Forged of Shadows: A Novel of the Marked Souls (10 page)

She felt she could fall endlessly into that deep blue. Except he was a trap worse than any other, the kind where a girl could forget to fight her way free. “You said it didn’t matter what I wanted. Maybe I’ll give the parting gift back.”

“Impossible. The only thing worse than your having it would be leaving it for something more evil to find.”

“More evil than me. You sure know how to charm a girl.” She slipped the bracelet over her wrist and backed away from him.

“The demon had time for that. I don’t.” He stalked after her, and the prickle that had started in her spread at the predatory intentness of his gaze, until every nerve seemed to stand at attention. She wondered if she’d have to attack him as she had his demon double. And if she’d have any better luck this time around.

He made no move to touch her, only circled around her to cast sidelong glances into the tiny galley kitchen, then the living room with its mass-produced Scandinavian furnishings.

She watched him narrowly. “Nothing so cool as your warehouse. And I only got the one piece of weird jewelry.”

“I was just checking to see if the surveillance equipment was in place as I ordered.”

She froze. “Excuse me?”

“You’re obviously on the verge of your virgin ascension, and it will be enlightening to have the event on tape.”

The short hairs on the back of her neck rippled. Fury, she recognized idly. Even the demon—an entity of pure, if repentant, evil—hadn’t pissed her off so bad. “I am not a guinea pig.”

“No. Presumably a demon wouldn’t find much use for a guinea pig.” He poked at the phone on the table beside the couch, then peered under the fringe of the lampshade. “Ah, there it is. Good.” He swiveled on his heel and settled onto the couch. He flicked aside the hem of his duster and splayed the dark canvas across her generic but easy-to-clean upholstered cushions.

She narrowed her eyes. How easy to clean—now,
that
would be worth analyzing as she scrubbed his blood out. “I’m not going to transform before your eyes.”

“You are already.” Violet gleamed as he swept her with a glance. “I can see the dilation in your eyes, the capillary expansion flushing your skin.” He took a long breath.

She shot up a hand before he told her what she smelled like. “That’s annoyance you’re seeing. Because I’m thinking about killing you.”

“That would be the demon,” he said patiently. “Jilly, we’ve all been through it, we talyan. Unlike Andre, you may still be saved. In that, at least, your demon didn’t lie.”

She walked slowly toward him. “And you’re going to give me that chance, lead me out of danger?” Eyes half lidded, he watched her as she edged between his knees to stand over him. “You going to be my hero tonight?”

He angled his face up. She bent just a little at the knees.

And reached sideways to grab the lamp by its base. She hefted the ceramic over her head, and brought it smashing down on the table. The cheap lamp exploded, and the cheaper table crumpled under the blow. Impossibly, in the indirect light from the kitchen, she glimpsed the arcing flight of the tiny black transmitter.

Liam watched her with one eyebrow raised as she snagged it midair.

She crushed the transmitter. The sting of crystallized components biting into her palm stirred a sharp delight. “Well. Now we are alone.”

Liam pursed his lips. “What will Lau-lau think?”

“That we’re having mind-blowing sex. That is what we’re going to do next, right?”

He stiffened. Not the part of him she was leering at, but the rest of him. “We were just getting information from her, not actual marital aids.”

“You haven’t kept pace with the times. You don’t have to be married anymore to have sex. And you obviously haven’t talked to Sera about the birds and the bees and the demons.” She tossed the transmitter over her shoulder and started to turn away, bumping his knee aside.

He grabbed her wrist and—in a move she couldn’t quite reconstruct in her head, although it had something to do with putting her over his knee—had her flat on her back on the couch. He loomed, pinning her arms above her head. “What do you mean? What haven’t I been told?”

Oh sure, threaten to beat him to a pulp and he yawned. Imply that his troops weren’t marching neatly in order and he snapped. She strained against his hold until her joints creaked. To no avail. Possibly that’s why he yawned when threatened.

The bracelet pressed hard against her flesh. She relaxed, the better to lure him into a false sense of security. “I figured Sera hadn’t actually told you how she and Archer made sure she survived the ascension of her demon. She seemed a little embarrassed to be pimping for the big daddy.”

