Nick made a sound, halfway between a laugh and a snarl. He rose to his feet in one too-fluid, too-easy motion, and Mae felt the tremble of unease in her stomach that she always felt when he moved like that. He paced the room, three steps from the window to the chair and back, and then he put one knee up on the bed.
His lip curled from his teeth in a silent snarl. “Do you know what having a demon mark means?”
“It’s not like you’d possess me—”
“But I could,” he said, lingering on every word, as if he delighted in saying each one. “Anytime, I could. I could do a lot more than that. I put a third-tier mark on you and I could reach inside your mind anytime. I could make you think anything I wanted.” He leaned down, voice going even softer and more disturbing. “I could make you do anything I wanted,” he whispered. “And you think that you’d be safe?”
“Safer than if it was Anzu, yes,” Mae said sharply, and shoved him hard.
Or that was the intention. He caught her wrists in strong hands, and when she hissed between her teeth, his grip did not ease. He was trying to hurt her.
He was trying to scare her.
“Do you know what getting a mark is like?” he demanded. “You know that demons use emotions to break your control.” He bared his teeth, too close to her face. “To take control. Do you want me to tell you what it feels like?”
He leaned in even closer, her wrists trapped against his chest, and he hissed in her ear. His voice sounded less human than it ever had, clotted nightmare sounds that did not strike the ear like human speech but somehow formed into words. It made her insides coil up with dread.
“I’ll hurt you,” he said, breath hot against her skin. “I’ll scare you. And I’ll really like it.”
The last time he’d been this close, he’d smiled a terrible smile and there had been burning pain. She’d screamed then. Panic twisted inside her, and she wanted to scream now.
That hadn’t really been Nick, though. This was.
“And you’re warning me,” she pointed out, unable to stop her voice shaking but trying to pretend it didn’t matter. “You’re trying to protect me. I appreciate that; that’s why I trust you to do this. I’ve thought it through and I want you to mark me, I’m telling you to mark me, because that is the best way to keep me safe.”
“You’re right,” Nick said in that growling, nightmare voice. His cheek brushed hers, and she turned her face a little into the touch, feeling scared and dizzy and a little crazed. The corner of his mouth touched hers. “I am warning you.”
“And I’m telling you,” said Mae, and this was bargaining, she knew how to do this. Nick wasn’t going to win this fight. “I’m helping you with being human. I haven’t told Alan. This is how you help me.”
Nick’s mouth was suddenly in a thin straight line, his big shoulders bunched, and she saw his fingers curl as if they wanted to be around the hilt of his sword. He looked overcome with rage.
For a moment she didn’t understand what she had said, and then she realized and opened her mouth to tell him that wasn’t what she’d meant: that if he didn’t do it, she would tell Alan.
“I wouldn’t—” Mae began, and then voice and breath were both jolted out of her.
Nick dealt her a clean, swift blow, shoved her right off the bed and into the wall. He held her there with his arm hard against her throat, cutting off half her air supply. She was trapped between the wall and his body; he’d moved after her without giving her a second’s chance to escape, and she struggled suddenly, wild and hopeless.
Her back was flat against the wall, her breath rising in a trapped whine from her throat. He had her wrists in a brutal grip and her legs trapped between his, his free hand at her hip. She could feel the cold metal of his ring biting into the flesh, through the material of her nightshirt. She couldn’t get away.
His eyes gleamed like ink in the low light, filling her vision.
“I tried to tell you,” he said, low in his throat. “You can’t trust me. And you are not safe.”
He bent his head down and put his mouth to her collarbone, and she screamed.
It felt like he’d bitten her, but he hadn’t. There were no teeth, just his mouth on her skin and wrenching, savage pain spreading from that point of contact. It felt like he was burning her somehow, branding her, and she howled at him that she’d changed her mind and she wanted to stop, tried with all her strength to twist away and was completely unable to move an inch.
The pain was blinding: She couldn’t see, it pulsed through her in waves, and each wave shuddered through her whole body, each wave was worse than the last. And the pain still wasn’t as bad as the wild animal panic. She knew now why animals chewed off their legs to get out of traps. She would have done anything to escape.
And it wasn’t all pain. It wasn’t all fear. And she was helpless against that, too.
It stopped before she blacked out, but only just. It stopped, and he did not move for a moment, just rested with his mouth warm on her skin. Her breath was sobbing in her throat, and her throat was raw.
Nick stepped away from her and released her wrists, and even that movement seemed violent and alarming. He stood by the window, across the room from her, and all she could see was his unmoved and perfect profile.
“I’m—sorry,” he said. “That’s the way it is. That’s what I am. I don’t know how to make it any different.”
Mae was covered in cold sweat, feeling it slide all over her skin as she trembled. Now that she could move away from the wall, she felt that she wouldn’t be able to, that her own legs would not be able to support her.
“I asked you to do it,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I chose to do it. That makes a difference.”
Nick laughed. It was a terrible sound.
“Enough of one?” he asked, and she was silent.
He shook his head after a moment, then looked at her again, and she could see him come to a decision: He’d done what he could, done what she’d asked for.
