a bone-deep ache that deepened with his absence, the hope that Madelyn would soon be slain—and the pleasure that the tiny contact she managed to have with him provided.
    As promised, he hadn’t attempted to reach her since she’d left the cabin. Though reporters had tried to find him after Rachel’s reappearance had cleared him of suspicion in her murder, Nicholas hadn’t made any public statements. But with Rachel alive and her accounts unfrozen, the Guardians had managed to liquidate and launder most of her assets, spread them across five different identities, and transfer them to Ash. With the substantial amount in hand, she’d begun buying up shares and taking over two of Reticle’s outlying holdings—Ash’s way of saying Hello .
    Even distracted by his search for Madelyn, he’d eventually see her activity or be alerted by his staff, and look hard at her. And though he might not recognize who lay at the other end, she looked forward to his countermove.
    No, that wasn’t right. She looked forward to everything .
    She loved the fighting practice, the unending fencing forms, and the continuous study of things she hadn’t forgotten but had simply never known before. On the night she’d met Nicholas and he’d aimed his crossbow at her chest, Ash