Demon Marked

“You will rip my heart out.” He closed his eyes. “And I would tear it out myself for you. What will the bargain be?”

Not his death sentence, as his tone suggested. Ash smiled up at him. “You will tell me that you love me, and I will not kiss you. Agreed?”

“If it were true, I’d never say that I loved you again.”

“I know. And since I need to hear it and to kiss you, I will gladly break this one. Are we agreed?”

His lips parted. His throat worked. It was still another moment before he said, “We are agreed.”

Bound in another bargain. She stared up at him, waiting for the fear, the delayed terror, the regret. She could change her mind, and he would instantly release her. He probably hoped she would now.

But she couldn’t. “Nicholas?”

His eyes blazed. He caught her face, stared into her eyes—and though he hadn’t said it yet, she felt the love blasting through his shields, filling her mind, wrapping around her as if to hold and protect.

“I love you,” he said. “I will always love you.”

Little wonder there was no fear in her. There couldn’t be, not in the face of this. Smiling, she pulled him down to her lips.

And gladly damned herself with a familiar, perfect kiss.

CHAPTER 21

When she’d been a girl, Taylor had believed that, one day, someone would hold her like Nicholas St. Croix held his halfling demon at the edge of the frozen field. Someone would look at her with the same fierce love, that he would hold her through anything, even if it killed him. She’d wanted that for herself.

She didn’t want that now. She just wanted to be free of Michael. Wanted to be free of the man who would prevent her from helping two people desperately in need. Wanted to be free of the screaming, the shattering, the darkness that never left.

She wanted it more than anything. He’d pushed her past her limits.

It was the only explanation she had, for how she ever lifted a knife, and plunged it through the symbols marking a good woman’s back.

The woman and her man cried out together, and his tears ran as hot as her blood. Taylor staggered away from them, sank to her knees in red sand. They’d trusted her to do it. They’d asked her to be the one. Killing a demon—even a good one—wouldn’t break the Rules.

But until now, Taylor would have said that it broke her rules.

She’d had a choice. She could have said no. But she wanted freedom too much.

The first crack appeared when the first drop of blood hit the sand. Taylor heard the drop, she heard the crack—though she’d never heard any sound from that frozen field. Louder than the rain of blood falling, louder than Nicholas chanting Ash’s name, begging her to come back now.

Another crack, then more, thin lines spidering between the faces. Frozen lashes blinked. Screams began, loud now, from thawing throats.

Far away, a large crowd of demons were scattering across the ice. She thought that if Nicholas had looked with his Gift, those demons would be trailing black ribbons of fear.

But he wasn’t looking. He was staring into Ash’s eyes, searching desperately for new signs of life in a body that Taylor had killed.

A fist punched through the ice from below, a fist that had never been frozen, only devoured again and again. And suddenly, that was the only sound—of the damned, breaking through, climbing out of their eternity of torture. Some wandered, dazed. Some grabbed the hands of others, helped lift them out. Others screamed and screamed, as if it were too late to feel anything different.

Taylor wondered if she should tell them now that they weren’t free, not truly. Unless they went to the Pit, they were never leaving Hell. Unlike Ash, they didn’t have a body with symbols inscribed on it to bring her spirit back to the right place—they only possessed their spirit, and that could only take physical form in Hell. Unlike Michael, they didn’t have someone waiting at the edge of the frozen field, waiting to take his body out of her cache.

So that she’d be free.

Why weren’t any demons coming out of the field yet? Where were their faces? Despite the thousands, hundreds of thousands in the field, the only demons were those who’d been torturing Michael.

All the demons gone. What would that mean for a demon halfling?

Oh, God. Had Khavi lied? Had Ash agreed, not knowing that Khavi meant a twisted version of ‘free’?

“Ash? Oh, God, you’re amazing. I love you.” Joy filled Nicholas’s voice, and quelled Taylor’s sudden panic. “Jake, get her to a healer, now!”

Then the sound of his hard kiss against soft lips before they disappeared.

Michael had kissed Taylor, too. That was how all of this had started. The strange insanity of it.

Soon, she’d go back to normal.

At the back of her mind, the darkness suddenly eased. Not so much hidden pain. A deep, feral joy. Michael, climbing free.

Finally.

From behind her, she heard the sharpness of Khavi’s indrawn breath. It must have been nice, watching everything that she’d worked for become true. No matter who it hurt, no matter who paid in blood and pain and the horrifying sacrifices they ended up making—

“I did not see this coming,” Khavi said.

An enormous, terrifying figure rose in the distance, amber scales glistening. Fire roared. Taylor heard the screams begin again, flying toward her, almost with wings of their own. Demons took to the sky, desperately trying to flee. A rush of fire caught them, sent them spinning, burning to the ground.

“A dragon?” Instinctively, she drew back. No need to run, not yet. “Did it break through from Chaos?”

“No.” Khavi’s gaze followed the dragon up, up. “That’s Michael.”

Michael?

The dragon dove, began banking toward them.

“Taylor, teleport now.”

“But—”

“Trust me.”

Taylor didn’t. She wouldn’t ever trust Khavi again, but as another roar of fire roasted a swath of fleeing demons in a path toward them, she saw Khavi’s point.

She called upon the power of Michael’s Gift . . . and got nothing. It was there, in the back of her mind. She could feel it. She couldn’t use it. A tumble of emotions rioted through the space he used to occupy, but there was only one rising above all the others.

Hunger.

Oh, Jesus. Taylor stumbled back, searched for the Gift again and again. “He won’t let me go!”

And was it just her, or was that dragon coming really fucking close?

Khavi’s Gift rolled out. The dragon shrieked. Enormous wings folded against its back, and he dove.

Straight toward her.

“Khavi!”

The woman grabbed Taylor’s hand—and they were standing in Caelum, watching Michael’s temple fall. Columns cracked. Marble walls buckled and collapsed, crashing together in a billowing plume of pale dust.

Taylor pushed her hands into her hair, tried to push her brains back in. That had not just happened. Had it?