Liam scowled down at her, a deep V between his brows. “The veteran talya has to make sure the tyro isn’t ripped apart in the tangle of intertwined demon and human energies. Ancient league texts detail a prescribed formula of meditations and purifications to mark the first ascension. But usually the two talyan go out drinking and fighting and that keeps the novice nailed down in this realm.” He trailed off.

Jilly knew she shouldn’t be enjoying his fumbling so much. “Yeah, go back and think about that nailed part.”

He reared back, glaring at her.

She caught her breath, not at the fierce look, but at the grind of his thighs against hers. She wasn’t in the best position to tease him.

Or, actually, she was in the perfect position to tease him, but she wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

Or, more actually, she was perfectly sure it was a terrible idea, and yet . . .

She stared up at his aghast expression and started to wonder whom the joke was on. “Is it so hard to believe that a man and a woman facing possible destruction, not to mention evil at its core, would join up against it in the most intimate way? Or is it just that it wasn’t your idea first?”

“I’d do whatever it takes to keep my men—my people—safe.” He made it sound like a desperate prayer.

“Including step out of the way?” She lifted her hips, denim against denim hissing. “Or including this?”

He jumped off the couch so fast the breath whooshed back into her lung almost painfully. Maybe it was just the speed of his dismount that stung.

“I guess not that,” she murmured to herself. So much for praying.

“This is demonic work indeed,” he muttered darkly, even more to himself.

“Gee, thanks.”

He stood staring at her, hands fisted at his sides. “I cannot—”

She refused to drop her gaze halfway and snicker like a silly teen, but thanks to the snug fit of his jeans, the problem was quite obviously not that he
couldn’t
. “I don’t mind drinking and fighting. Although I hear dying is out of my hands now.”

The twist of agony on his face only made her more furious.

“Maybe we never had a chance after all.” Her voice came out harsh, cracking into a second octave not her own.

Despite the implied violence—or maybe because of it—his expression finally calmed. “Perhaps not, but if I can save you, then I will.”

She backpedaled on the couch. “Never mind. I wouldn’t want to be a burden.”

“No. You will be a league fighter. If you live.” His jaw flexed. “So you will live.”

Okay, knowing that he saw her as merely another tally on his checklist was even more insulting than being a big flapping albatross around his neck.

He advanced on her, gaze intent, and she scooted up against the arm of the couch. Her back rammed against the insufficient stuffing, wood hard against her spine. Every nerve ending tingled in anticipation.

He kept coming. She held up her hand, straight-arming him with her palm centered on his chest. The bracelet glinted dully in what light shone from the kitchen.

“I won’t be letting this change take you from me.” His voice rumbled through her hand, the touch of Irish brogue deepening.

“Maybe you won’t have a chance to do anything else.”

“Oh, I’ll take it.”

His heart thudded under her fingers until her pulse sought to match itself to his, as if he would take her over in place of the demon’s ascension. Which was more of a threat? Some crazy demonic possession when she’d never particularly believed that hell was anything besides a human construction of bad choices? Or the glimpse of heaven on earth she must be imagining in his blue eyes?

And when exactly had her admittedly hazy concept of heaven included a bad boy like this? Oh, right, when her only chance at salvation lay in his big hands.

She curled her fingers into his shirt. The fine material parted under her grasp, though she hadn’t meant to be rough. This wasn’t her, playing power games with a man who didn’t know the meaning of play, unless it was play for keeps.

Or playing with fire. Heat radiated through her, tracing down her arm. But it stopped at the bracelet, as if she couldn’t quite break through to him.

A chill washed back along her skin, creeping inward until her vision dimmed.

“Jilly?”

His voice barely reached her, the tone warped as if across a vast expanse. She tightened her numb fingers, but the edges of herself seemed to blur. Like when the knife had slipped free of her flesh, the blood had poured out, and with it her life.

Like she was dying again.

“Jilly.”

Liam pulled her close. The shock of his chest hard against hers, with only her manacled wrist between them, jolted her free of the threatening oblivion. Whatever distance she’d imagined was gone now.

“It’s coming,” he murmured.

One slow breath pressed her breasts against him. Her desire swelled at the intimate contact. “Takes me more than ten minutes.” Maybe not, this time.

He frowned. “The demon.”

“Oh. Right.” She swallowed. “Is it too late to go drinking?”

His gaze dipped to her mouth, so intense she felt it like a touch. “Much too late.”

“Well, then.” She wrapped her free arm around the back of his neck and pulled him down to her kiss.

Lips fused, hot and damp. She tasted Lau- lau’s potion on his tongue, but her gasp brought her the richer, more subtle brew of aroused male.

Even as the blood rushed to his head, Liam told himself to keep his mind on the task at hand. So close to his hand. Where he gripped her upper arm, the curve of her breast brushed the backs of his fingers.

He struggled to rein in the flare of excitement. No, the only task was to shepherd her through the demon’s ascension. If the task was achieved through more pleasurable means than was usual in his deadly line of work, that didn’t change the urgency.

God, whom was he fooling? If anything, the urgency here was
more
deadly. His body tightened from the inside out—not the demon coiling, but just plain old human sin of the more primal sort—and he groaned against her mouth.

Though he closed his eyes, still she shimmered in front of him. Waves of ether pulsed in a chaotic pattern that set his heart hammering. He wanted to spread her beneath him and coax that trembling over the edge. He willed himself to go slowly, not rising to the lure of her need, though her fingers twining through his hair was goad enough to shatter him.

How long had it been? Did he trust himself to this task?

He lifted himself just enough to clear her lush lips. Her dusky skin was flushed from the force of the kiss, her golden eyes half lidded. He touched the corner of her swollen mouth. “I should not be the one for you.”

“And yet you came up with no one else.” She strained back as if to escape him.

The exposed column of her throat drew him down again to set his teeth none too gently against her pulse. He growled when she speared her fingers through his hair and guided his head down. Down past the V neckline of her T-shirt.

The invitation was more irresistible than any temptation ever laid before him. He lifted the bottom of her shirt even as she shoved back the lapels of his coat. Their arms tangled briefly, and she gave him a flirty upward glance and a breathy laugh that snagged his heart.

When he paused, she tugged what was left of his shirt. The fabric sighed apart, and then her palm was scalding against his bare chest.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “It’s all around us now. Do you see it too? It’s the end.”

He saw nothing but her, the dip of her waist, the generous flare of her hips under stretch black denim and a rivet-studded belt. “It’s beginning.”

He nudged her shirt up and groaned again at the ripe flesh displayed in orange lace and wire. She arched her back, not to escape this time, but to tempt, and draped her arm over the back of the couch. The demon bracelet clunked against wood, a sullen reminder of why they were there.

“Fuck that,” he whispered harshly.

“Please do.” Her smile was wicked and welcoming.

He pressed a kiss to the center of her cleavage, where the fleeting wild scent of her hid like a secret only he’d uncovered. Sweet skin and lotus and excitement. “God, I love these new corsets.” He skimmed his fingers along the wire underneath each breast, the texture of the lace tantalizing his fingertips. “All the beauty.” His thumb found the catch. “None of the laces.”

With a single flick, her bounty was his.

The butterfly tattoo no bigger than a postage stamp rode the upper curve of her left breast. A delicate thing, its trailing wings outlined in the thinnest black lines, the tattoo brought him up short. “Not a tiger,” he murmured. “Or a dragon.”

He brushed his thumb over the pale swell and she shuddered. “It’s just art, not a spirit guide.”

“Actually, moths have often been associated with the spirits of the dead.”

“What with me maybe dying and all, can we not talk about this now?”

He cupped the high handful of her, and his ring finger found the remnants of scar where the knife had gone. Rage flashed through him, a deep hatred that summoned the ravager demon within. The room blackened except for the point of his focus, and he realized he did not have anywhere near the control he fancied. “You could’ve died.”